Sugar. How bad is it really?

Hej everyone,

The general consensus seems to be excess added sugar is bad but everything I hear about it seems in reference to the average joe who doesn't train much if at all.

If average joe has 2 cokes a day at work and at most walks a few km a day that is considered really unhealthy.

But what if joe trained hard 4 days a week sometimes twice a day. How bad are those 2 cokes then really?

Is having those cokes for trainer joe randomly throughout the day worse than him having them around his training (for health and longevity)? And if so how much worse?

Just trying to figure out if added sugars are just as bad full stop or if there is a measurement of how unhealthy they are depending on the rest of your lifestyle.

I like "ice break" iced coffees but I also eat a bit of fruit and if you add it all up it ends up being as high as 100g of sugar a day, sometimes a bit more if I don't pay attention.....The rest of my diet is mostly vegetables and chicken/fish. Occasionally I'll have a naan bread or a bit of rice. So how bad is it for me? If it is nearly as bad as someone who doesn't train like I do I would stop immediately but if it is only slightly unhealthy for me then for my mental health I'd like to keep this vice

Training schedule is per week:

1-2 hour rock climbing session x3

F7x 2

H1x 2

Stretching courses x3

Walking 1-2hr daily

You're only thinking of sugar in terms of calories.  Sugar does crazy things to the body, suppresses the immune system, leeches minerals from the body, can cause insulin resistance, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, diabetes etc.

Its all about quantity. If you love something, (and it doesn't cause you problems) keep it in your diet. Just don't go crazy.  

I actually wasn't thinking of calories at all. I was wondering if it does exactly the same things in an otherwise healthy very active individual as someone who isn't so active. I'm concerned about health and longevity rather than calories. Would the response from sugar in the body be exactly the same between someone who has a coke after lunch vs someone who has a coke after training?

I really have no clue about how sugar actually interacts with humans I just know what kind of affects it can have on the body and I wonder if that is the same regardless of timing or other lifestyle factors. Because if nothing else you do can negate the effects or change the way it affects you then I am just going to take away my vice and limit to at most if ever when I go on a road trip weekend....

First of all there is more than sugar in coke... And there are many types of sugars. all carbs are is sugar, but they range from simple to complex. Having ONLY simple sugars like coke or candy WILL cause health issues. Having a simple sugar right after a workout is ok. I would not have a coke right after your workout. The rest of the day stick with nutrient dense sources of sugar (complex carbs, rice, potatoes, fruit, etc).

Unless you are diabetic I wouldn't worry too much about a coke every once in a while. Just realize it isn't close to your best choice. 60g of sugar per can...

ausswe said:

Would the response from sugar in the body be exactly the same between someone who has a coke after lunch vs someone who has a coke after training?

 

Not at all. After you exercise, your muscles will be primed to draw in a lot of that energy after a workout. In a sedentary person it will be much more likely to go to their fat stores (though the brain burns through a lot of glucose too).

That being said, despite being active on a daily basis I limit my sweets to once a week (primarily homemade, which helps limit choices and food reward/hyper-palatability pit falls). If I've already stuffed myself with good protein, fruit and veg and I still need a hit of carbs a small teaspoon of honey usually calms things down.

And context is very important, liquid sugar like coke will be absorbed into the body a lot faster making glucose management more difficult, and it's engineered to make you want more and more of it. Whereas sugar in the context of fruit comes with fiber and essential nutrients, and you're much less likely to overeat on apples. Try eating the equivalent of carbs in a bottle of coke in just fruit and see how far you get! 

Generally speaking, the fear mongering around sugar is way over hyped (sugar is as addictive as cocaine! ), and should be taken with a grain of salt especially if you're active without any weight or glucose management problems. But everyone should get most of their carbs from sources that include essential nutrients and fiber.

While insulin and sugar consumption is important. It's critical to keep in mind that leptin resistance precedes insulin resistance, which has a lot more to do with overall calorie consumption, food reward and hyper-palatability of food. I have a sweet tooth, and limiting food reward is key for me.

For the record the number of cokes and cokes themselves were just examples. I don't drink soft drink.

Like I said my vice is an iced coffee which has about 25g of sugar per serving " about half of that is added the rest is from the milk". I don't always have it around my training time but I try to.

My main issue is the relationship with longevity and a healthy body (thinking about insulin, brain chemistry and all that sort of stuff) and whether or not it is the same response in sedentary people as apposed to active people and if it is not then how much of a difference is there.

Conclusion: is there much of a difference between me having 2 servings a day of this iced coffee at separate times of te day when it comes to health or not having it?

Cheers

Very often when people study something, they inadverdently excaggerate the significance of the subject of their study. For instance, when people put a lot of effort into developing nerve point attacks, they forget to do a reality check, and start thinking that esoteric techniques actually make a difference in a real fight. Or when they work with microbiology and foodstuffs and start thinking that you run a huge health risk if you don't put your lunchbox in the fridge, when in reality thousands of children do that every day for almost twenty years of their lives with no ill effects.

My point is that you should always take lifestyle advice with a grain of salt; it is extremely difficult to do controlled experiments on actual people for prolonged periods, and many of the researchers who do it, frankly aren't very good at the statistics part of it. 

ausswe said:

My main issue is the relationship with longevity and a healthy body

 

That's what I was responding to. Everything I said, in my view, is part of maintaining long term health. My best answer is to focus on getting nutrient dense food most of the time. Generally avoid empty calories even if you're an athlete. The best way to do this is to be mindful of food reward and hyper-palatable triggers. That being said, an athlete can probably get away with cheating more than a sedentary person, even more so right after a workout.

I honestly don't see a difference between an iced coffee with lots of sugar and a soft drink personally. And I'd also make sure that you're not substituting good quality sleep with artificial stimulation. If you think drinking an equivalent volume of coke would be bad, then I'd reconsider your habit, because they're not much different from my perspective.

Cheers for all the advice guys. I specified I don't drink coke in relation to the person who said there is plenty of other stuff bad for you in coke. The ingredients of u iced coffee is pretty much just milk coffee an sugar.

Alright well I guess I'll have the occasional one then. I essential just eat food from the fresh food section of the shops I almost never buy anything outside of that.

Salmon/eggs with vege for breakfast

Maybe some chicken and salad for lunch and then some roast for dinner

Sorry I misunderstood. Although I still stand by my recommendations. Also if you can, choose sugar over HFCS anytime that you can. HFCS can't refill muscle glycogen stores, and must be processed by the liver. Once the liver is full, its converted into fat. (Do this on a regular basis can lead to Fatty liver disease). Table sugar, I believe is half fructose half glucose, so half is going straight to the liver, while the other half can potentially refill muscle glycogen (I say potentially because i'm not sure the true mechanics of dumping fast absorbing carbs into the blood stream). 

Anyway, that is my rudimentary understanding of it all. And I hope people will correct me if i'm wrong. 

But like I said it before: if you love something that's obviously not improving your health, fit it in in a non destructive way. 

**Edit: was wrong about HFCS not refilling glycogen, see later post**

Does Australia have HFCs in many items? I always look at the ingredients and labels and I've never seen it before. Tbh though these days I rRely buy products that aren't fresh food.

jules said:

Sorry I misunderstood. Although I still stand by my recommendations. Also if you can, choose sugar over HFCS anytime that you can. HFCS can refill muscle glycogen stores, and must be processed by the liver. Once the liver is full, its converted into fat. (Do this on a regular basis can lead to Fatty liver disease). Table sugar, I believe is half fructose half glucose, so half is going straight to the liver, while the other half can potentially refill muscle glycogen (I say potentially because i'm not sure the true mechanics of dumping fast absorbing carbs into the blood stream). 

 

Anyway, that is my rudimentary understanding of it all. And I hope people will correct me if i'm wrong. 

 

But like I said it before: if you love something that's obviously not improving your health, fit it in in a non destructive way. 

Table sugar (Sucrose)

Fruit Sugar (Fructose)

Glucose

High fructose corn syrup(in the US) [AKA: Fructose-Glucose Syrup or Glucose-Fructose Syrup (In Europe), Glucose-Fructose(In Canada), or High Fructose Maize Syrup(in other countries)]

For anyone that doesn't want to read Wikipedia pages: What is the difference between Sucrose, Glucose, and Fructose

Thanks Rayne-William. 

Also I just realised that I was suppose to write that HFCS DOESN'T replenish glycogen. However after doing more digging I realised I was wrong anyway. Both Sucrose (table sugar) and HFCS do have a very similar levels of glucose and fructose. But It seems they are metabolised at different rates. (HFCS much faster).  Also HFCS is more refined/manufactured than Sucrose - So i would choose sucrose as the lesser evil. And sugar tastes better anyway.

One of the real bad ones ironically is agave nectar, which is often seen as this healthy natural alternative. But it's actually almost entirely fructose.

ausswe said:

Alright well I guess I'll have the occasional one then.

I'm not a fan of total abstinence from things you enjoy. But I also find that when you habitually indulge in them they become less enjoyable.

I've also found that habitually consuming sugar changes your taste perception for sweet things. The less sugar you eat, smaller quantities become more satisfying. As I said, I make almost all the desserts that I eat, and I always cut the sugar in at least half in any recipe I find, and it's always sweet enough for me.

thecolin said:

 

I've also found that habitually consuming sugar changes your taste perception for sweet things. The less sugar you eat, smaller quantities become more satisfying. As I said, I make almost all the desserts that I eat, and I always cut the sugar in at least half in any recipe I find, and it's always sweet enough for me.

I find when I go sugar free for a few weeks my taste buds get more sensitive to sweetness. I ate a bell pepper and was like "Holy cow this thing tastes sweet!"

The addiction part of it is true also. Few years ago, I cut pretty much all things sweet from diet and never craved them after a period of adaptation. Now, after a year with my girlfriend, sometimes I do eat sweet stuff just so I'm not a killjoy or because there's not much else to eat (haven't been really successful in converting her), and now I sometimes crave sweet stuff. I can still 'resist' most of the time, but I did like the period where I just wouldn't give a damn about sugar.

I think calling it an addiction is hyperbole, our brains reinforce all pleasurable activities and we are driven to repeat them. And the more we're exposed to them, the less we respond. We're not driven to eat sugar, we're driven to eat overly stimulating, caloric foods. Personally I've never seen anyone sit down to a bowl of sugar the way a desperate alcoholic might drink mouth wash. It's the combination of triggers that overrides our brains better senses.

I think it has more to do with exposure and desensitization. Since moving to Italy, I've noticed how sweet everything is in North America, sweet sauces on everything, sweet drinks, even the vegetables are ridiculously sweet compared to the Italian equivalents. An average North American sits down to a meal with sweet sauces and sweet vegetables, the dessert is going to have to be really sugary to qualify as dessert. If I eat a meal full of bitter greens, and water to drink, a piece of 80% dark chocolate still takes sweet to me, but it would be incredibly bitter to someone who had ketchup with their meal.

Take coca-cola for example, when it's cold and carbonated a lot of people could burn through a litre of the stuff. Take the same drink, take out the carbonation and warm it to room temperature and it's not very appealing anymore. It's not just the sugar, it's a perfect storm of stimulation.

Most people wouldn't eat white sugar or cream on it's own, but whip up the cream and add the sugar and it's completely transformed. It's this kind of hyper-stimulation that drives consumption and overrides the leptin signaling that keeps our body fat within regular levels.

Seeking sweet foods and calories is so deeply ingrained into our genetics that it's hard to call such a fundamentally important activity addiction. Refined sugar is a problem and one can certainly take it too far, but our brain's primary source of energy is glucose, to me you may as well call everyone oxygen addicts too.

ausswe said:

My main issue is the relationship with longevity and a healthy body

If someone routinely performs strength and conditioning exercises, they maintain a healthy weight and eat nutritious meals (multi-colorful salads, salmon, etc), then I don't believe a sugary treat like an iced coffee, piece of cake or a couple of cookies even on a daily basis will harm anyone unless they have a pre-existing genetic condition.

To give you an idea of what some, perhaps genetically gifted, sugar tolerant people are capable of, 84 year old Warren Buffet recently said in an interview "If I eat 2700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola. I drink at least five 12-ounce servings. I do it everyday.”  Here's the link http://fortune.com/2015/02/25/warren-buffett-diet-coke/

Clearly Buffet is an exception to the rules in many ways (how many of us are also self-made billionaires?).  I think many of us would suffer some ill effects from such a lopsided intake of refined sugar.

In my opinion the best diet for staying healthy and maintaining your fighting weight is the cave man diet which is basically no man-made refined or processed foods.  This means nixing potato chips, Coca-Cola, etc.  The cave man diet combined w/ exercise is how I lost over 40 lbs.

Just make sure you maintain an athletic life style, keep the weight in check and otherwise eat healthy meals and (in my opinion) you can have your daily iced coffee w/ out any ill effects.