I've gone through a process over the last 6-9 months of drastically reducing my sugar intake both while training and while not. My n+1 was that I fond good results when I transitioned gradually over time. I.e I didn't try to make a big change all at once. I also found that reducing sugars in my regular diet greatly impacted my need for them while training. Although I do still take some maltodextrin on long rides, and during a long race (greater than 90 min) I do take carbs, either in the form of maltodextrin or Vitargo.

I haven't eliminated them completely though, but have found extremely good results switching from refined sugar to complex carbs in meals following workouts. Real foods like brown rice, sweet potato etc. the other thing I found really help control the sugar cravings at the start was eating lots of salad and green vegetables. Stock up on those in a big way, I found they made a huge difference.

In my opinion you need to cut refined sugars first and foremost from your regular diet, that is most important.

This is super interesting and really pretty exciting, for someone like myself who has always been very over weight and always a huge consumer of carbs. I guess my only other concern would be that I did start following MAF method last summer, but as a result of my weight and the summer heat, working under 148 (i'm 32) was almost impossible. My heart rate just gets up there quickly. And actually, the slower running meant a much prolonged amount of time in contact with the ground and actually caused my joints to hurt more than I had experienced in the past. I suppose if I see some weight loss out of the gate and continue to experience weight loss, that might get into check pretty quickly, but I'll find it hard to buy into a borderline walk for months when I have serious mileage to log.

Dates are almost pure sugar!

I have helped several gravity challenged athletes with low HR training. In regard to running, you will be slower, at first, but you should see significant improvement in 3-4 weeks. One key thing is too not change your natural gait, just the effort. What I have people do is first try running in place, with proper foot lift but easy enough effort to keep you HR in your zone. After you get a feel for that, just starting running forward at the correct effort. If you reduce carbs and sugars in your diet, your body will get better at fat burning, so low HR work will be easier and you will start loosing permanent fat :-)

why would you eat fats (walnuts, cheese etc..) during workouts anyway if you rely on body fat as energy source ?
You have stored plenty of body fat so why eating anything during workouts at all?

Dates are mostly simple sugars such as the fructose and glucose found in sports drinks.

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/...fits-dates-4120.html

That's why they're a good fuel. The OP specifically asked about reducing refined sugar intake. I eat dates as a snack during the day sometimes and, unlike sugar laced products, they seem to satiate me better. I never crave dates though, I just keep some in my office at work.

If they work for you, that's great, but don't kid yourself that you're avoiding sugar by eating dates rather than jelly babies.

For the OP, what about trying nuts and seeds to snack on? Chia seeds seem popular at the moment. For a short hard session you don't need anything, but for the longer sessions, they should be at a lower intensity and so you should have no problem digesting the more complex combination of fat/protein/carb

Don't kid yourself that jelly babies are the same as dates. Dates are full of fibre and potassium that help keep your bowls and blood pressure in check. Dates are also know to cut sugar cravings dead. Part of the issue with eating something like jelly babies is that they are nutririon-less so they give you energy but nothing for your body to feed from. Eating dates will still provide the sugar, but will also provide the nutrition and satisfy your body's nutritional needs so the sugar cravings will go away. Jelly babies are also full of colourings and chemicals some of which are known to change behaviors and possible cause sleep disorders.

Don't kid yourself that you are avoiding sugar by eating dates, but don't kid yourself you should avoid eating dates either.

Changing from jelly babies to dates is a great idea to help out.

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Where have I said you should avoid dates? Of course they cut sugar cravings dead - they're full of sugar! Where have I said you should eat Jellybabies? I'm just pointing out that they're both full of sugar, which if you're trying to avoid sugar during training like the OP ( remember them?) then best to avoid. I don't think extra fibre during training is a great benefit, you should get plenty of that in your regular meals.

Aren't you the guy that got sacked by his coach? Kind of understand why now ;-)

Until you eat too many and shart yourself. It all depends on your training and goals. If you are 30+ pounds overweight you probably are not doing workouts hard enough to make you fuel with 300 calories an hour of simple sugars. I would stick to real foods or something like Larabars if that. Nuts/nut butter is an option.

Sugar is sugar, simple as that. Some digest easier than others while real foods often have things like fiber and fat. Just depends on your goals and how much you are training.

I've been very happy avoiding anything with added sugar (mainly sugar, HFCS, rice syrup, etc) listed within its first three ingredients. This does not hold true for sports nutrition and one day a month I have a cheat day which usually involves ice cream, maybe a cinnamon roll at breakfast. Nothing extreme.

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Don't think you need to really worry about replenishing carbs during training until you're quite a bit over an hour. As I get up to around two hours I definitely feel the need for carbs, but it's just to maintain optimum performance, and I've got to go longer than that at a hard intensity to truly "bonk." I think some of us are overly worried about bonking on workouts that aren't really that long.

I'n not advocating neglecting nutrition during training but over-consuming calories during workouts definitely isn't going to help achieve weight loss.

See I have never had a problem with craving sugar...my problem is craving salty foods

I was just at CU Boulder Sports Medicine getting a metabolic/VO2 test and they were railing against ketogenic diets. And they were highly against them for everyone but especially athletes. I think this is a very terrible idea.

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I guess I told you I lost a ton of weight but not how I fuel.

Before long workouts, if its a morning ride, I eat a big breakfast that is usually kale, scrambled egg whites, and sauteed mushrooms and some sort of dairy: usually greek yogurt or cottage cheese.

If mid day, I eat a bunch of almonds, cashews, or sunflower seeds about half an hour before heading out, then refuel on home made nut bars every 45 to an hour so far. Once in a long while I mix in a bottle of skratch. Been good up to 5 hrs on the bike like this so far.

There seems to be a lot of research being done lately that suggests a lower Carb / High Fat diet may have some benefits to Endurance racers (The FASTER study) by Phinney and Volek for example....Ironman champ Sami Inkinen for example follows that approach as do a lot of Elite Ultra runners..

I have cut out all sugars except those that are naturally occurring and have felt better than I have in years....still learning new ways to fuel myself during longer efforts, but my N=1 experience so far has been positive.

Yes, except they are a whole food so the way our body deals with them is not the same as say corn syrup...

So even running Zone 1 for me at 8:34 pace I am burning 428 kcal/hr or carbs and 471 kcal/hr of fat. This is recovery run territory. At my long run pace for 13-15 mile easy training runs I burn 559 kcal/hr carbs, 457 kcal/hr fat. A less fit person running at their respective easy pace will burn more carbs vs. fat than a well-trained person, but even if that person is overweight, I do not believe their body has the ability to store more glycogen than the well trained person. Maybe even less if they have less muscle mass. So you would be burning even more carbs while having the same or less storage. You need to not only be able to get through a single workout without getting low on stored glycogen, but also be able to replenish all that you used before your next workout. Otherwise you will start to feel very tired and your training will go down the toilet and it can be very hard to dig yourself out of that hole. You do that by eating cabs, but not necessarily sucrose. I think you can easily cut out added sugar in your regular diet, but please please eat enough carbohydrates from rice, bread, pasta, etc. to replace your glycogen.

If I'm running a half marathon, I'm burning 1124 kcal/hr carbs and 224 kcal/hr from fat! I *might* be able to get through that without eating any sugars depending on how topped off I am before hand, but I'd say it's 50/50 on whether I would bonk at the end and that's less than 1.5 hours, fully rested and fueled. There is no way someone is getting through a fast half iron or ironman (or probably even a slow one) without supplementing sugars (but it can be all maltodextrin and dextrose, you do not need sucrose necessarily) I don't care what that other guy says.

Like I said earlier, the folks at CU Sports Medicine the other week strongly warned me against ketogenic diets like Maffetone. I did not even bring it up, it's just part of their general advice. They said that it is terrible for people.

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I tend to think that the sport drink companies kind of lead us astray. They tell us, if we want to perform then we’d better consumer their product. The way I see it, if I don’t bonk during a 6 hour 70.3, then why would I need to worry about bonking during a 10 hour training week? Pretty much the only time I ever fuel is during long training sessions and that’s only to test my fueling plan.

I just did the Maffetone two week test to start the year. On the website, they address that any workouts should really be SLOW workouts to try to train your body to use fat for fuel. In my case, I found that no matter how slow I went, the workouts were still a huge struggle. On the other hand, it was a great way to drop the 12 off season pounds I put on during the holidays to get closer to what I expect to race.

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Correct. Not eating enough carbs can definitely be bad for you. But you can change over to being a lower carb burner over time with your daily diet. Then you don't need as many carbs, so then eating fewer carbs than a high-carb burner isn't bad for you. So yes, the Boulder medicine people are correct - not eating enough carbs for what your body needs is bad. But what your body needs can be vastly different based on your long term diet.

Here's a link to Sami Inkinen's metabolism tests going from being high carb and pre-diabetic from all the carbs to a much lower carb dependency by changing his daily diet. And he was first or second overall AG champ at Kona, along with plenty of other races.

http://www.samiinkinen.com/post/86875777832/becoming-a-bonk-proof-triathlete-fat-chance


So yeah, If you're used to being high-carb, low carb is bad. But if you come around the long way and slowly up the ratio of your overall calories coming from fat, you gradually need fewer and fewer carbs and don't shock your body. Everybody wants a fast solution, so that's where they run into problems. As you can see from the write up, Sami took 6 months to a year to gradually adjust his metabolism.

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All of the replies so far are missing something. One of the main reasons sugar/HFCS/refined high GI carbs are so addictive is their effect on your neurotransmitters.

However, sugar/HFCS/high GI carbs have a completely altered neurotransmitter response if consumed during exercise.

Additionally, if you are underfueling by even *a little,* you are potentially missing out on a higher quality/intensity workout, and 100's of additional calories burned (therefore hampering weight loss).

This is coming from someone with a MAJOR swet tooth btw, and I completely understand eliminating processed carbs to eliminate cravings, but I'm telling you that I fuel my 2-3+ hour rides with gu, sports drink, etc and it does not make me want anything sweet post-workout whatsoever. And yes, I'm still able to make race weight (down 13 lbs since Dec 1st).

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I ran a half marathon without drinking any water and did a full with ONLY water - no sugar, no gels, no fuel, just water. Walled it hard at mile 22ish though

I train regularly with nothing but water - sometimes if it is epic hot (Florida) I will even add ice....but that is mainly to throw on my head.



All the gatorade, gels, etc make my stomach hurt like hell when working out. Sports drinks dont even quench my thirst, just make me more thirsty for water

It should make you thirsty for more, that’s part of the point of the salt. Think about salty chips, when you eat them you get thirsty.