Just a terrible misunderstanding really Nobbie - please don't hold it against me..............


Yes I know you did not say he should avoid dates. But you should have also said he should avoid Jelly Babies if he is wanting to loose weight. Dates are better than jelly babies, I guess this is the point I was making. I think the OP has asked the question about avoiding sugar, I think he should be asking a slightly different question about what he should be eating when training?? I think dates, or fruit generally is a much better solution for food while training than jelly babies. Jelly babies should be used when checking race nutrition and for racing.

Happy to be proven wrong - but I do believe natural foods with sugar content are the way to go for training food, rather than processed foods which have zero nutritional value, can contain bad chemicals/colourings and are much better when racing.

You are right though, they do both contain sugar.

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I feel more confused now than anything I think. I can understand why Maffetone works, assuming their is truth in your bodies ability to adapt to different fuel sources over time. IF the training methods have to also be Maffetone, I struggle a bit more with this concept because I cannot handle only steady state cycling and running. I need some degree of variety. I still do this to have fun! I can also appreciate needing carbs to perform, but this is counter intuitive to Maffetone OR is a shortcut for fueling rather than optimizing your bodies ability to perform at its most efficient. But this all assumes the Maf theory is true. If we assume it's not true, then what is the best nutrition plan to cut sugar cravings AND see a large weight loss while also making performance gains?

Maybe it just my not understanding the processes going on in the body, but my understanding has always been that the sugar doesn’t help you performance better, but it helps you spare glycogen so that you can maintain that level of performance longer. I’m not suggesting to under fuel long intense workouts, but it seems to me that most other times carbs during a workout aren’t really needed.

Being hungry is part of the game, but I allow myself a little bit of sugar just to satisfy my cravings. For example, I make ice cream at home every week (one of my hobbies) but when I eat it I make sure I measure 1/2 cup or less, that way I don't mess up and it is part of my regular diet. I also keep "healthier" sweet stuff for cravings. So dark chocolate covered almonds for example, and I only allow myself 2 after lunch or dinner.

Also, let yourself enjoy a big dessert once a week.

Those are the only times I allow myself to consume sugar thought. The rest of my diet is extremely healthy.

Check out Racing Weight -- no affiliation, but here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/...Series/dp/1934030996

Maybe this is well-known around here. I found it a useful and reasonable guide. It doesn't make you commit to unsustainable practices.

Even outside of glycogen depletion, it is relatively agreed upon that the salivary presence of carbohydrate increases performance (and reduces PE at a given intensity): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...articles/PMC3916844/

Additionally, I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't recover faster from a given workout with carbohydrates ingested vs. no carbohydrate ingestion during exercise.

If you can recover faster, you can train harder/longer the next day, therefore leading to increased performance with greater potential for weight loss.

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-Physiojoe
Instagram: @thephysiojoe
Cycling coach, Elite racer on Wooster Bikewerks p/b Wootown Bagels

I actually didn't know any of that. I just learned something new today, thanks.

Yeah - "bonking" happens a little before you actually run out of glycogen. Your body goes into conservation mode when you get low and denies you access to it. But when it gets a signal that more glycogen is on its way - i.e. it senses sugar on the tongue - it immediately releases the existing glycogen for use! I experienced this on my very first 70.3. I bonked with about .75 miles to go. Luckily I was only about 50 feet from an aid station. I felt just awful and walked that 50 feet to the table, grabbed one tiny cup of perform and boom! instantly I had enough in me to run that 3/4 mile.

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Ed O'Malley
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A lot of info here in this thread. Keep it simple, cut out processed sugar except pre, during(workouts > 90 minutes), and post workout. This way you have energy for your workouts and can refuel after. Drink water before meals and eat more fruits & veggies. Cut out junk food & drinks, especially calorie dense ones(soda, juice).

As a physiology nerd, I would love to see an MRI image of your brain's dopamine activity in those few minutes...I'd wager it was cocaine-esque :)

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-Physiojoe
Instagram: @thephysiojoe
Cycling coach, Elite racer on Wooster Bikewerks p/b Wootown Bagels

Not sure how you know how many calories you are burning as well as their specific make up, what type of equipment are you hooked up to while you are running?
In regard to the "advise" from your helpers at CU, I would suggest you may want to be very careful in use of their advise, as it could be harmful to your health :-)
Some actual FACTS you may want to consider:
Many Elite endurance athletes are doing quite well on low carb, or ultra low carb diets with high fat diets, including Dr (yes DOCTOR) Amanda Stevens, who recently did a lifetime best 8:52 IM, at IMAZ 2015, at age 39! The overall amateur winner of the 1st IM Maryland spoke about his use of this type of diet in his Slowtwitch interview. There are certainly hundreds, quite possibly thousands successfully using this type of diet.
Additionally, the human species progressed through well over 99% of their existence on this type of diet. The addition of high carbs and sugars is relatively recent, as in the last few hundred years.
AND- all of the following diseases have been strongly correlated to the cultural change to high carb diets- Alzheimer's, diabetes, and many cancers. Look up Dr Johannes Coy, and you will find that for over a decade many cancer patients in Germany have been put on no sugar diets, with a complete cure rate over 5x higher than Chemo and radiation therapy. The science behind this is well documented and easy to find. I also recommend you actually read Maffetone's work and his published case studies, they are well done and quite compelling, and, oh yea, he is not selling ANYTHING.
For better or worse, humans make a lot of unhealthy choices, such as drinking, drug use, AND sugar addiction. You are welcome to your choices, but please do not attempt to rationalize it by ignoring and denying readily available facts :-) :-)

Physiojoe925- While I agree with most of what you are saying, I do not agree with your implied conclusion that glycogen depletion is enevitable in endurance training/racing. There is no question that humans have far more slowtwitch fibers then fast twitch fibers. Biopsies on LA showed conclusively that his success was from his ability to utilize a unusually high number of these fibers. Slowtwitch fibers also work more effectively on fats. If you commit to low carbs, your body quickly develops very high efficiency at fat utilization, which avoids glycogen depletion and the subsequent need to restore them- a loosing battle.
In summary- if you fuel with carbs and sugars, your body will utilize those until depletion, even if you slow down.
If you fuel with fats, your body will utilize those, which are virtually impossible to deplete, even when you speed up.
I prefer to fuel from the tank with 40,000 plus calories as opposed to the one with 2000 calories.
My recovery from high work efforts has been at least as good as when I was doing the typical carb routine, and I know many others who report the same.
The mistake people make is thinking just bu going slow you will burn fats, even if you fuel with sugars. That will NOT work. You will tend to utilize what you fuel with.
Hope this helps, and encourage you to try it. Good luck

I hesitate to beat this horse to death, but this "natural" thing really drives me crazy.

The sugars which are the primary ingredient of those dates are effectively identical to the sugars in the jelly beans.

The dates also have a little bit of a few other things: some fiber (which will slightly extend the absorption time of those carbs, which has some other helpful health consequences but of which you should be getting plenty elsewhere in your diet, and which has the unfortunate side effect of stimulating bowel movements, not optimal during workouts), and small quantities of other nutrients (which you are likely also able to get elsewhere in your diet).

You could eat yourself to gross obesity just by eating dates, and the inflammatory responses and other downsides of sugar (and especially fructose) are absolutely caused by date sugar, too. Think about it this way: what if sugar manufacturers switched from beets to dates, do you think that would make it okay to consume significant quantities of that sugar? Or is your notion that something about the refining process tranforms good "natural" sugar to bad less-natural sugar? Or is the only difference between the dates and the candy some very small additional amounts of fiber and micronutrients?

Personally, the reason I'm happy to eat apples is that they contain modest sugars, in a discrete portion with lots of fiber and some micronutrients as a bonus. It's not because I think "natural" apple sugar is somehow better than any other sugar (and in some key respects I think it's probably worse).

 (Quote) "I do not agree with your implied conclusion that glycogen depletion is inevitable in endurance training/racing."

If glycogen depletion were not inevitable, then we could all run our IM mary at our stand-alone mary pace. Clearly, this never happens which leads me to conclude that the reason our iron marys are at least 20-30 min slower than our open mary times is b/c we have depleted a fair amount of our glycogen during the S and B segments. If glycogen depletion did not occur, we could always run at race pace, every day, with no degradation from many days in a row of running. I'm not aware of anyone, regardless of what he/she eats, who can do this:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

As I stated, glycogen depletion will of course occur IF you fuel with carbs/sugars. It can be avoided if you fuel with fats and train properly to become efficient in fat utilization.
You might want to consider muscle fatigue as a factor in IM vs stand alone marathons. It is well established that the stronger the athletes core strength is, the less the differential between IM and stand alone times. There are many examples of pro and amateur athletes where this is closer to 10 minutes. It is also worth noting that the vast majority of IM athletes attempt to fuel on sugar, and they will, of course end up with depleted Glycogen stores and compromised performance.

IntenseOne wrote:

Not sure how you know how many calories you are burning as well as their specific make up, what type of equipment are you hooked up to while you are running?

If you do not know how this data is obtained you are lacking basic understanding of how any of this kind of research is done. Here are my test results: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...olic%20test;#5841283

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They test and develop nutrition and race nutrition plans for the best cyclists runners and triathletes in the world. Including world champions and Tour de France GC contenders and stage winners. and you think I should disregard their advice in favor of yours? You think they are more likely to be hazardous to my health than you?


There is no way she did this without supplementing sugars during the race.

IntenseOne wrote:

There is no question that humans have far more slowtwitch fibers then fast twitch fibers.

Completely false. http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...post=5847205#5847205

IntenseOne wrote:

You are welcome to your choices, but please do not attempt to rationalize it by ignoring and denying readily available facts :-) :-)

You've been drinking a lot of kool-aid.

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Ed O'Malley
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Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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RowToTri- you did not note in your original post that your numbers were from a metabolic testing session, you seemed to imply a training run, which is why I asked how the numbers were derived.
Take whatever advise you want, but when someone tells be something that is clearly false- i.e. Racing and training per Maffetone's method's is dangerous, should be challenged for several reasons.
You, are completely wrong about Dr Amanda Steven's and her diet and specifics of her race fuel are well documented as part of a detailed study. Just because you don't understand basic physiology does not mean it is not true.
In regard to slowtwitch fibers, this is far from an absolute science, but here is a summary of the widest accepted theory
"Those are your three different types of muscles fibers. You’re born with these fibers in certain proportions, and they will affect how successful you are at either developing as a long distance guy, or a sprinter guy. Most bodies have 50% of Type 1 and 50% of Type 2 (A and B), but many elite athletes (world class marathon runners, Olympic sprinters) can have up to 80% of one or the other. Obviously a sprinter with 80% fast twitch fibers will have a better chance of being fast than somebody with only 30% fast twitch fibers."
I don't drink kook-aid, it contains too much sugar!
While I know it is easier for you to snipe at anything that challenges your preconceived notions, you may actually want to read a few of the things I referenced, or try dramandastevens.com, but lighten up, read some of the many other posts from SUCCESFUL low carb, high fat athletes- and good luck to you

This article may clear up a few things in this discussion: http://jap.physiology.org/content/102/1/183


You are assuming slow twitch (type I) fibers are primarily responsible for the performance of an endurance athlete (incorrect). "both type I and type IIa fibers are recruited from the start of exercise at 75% maximal oxygen uptake in the fasted state. However, there are also data to indicate that in the later stages of a high-intensity endurance exercise bout, additional type IIa motor units are progressively recruited to compensate for fatigue in glycogen-depleted type I fibers (19)."


Notice they mention "glycogen depleted type I fibers." This indicates type I fibers work on more than just fat.


Also, since glycogen is a major fuel of type IIa fibers, and the paper indicates "The data show that carbohydrate intake resulted in glycogen sparing in type IIa fibers," this shows that consuming carbohydrate during exercise increases performance.


Keep in mind the study was at 75% VO2- an intensity very applicable for triathletes. The benefits of carb consumption during exercise are even more pronounced at road/mtb racing intensities (which inevitably includes much time at VO2 max and above).

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-Physiojoe
Instagram: @thephysiojoe
Cycling coach, Elite racer on Wooster Bikewerks p/b Wootown Bagels

Another untrue statement! http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...post=5856008#5856008



Between you, an internet fad and world-renowned professionals at CU Boulder Sports Medicine and Performance center who worked with me 1-on-1... I'll go with the latter.



There is no race report I can find on her site. Where is the information that says she raced an IM in 8:59 while intaking no sugars during the race? I do not believe it.



I sent you to a statement from one of the most respected sports physiologists that untrained individuals have between 40% and 60% fast twitch fibers to refute your claim that "There is no question that humans have far more slow twitch fibers than fast twitch fibers". You respond with an unattributed quote that actually confirms Dr. Coggins' statement, and then you try to move the goal post that highly trained endurance or anaerobic athletes can alter their proportion of fibers. Yes, that is true.

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Ed O'Malley
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Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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So all of this great information, and honestly I appreciate all of your time in providing your thoughts, what is the best way for me to maximize both weight loss and training efficiencies. I know they cannot both occur at their optimum, as the needs for one canabalize the needs for the other. But since I'm not going to podium at worlds this summer, what should I focus on to maximize my results in both weight loss and performance?

I would suggest talking to a real nutritionist, which I am not! But in general, I think you need to eat a wide variety of foods, including protein, fat and carbs. After long workouts make sure you get some carbs and protein in immediately after to help recover quickly (replenishment of glycogen slows down significantly if you wait more than 20 minutes after a long workout to re-fuel.

You can definitely cut out all supplemental sugar outside of long training sessions and races.

Make sure at meals, eat slowly, and stop when you stop feeling hungry. You will get hungry between meals. But it should not be awful. You should just be a little hungry a lot of the time. When I was a lightweight rower I used to tell myself that feeling was my body making progress towards race weight. If you get really ravenous between meals, eat some healthy small snacks. It could be fatty or protein rich snacks that are very filling like nuts or avocado, but make sure you are getting enough carbs in to fuel the training. Doing this, and making sure you eat just enough at meals but don't over-do it (and don't under-do it) and you fuel during and post exercise properly, you should be good! The goal is to run a slight caloric deficit, but not too much or your training will suffer too much.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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Dude- I am done with you and your defensive negativism.
Please re-read the original post. The question was for help on reducing sugars, not for an unbased rant on sugar addiction.
Your statements that Maffetone's work work is an Internet fad is so ridiculous it is beyond comprehension.
ANYONE who states that a low carb, high fat approach cannot work for endurance athletes is at best ignorant, and if it was actually stated by officials at CU, very unfortunate and unprofessional, as it ignores clearly documented facts to the contrary.
A sugar based approach can also clearly work, but the potential side effects of such an approach put into question the sustainability and overall wisdom of doing this.
Try to be open minded, you may be surprised how helpful it can be.
If you want more specifics on Dr Amanda Stevens, you can look up her results, you can go to Maffetone's website and see the 12 month study that she was the subject of, and you could listen to some of her podcasts on the subject. FYI- she is far from the only one who has done this, but your ignorance does not make this untrue, sorry.
As you seem to have no idea who Maffetone is, you may want to know that Mark Allen gives him significant credit for his IM success, as do MANY other highly successful athletes and coaches.

Physiojoe125- no argument with the data or study, however both are based on the assumption that you have to fuel on cho, and certainly if you do the results of the study apply.
But you do not have to fuel on cho. Check out Maffetone's website and look at his 12 month study on an elite professional IM athlete. The subject of this study was Dr. Amanda Stevens, and it clearly proves there are alternative choices. While switching to a low cho approach may not necessarily provide faster race results (they did for Steven's but there certainly could have been other factors), this approach certainly does not inhibit race potential, and likely has important benefits to overall health, significantly reducing risk of Alzheimer's, type 2 diabetes, and several common forms of cancer. There are many studies showing these health benefits from Maffetone, Johannes Coy, and many others- not hard to find on google
Excellent posts, but there is indeed more than 1 way to skin this cat 😀

Do you have a link to the study? I looked on the website you mentioned and only saw a brief article on treatment of Stevens muscle imbalance. Nothing on her fueling strategy during a race. Suspect she likely ate some carbs while racing even if she trained herself to be fat adapted.

Maybe the OP should have been just been Sugar; the good, bad and ugly. We have dramatically reduced it across the board and seen a huge benefit in the whole family; 3 young sons very athletic and the two of us.

The adults have lost a combined 30 lbs in 6 months and boys are way better behaved.

Just convinced an employer friend to remove the soda machines from his office. He was blown away by the feedback from supervisors.

Totally agree with many of the comments. White death it is.

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