How does eating a lot of sugar affect your running in the short term?

It doesnt

Your running is fueled by sugar. Why do you want to avoid it?

The sugar spike will be followed by a sugar trough.

wwhut wrote:

Your running is fueled by sugar. Why do you want to avoid it?

This varies from person to person, but some people (myself included) have trouble maintaining stable energy levels on a diet that is high in simple carbs. I absolutely crash in the afternoon if I eat a bunch of simple carbs with lunch. Training doesn't go so well when you're ready for a nap by 3pm.

makes me sleepy wrote:

wwhut wrote:

Your running is fueled by sugar. Why do you want to avoid it?

This varies from person to person, but some people (myself included) have trouble maintaining stable energy levels on a diet that is high in simple carbs. I absolutely crash in the afternoon if I eat a bunch of simple carbs with lunch. Training doesn't go so well when you're ready for a nap by 3pm.

That doesn't mean stay away from simple sugar. Eat simple sugar AND complex sugar AND fat.

wwhut wrote:

makes me sleepy wrote:

This varies from person to person, but some people (myself included) have trouble maintaining stable energy levels on a diet that is high in simple carbs. I absolutely crash in the afternoon if I eat a bunch of simple carbs with lunch. Training doesn't go so well when you're ready for a nap by 3pm.

That doesn't mean stay away from simple sugar. Eat simple sugar AND complex sugar AND fat.

I didn't say that one should stay away from sugar. The OP asked about the consequences of eating "a lot of sugar," so I spoke to the consequences of eating a lot of sugar.

I have a friend who has 6 cokes a day as well as chocolate bars and cookies. He's a reasonable runner but has big crashes in workouts/ races over an hour.

So cookies, cakes, donuts are combination of fats and sugar - not pure sugar (carbohydrate). This is not ideal for running.

If you drank a sugar drink like coke/sprite that is more beneficial for running purposes NOT ideal but better than foods that are combination of simple sugars and fats like cookies, cakes, donuts.

Better to get complex whole food carbohydrates :-)

HappyCaTRunner wrote:

So cookies, cakes, donuts are combination of fats and sugar - not pure sugar (carbohydrate). This is not ideal for running.

If you drank a sugar drink like coke/sprite that is more beneficial for running purposes NOT ideal but better than foods that are combination of simple sugars and fats like cookies, cakes, donuts.

Better to get complex whole food carbohydrates :-)

So if the fat component in cookies, donuts, etc. is what's really the problem as it relates to running, how does that affect your immediate performance? Does it just come down to the fact that it doesn't sit well in your stomach and could cause cramps? Or is there a chemical reason for not eating them before running?

Fats don't digest as quickly as carbohydrates. Fats don't help your running performance.

In addition, the combination of fats and sugar causing insulin to spike as well as lead to weight gain.

While you are young your liver can do the work of processing fats but as you age this is a combination for disease and weight gain.

HappyCaTRunner wrote:

Fats don't digest as quickly as carbohydrates. Fats don't help your running performance.

In addition, the combination of fats and sugar causing insulin to spike as well as lead to weight gain.

While you are young your liver can do the work of processing fats but as you age this is a combination for disease and weight gain.

Sugar makes you depressed. Depression makes you slow.

Short or medium-term: Doesn't matter. Long-term: Significant effect.

I talked informally to a doctor when I was a junior in college. I was running XC and Track, and had an incredible metabolism at that time, gaining 10 pounds a year (muscle and general filling in of bone density) as a freshman and sophomore. I was eating, no exaggeration, 4000-5000+ calories a day, including lots of soda and candy. Regularly a half pound bag of Skittles or Starburst after dinner.

Anyway, the doctor told me that your kidney and liver had something of a lifetime limit in how much excess sugar (or alcohol, toxins, fat) they could process. I listened, and gave up soda and candy cold turkey, and improved my running times by 5-10%. I also stopped getting injured, slept better, and stopped falling asleep in class.

Since I started adding 60g of sugar to my daily smoothies I went from 70mpw to 100 with workouts. Recovery is really fast for me now. I can do 7x1000 and feel recovered 6 hours later. I add sugar to everything, rice, potatoes, cereal, ugali, water. I have very minimal fat I'm very lean.

The quality of food is just too crap to eat unprocessed. Fruit and veg taste like cardboard it's all mass produced and grown in poor quality soil. So I end up having to add back the carbs that were meant to be there to fuel my cells.

It's no different than taking refine protein supplements, except they're very unhealthy.

Since I started adding 60g of sugar to my daily smoothies I went from 70mpw to 100 with workouts. Recovery is really fast for me now. I can do 7x1000 and feel recovered 6 hours later. I add sugar to everything, rice, potatoes, cereal, ugali, water. I have very minimal fat I'm very lean.

The quality of food is just too crap to eat unprocessed. Fruit and veg taste like cardboard it's all mass produced and grown in poor quality soil. So I end up having to add back the carbs that were meant to be there to fuel my cells.

It's no different than taking refine protein supplements, except they're very unhealthy.

Absolute poppycock. Misinformed. Jumping to conclusions.

sweettooth wrote:

I know the way your body reacts to sugar intake is common knowledge, but how does eating sugary foods affect your running in the short term? Let's say the night before a hard workout or race you eat a whole bunch of cookies or whatever. When you get up the next morning and run, how is the sugar you ate the night before affecting you? I always try to avoid eating sweet foods before workouts and races because the tendency with runners is to avoid that stuff as a general rule, but are there really any immediate consequences?

Overnight there will no effect at all.