Sad news 
But a reminder that being super fit is not enough to being immune to T2D
This oughta ignite the āis high-carb healthy?ā debateā¦.
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Indeed. I saw the news on X first, and it was like a Christmas present for the low carb community : āI TOLD YOU SO !!ā
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Man, what a history and adversity Lionel has gone through in life.
I wouldnāt go all the way to āsad newsā. Is it sad? For somebody as active as Lionel such a condition is easily reversible. So maybe itās actually good news he found out now. Imagine what it would be like if he found out a year into retirement.
What really surprised me is that he had never, ever had blood work. Thatās a stone I would not have guessed remained unturned.
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Yeah, I watched that video a few days ago. His eating habits outside of training were next level terrible (sounds like candy was his go-to carb, binging sweets during the night, etc.).
Good on him for putting this out there. I am guilty of hitting the sweets too much when off the bike, often justifying it as OK when my body comp is good during the season. My A1C isnāt at prediabetic levels, but itās high enough that it concerns me.
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I watched it too, and basically he had a terrible diet, and seemed to over consume carbs for years both on and off the bike. His idea of cooking was ordering out.
However, it was a bit of a wakeup call for myself to perhaps get my checkup and talk to my doc about testing my blood sugar and see where Iām at.
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Iām surprised someone who puts the level of time and effort into training can have such a terrible diet. While I understand health may be a byproduct for some peopleās training as opposed to the primary focus, a reasonably healthy off the bike diet still has some performance benefits. The occasionally splurge is pretty understandable, but an obvious very poor diet to that extent is pretty surprising.
I think itād be great if every health conscious person spent some time wearing a continuous blood glucose monitor (CGM) to fully understand how different foods in their diet, and exercise, effect their blood sugar. Iāve worn one several times and itās been very eye opening. Specifically, Iāve changed my morning oatmeal from regular instant/old fashioned to steel cut. Night and day difference on impact to blood sugar. It is also very interesting to see how much a simple 20-30 minute walk after a carb loaded dinner or bowl of ice cream can majorly balance out the blood sugar spike.
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Itās something to keep an eye on for sure! My HgA1C was 5.0 at last check. So not great, not bad.
After watching Lionelās video the other day, I went back & checkedā¦I think the most sugar Iāve consumed in a day is a little over 5lbs back in 2019. Well, that was over a 25 hour periodā¦but in the ballpark. In that period I consumed 5.12lbs of dextrose & fructose. But I would train at or near that level of consumption for 5 to 8 hours every weekā¦so I never thought about it but there were years when I would consume about a pound of nothing but sugar every Saturday or Sunday morning. Then get back to the house and devour some more normal food.
Itās only through some miracle of evolutionary biology that Iām not also pre-diabetic, I guess.
Itās probably a good thing this story is out there. I just did some bloodwork and my A1C was 5.7, which is the point at which they call it prediabetic. I had been doing pretty high volume riding for me and therefore taking in a lot of fuel. Since I learned this, I have still fueled my rides but am doing a little bit less. Iām saving the big carbs for race days and just chilling out on the nerds clusters during rides just because they are delicious. Probably good if more of us are aware and just get checked out to make sure weāre okay. Iām going to re-test after a couple months and am assuming my number will come down.
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There is a lot of debate on the importance of timing, but I think most of the data points to diet outside of training to be the biggest contributor. Iām not saying that consuming sugar on the bike for hours on end is ideal (for lots of reasons), but itās not the big contributor to blood sugar problems like pounding simple sugars during your down time. At least thatās my understanding.
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This Peter Attia video hit my feed while I was doing some z2 the other day. Should start at the 14 min mark, which is where it got really interesting for me. They go through the whole process of eating the different macros, discussing what shuts off certain functions and triggers others, and lots of what ifs (what if theyāre diabetic, what if theyāre sedentary, but how does this change during exercise, etc.). Itās technical, but it seems like the whole story is all in one discussion.
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I just went back and checked my labs from a few weeks agoā¦A1C was 5.2. (Normal range is noted as 4.5 - 5.6, so I am just slightly on the right side of the bell curve but still well within range). More importantly, I went back and checked my trends and it was 5.4 in 2021 and been steadily dropping since then despite me significantly increasing my on-bike carbs since then.
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I think when you look at Lionelās history, it isnāt really that strange. He clearly has addictive personality traits. From the actual substance addiction of his youth to his training habits and regimens to his diet, his continually demonstrates textbook behavior for an addictive personality.
I sincerely hope he has some form of therapy, because that type of personality can obviously swing out of control very quickly. He has been lucky that he has been able to fuel it through a relatively healthy pursuit, but as we have seen, even that can be dangerous.
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Itās confusing how we all have a different range. Mine is noted [4.0-6.0]. I donāt know if it is a lab thing or a country thing
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yeah, that was why I specifically said the normal range in my results was ānoted asā. To your point, I donāt know who is deciding what is normal and for whom. 
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I just started to watch, and had a RedBull ad 
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Caffeine raises blood glucose, too! 
Actually no. But it might start a discussion on what are healthy carbs. Nobody is going to perform on a carb restricted diet unless they plan on staying in Zone 2 in a five-zone model.