Whether or not they include fat, the carbohydrate portion is still simple carbohydrates. Fats (and proteins) do a poor job blunting the blood sugar spike from simple sugars. Simple carbohydrates are much better combined with complex carbohydrates to minimize the blood sugar spike.
Eating a donut will cause a blood sugar spike very similar very similar to eating a piece of sugar candy that’s low in fat, but high in sugar. It’s those spikes, where the body dumps insulin to counteract the rising blood sugar, that can have eventually increase insulin resistance.
Your bodies reaction to complex carbs (and your bodies slow, smaller release of insulin), is very different than the reaction to simple carbs.
I am absolutely not saying that carbohydrates are bad. I AM saying that simple carbohydrates that spike blood sugar, with too much frequency, OUTSIDE of endurance activities, can eventually cause insulin resistance, hypoglycemia, or even Type II diabetes.
It seems like you are arguing that simple carbohydrates, in large quantities, can not contribute to insulin resistance over time… Is this what you’re saying?
I disagree with your statement that there is nothing healthy about training like a pro endurance athlete, ISM quantified it quite nicely in his paper “Assessment of metabolic flexibility by means of measuring blood lactate” On one end of the spectrum is a metabolically sick person, on the other end is an elite athlete. Outside of preventable interventions (like lionel’s eating disorder) elite athletes are extremely healthy, their longevity markers are higher, V02 max, insulin sensitivity, leg strength, etc and they also have lower resting blood lactate levels and high metabolic flexibility, in many ways pogacar is the complete opposite of a diabetic.
this is part of periodizing carbs, separating them from dietary fat completely agree with your point.
Mc donalds can be appropriate fueling (chris horner style) but it’s really the large soda on top of the fatty burgers that causes the sickness. The soda on it’s own or the burger on it’s own not nearly as bad.
During my experimentation with checking my BG numbers, the only time I approached anything close to 160 was after a 2-3 hr ride (likely around 60g/hr fueling), I ate some lunch (I forget what, but usually have a good mix of macros), BG wasn’t out of whack, and then drove to town to pick up a prescription. I bought a 20oz coke at the pharmacy because I was feeling little bleh (like maybe dropping blood glucose) and drank it on the way home. Checked my BG a little after getting home and it was 160+. (but it came down quickly)
This goes back to the idea of low fat/protein high carb allows for better insulin resistance/glucose tolerance. I know Durian Rider is a complete nutter, but he’s been preaching about that for over a decade. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a video addressing Lionel Sanders’ situation lol
While T2D is indeed a lifestyle disease to a significant degree, it’s important to remember that there is also a high degree of genetic variability involved with regard to propensity. Me and pretty much everyone in my mother’s gene pool are T2D despite being lean, having normal North American diets, and being active to varying degrees. In retrospect, clearly a normal North American diet was not the way to go for us.
Additionally, insulin is a hormone and, as such, acts much like any other drug. And like any other drug, if you take it often enough, it will stop working and you will become “resistant”. Based on Lionel’s description of his old eating habits, it sounds as though he was likely swimming in insulin every minute of every day other than, perhaps, when he was training. One of benefits of time restricted eating patterns is that it creates lengthy periods of low insulin so that your body can remain sensitized to it. This is the opposite of what Lionel was doing.
So you take a guy swimming in insulin who may have a genetic predisposition to T2D and he then becomes an entirely plausible outlier among endurance athletes.
Why would you do that? In ultra endurance we might typically ride that many hours per day, over a week maybe two weeks. We don’t go cramming that much down every hour and performance is fine.
As someone with a child with t1d, and who has monitored and managed blood sugars with a 24/7 CGM for years and years, I can very confidently say that there is a massive difference between fueling on and off the bike, or while training and while at rest. Massive.
In our home, we eat relatively low carbs at the table. This helps keep our child’s blood sugars stable and easier to estimate insulin needs. But while training, both my wife and I (she’s a triathlete) consume sugar as required without fear. I had my annual lipid and hormone panel done in early February and at age 40 have an a1c of 5.1. My teenage child, who is fully insulin dependent, has an a1c of 4.9.
The biggest biggest surprise and shocker in watching this video, and that truly seems off to me, is that a professional athlete like Lionel is having his blood tested for the very first time this late in the game? That seems insane to me. For someone at his level, blood and hormone testing should be done twice a year.
He latest video is ‘Do you need a rest day’. Listening, it’s as sad as his diet was. He talks about getting used to training day after day after day with dead legs and feeling like crap.
Wearing a CGM leads to disordered thinking IMO. People naturally think ‘160 bad, 125 good.’ The next logical step is to stop eating all high glycemic carbs and sugars because the feedback from the machine will give you a lower number. If one keeps going with a CGM, they’ll end up on a low carb diet. And all that is based on a faulty interpretation of the data.
I’m just astonished that he has gotten to this level and got this far on a junk food diet. Blaming of the society is a crock. Because corporations put fast food on every corner, doesn’t mean you need to stop and partake. There are grocery stores with broccoli, brown rice, and chicken breasts in every neighborhood as well.
I just imagine what he could have achieved eating healthy and sleeping every night over the years.
His current “Should You Take a Recovery Day?” video is just as revealing about his past choices?
The fact that he’s addressing healthy eating and real recovery days makes me think he got a new coach or something?
To me, Lionel Sanders is one of the absolute oddest characters in all of endurance sports. It’s like he makes the same mistakes us amateurs make, but he’s at the pinnacle end of things. But that’s also why I enjoy his content
For people that lack knowledge of how the endocrine system works and how blood sugars are impacted, as well as general self discipline about their diet and lifestyle, you’re likely right. Actually, that would probably give too much credit to the general population that seeing first hand how foods effect their blood sugar would result in any meaningful changes - as if that would be more objective than an obese person looking at them in the mirror.
IMO, for health conscious and knowledgeable people, wearing a CGM might lead people to make better food choices or get a bit more exercise. Seeing how much a 20-30 minute walk after a bowl of ice cream impacted my blood sugar was huge. Seeing the difference between the refined instant oatmeal I had been eating for years, vs the steel cut oatmeal, also made a huge difference. It’s been a year and a half since I wore a CGM for the first time and now I eat steel cut oats every morning instead of the instant ones… Or at least, about 350 days/yr.
Eating foods that cause spikes occasionally here and there is obviously not a reason for major concern for most people. Eating candy or ice cream before bed, or during the day on an empty stomach, can absolutely create problems in the long run.
Some of the arguments in this thread seem to almost insinuate that eating a bag of candy before bed won’t be any more likely to cause type II diabetes than a bowl of steel cut oatmeal will…
The nutritionist I use, who also works with world tour athletes, has me ingesting hundreds of grams of simple carbs pre/intra/post workout. Lots of low glycemic carbs outside of that window as well, so a standard training day of 3 hours I’m up to 800+ grams of carbs in total. There’s more to it than this, but I paid for a detailed strategy, and I don’t feel the need to explain it.
I’m 100% saying that high glycemic carbs have a place in an endurance athletes diet for both performance and recovery reasons, and is not causing diabetes in athletes.
I don’t believe that high glycemic carbs have any benefit in a athletes diet outside of pre, intra, and/or very shortly after a ride (although post I could probably argue not necessary if properly fueled during “most” workouts). It sounds like this is the same thing you’re saying?
Outside of that window, what is the benefit of high glycemic carbs vs low?
Sure, in reasonable amounts and irregular, probably not an issue, but excessive consumption of high glycemic carbs can cause insulin resistance in people that wouldn’t have it otherwise. This is pretty well known and supported by countless articles…
“ The GI is a scale that ranks the amount of carbohydrates in food from zero to 100. The higher the number, the faster the carbohydrates are digested. Eating high-GI foods can cause blood sugar levels to rapidly rise — triggering the pancreas to release more insulin — and then quickly fall. This can promote cravings and overeating. Repeating this cycle frequently may lead to weight gain and insulin resistance, factors associated with type 2 diabetes and higher cardiovascular risk.
Researchers collected data on which foods the people in the study ate, how much, and how often. They organized the mentioned foods into seven categories and gave each category a GI score.
At a follow-up nine years later, the investigators found that people who ate high-GI diets had suffered more heart attacks, strokes, and death than those who ate lower-GI diets. This was true regardless of whether people had cardiovascular disease at the start of the study. The results were published online April 8, 2021, by The New England Journal of Medicine. “
If your A1C is elevated it means your blood glucose (blood sugar) has been elevated for around 2-3 months. One of the ways your body gets rid of excess glucose in the blood it is pee it out. Often people with elevated blood sugars will have an increase in urination and thirst. I think that is what he is getting at.
The one place I see for using high glycemic carbs outside of using them in and around training is when you are having trouble digesting enough complex carbs. Slow digesting carbs are, well, slow digesting, and leave you feeling extremely bloated. Processing 500-700 grams of carbs with oats, sweet potatoes and quinoa is tough, especially when doing it for days in a row. And even then, trying to slurp down sugar water after you’re sick of eating is not easy either, but certainly easier than a massive bowl of rice or roasted potatoes. Maybe there are people that can easily do this, but I’d put money on even world tour level folks resorting to this strategy at times. I also find that high glycemic carbs seems to “hit” harder when you get behind the curve on glycogen, and can get your legs going again quicker.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The amount of food taken in before, during and shortly after is a relatively small amount compared to the rest of the diet. I say relative because it is still significant. Why many athletes have dental problems.
I more curious about the gut biome and whether it will an effect on gut health. All of a sudden we start seeing endurance athletes serious GI issues down the road (no pun intended).
I used to pay attention to high GI foods before, but then i realized that these same foods combined with fat and/or protein won’t have the same effect, Also, the amount matters. So, while the glycemic index is a real thing, it needs to be taken in context. Thanks for posting the article, btw.
I just had my annual checkup and had a convo with my doctor about sugar consumption and for the first time I had my A1C checked and it came back at 5.2 which is in the middle of the range, so I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for now, which is fueling when necessary and otherwise eating mostly home cooked meal with a variety of foods.
