3 Reasons Why Sugar Isn’t The Energy Food You May Think It Is

Most people are used to having a sugar hit to give them a boost, usually mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Muffins, chocolate cookies or chocolate are popular choices and often boosted with a coffee.

It is true that a spike in blood sugar will give your brain a quick jolt or act as a fast fuel for your muscles. Cyclists who do serious distance often eat jelly beans as they approach a steep long hill.

However there are three problems with energy and sugar.

1. The spike in blood sugar will be auto-corrected by insulin pulling the excess glucose into your fat cells for safe long term storage as fat, just waiting to be released when the next famine hits your neighborhood, or not as the case usually is.
2. Stick with me this takes a little longer. Back in the 1970’s and 80’s red meat was getting a lot of bad press and one of the reasons was it was blamed on creating excess uric acid in the blood, which can cause inflammation and kidney stones.

But as red meat consumption was reduced in the subsequent decades, sugar consumption rose dramatically and so too did the number of people suffering from high uric acid levels circulation and endurance.We now know that sugar is a significant cause of high uric acid. Uric acid reduces the levels of nitric oxide in your muscles and blood.

Sporting studies show that a concentrated nitric oxide source as found in beetroot juice boost nitric oxide levels and increased energy and endurance.

So working backwards, excess sugar consumption, which is common in the bulk of the population given our love of sweets, grains and potato, reduces your energy by robbing you of nitric oxide.

I know personally many sports people who take the beetroot shots or bars for an extra boost but also load up on sugar rich foods, in a hope of aiding their performance, but they are just defeating their own efforts.

3. The third reason that sugar depletes your energy is that the glucose in your blood stream is converted to long chain fatty acids and held in your body as fat. These large size fat molecules are not easily converted back to energy. The more fat you have, the more energy you waste just moving around in your normal day to day living.

So here we have 3 more nails in the coffin of sugar consumption in all of its forms.

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