Sugary Sports Drinks?
July 31st 2007 14:17
Before I return to discussing various nuances of weight training in coming entries, I must fully vent my spleen on sugar and it abuse. In my last offering I implored anyone who is interested in limiting sugar intake to look at the labels of various foods in the grocery, because sugar is added to all kinds of things. What should send up a red flag for any person who would like to maintain a normal bodyweight and a blood profile that is not prediabetic is that all kinds of so called sports drinks are loaded with sugar or its proxies.If you use the run of the mill sports drink to help you through your workout, you are taking from Peter to pay Paul.
Stop by the sports drink shelf the next time you do your shopping and make sure you have your reading glasses. Start reading the nutrition labels. Yes, these drinks are filled with electrolytes etc,which are quite beneficial to restore the body's balances during exercise. The problem is that no matter how salutary these drinks are, the manufacturer knows that they are trying to sell their drink to a market of sugar addicts. What does this mean? It means that, no matter how valid the drink's restorative profile is, sugar addicts will not drink it,if it doesn't taste sweet enough. Selling bland sports drinks to sugar addicts goes over about as well as offering cabbage to trick-or-treaters on American Halloween!
If you are half way up the Tourmalet in the Tour de France, you can pour sugary sports drinks into your system all you want. You will burn any glucose your body produces and probably still be at a deficit. If you are headed for a recumbent bike at your gym,where you will maintain a maximum of 75 rpms for 20 minutes, you will never burn the sugar you are drinking down in your sports drink. Further you are simply engaging in self-defeating behavior. You are trying to burn fat etc and you are simultaneously predisposing your body to create fat from excess glucose.
I think I dispaired on this issue when I saw that a vitamin-water drink had hit the market and the label indicated that whatever vitamins it contained it was high on sugar. Its sad but the fact is that that product without the sugar would be doomed. The same thing is true when the manufacturer trumpets protein in his drink. Look at the label.Its got sugar too.
If you need to have all of your drinks sweetened welcome to sugar addiction. You are a sugar addict and that is it. You will never quite get over it, but for fitness' sake, taking a sugar drink with you to the gym is just the saddest thing. Your servant, as always.
Stop by the sports drink shelf the next time you do your shopping and make sure you have your reading glasses. Start reading the nutrition labels. Yes, these drinks are filled with electrolytes etc,which are quite beneficial to restore the body's balances during exercise. The problem is that no matter how salutary these drinks are, the manufacturer knows that they are trying to sell their drink to a market of sugar addicts. What does this mean? It means that, no matter how valid the drink's restorative profile is, sugar addicts will not drink it,if it doesn't taste sweet enough. Selling bland sports drinks to sugar addicts goes over about as well as offering cabbage to trick-or-treaters on American Halloween!
If you are half way up the Tourmalet in the Tour de France, you can pour sugary sports drinks into your system all you want. You will burn any glucose your body produces and probably still be at a deficit. If you are headed for a recumbent bike at your gym,where you will maintain a maximum of 75 rpms for 20 minutes, you will never burn the sugar you are drinking down in your sports drink. Further you are simply engaging in self-defeating behavior. You are trying to burn fat etc and you are simultaneously predisposing your body to create fat from excess glucose.
I think I dispaired on this issue when I saw that a vitamin-water drink had hit the market and the label indicated that whatever vitamins it contained it was high on sugar. Its sad but the fact is that that product without the sugar would be doomed. The same thing is true when the manufacturer trumpets protein in his drink. Look at the label.Its got sugar too.
If you need to have all of your drinks sweetened welcome to sugar addiction. You are a sugar addict and that is it. You will never quite get over it, but for fitness' sake, taking a sugar drink with you to the gym is just the saddest thing. Your servant, as always.
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