Podcast Episode #20: What You *Don’t* Know About Sugar

Podcast episode number 20 from BenGreenfieldFitness.com welcome.

To the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast. This is your weekly free audio exposure to cutting edge fitness, diet and wellness news. Hey. Whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to shed a few pounds, this podcast is going to present you with the latest exercise and nutrition content from the nation's top experts. My name is Ben Greenfield. I. I'm a personal trainer, certified nutritionist, an exercise, diet and wellness guru. Each week I'm going to be bringing you cutting edge fitness, nutrition and wellness advice. Stay tuned for this Week's podcast from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and before I get started today, let me make a quick apology about the audio content in today's podcast. I happen to have had a headset accident and am recording this podcast via the microphone system on my Macintosh rather than the high quality headset that I normally use. So there may be just a little bit more of an echo than what you're used to. With that being said, I still do have some great content for you. If you remember, last week A naturopathic physician, Dr. Todd Schlapfer, in podcast number 19, talked a little bit about sugar and about inflammation and ph. And this week Stacy Trogdon, a registered dietitian, is going to be with us talking a little bit more about blood sugar and the effect that that has on overall health, weight loss, performance, and some of the issues that we find important. I'm also going to be introducing you to a new series of articles that are going to be appearing in the BenGreenfieldFitness.com newsletters. The first one came out last week, and these letters actually include some information that's very, very useful from a human nutrition and metabolism expert over at Washington State University, a guy named John Gilbert. And he's going to be supplying us with some great content that's on the forefront of nutrition and human metabolism. In addition, in today's podcast, I'm going to be unveiling a few of the new additions to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com website. An especially exciting announcement for any of you triathletes out there, and then a reminder about the special web discount code that basically I'm only giving out in these podcast episodes for the people who are getting some of this audio content. So without any further ado, let's move on to the introduction to the new material. BenGreenfieldFitness.com new content@BenGreenfieldFitness.com well, like I mentioned, we have a new contributor to the podcast and this is a guy named John Gilbert. John is a nutrition and metabolism student at Washington State University. He's been doing some work with us over at Champion Sports Medicine. Brilliant mind who's going to be contributing a lot to our newsletter. And last week John talked quite a bit about an article that appeared in Reuters magazine on speedy eaters and it went over the fact that speedy eaters were seen likelier to get fat, basically highlighting the fact that if you eat fast you can actually deposit more fat on your waistline. Well, John went into great detail in the last newsletter about why that happens and what some of his specific thoughts are on how to stop that from happening. So if you're not subscribed to our newsletter, I highly recommend that you get on board. You simply go to the website. There's a subscription right there on the right hand side of the page and subscribing to the newsletter will even get you a copy of a free book that I wrote on health and fitness tips and secrets that I have in a series of articles and ebook that you can get when you sign up for that newsletter. But anyways, returning to John Gilbert, this week he is publishing a follow up article in that newsletter about the best way to eat healthy at work and he's tying that into the slow eating concept and it really is just a fantastic article. He's actually commenting on a post that appeared at the website, one of my favorite websites, WHFoods and that's a great resource for recipes for food articles, etc. But check out this week's newsletter from BenGreenfieldFitness.com because John's got some great content on that. I will be getting John on a future podcast, but for now realize that there's a lot of really great exercise and metabolism information that's going to be coming out in those series of newsletters. In addition, I have a pretty cool announcement for you Ironman triathletes out there. I actually just put the finishing touches on a six month Ironman training plan and this plan is called the Quality Over Quantity Training Plan. You remember that I talked a couple of weeks ago about the effectiveness of high intensity interval training and how that allows you to get a lot of bang for your buck out of the time that you spend training and and can actually give you superior endurance and fitness adaptations in as little as 90% less time than the high volume style of training. Well, I have created an entire six month Ironman training plan that takes you from point A to the finish line of an Ironman triathlon with a primary focus on the utilization of high intensity interval training. Now, there's a lot more to this program program than just the high intensity intervals. And I have a pretty comprehensive write up on what the program involves as a link in this week's show notes. But it's not something where you're actually hiring me to coach you. This program is completely written out from start to finish. It allows you to test your fitness as a starting point going in and then base your training sessions for the next several weeks on the numbers that you generated during your initial series of tests and then continue with the series of testing, training, racing, etc. Everything is written in there and it's designed because it's all focused on your personal fitness level for beginner, intermediate or advanced triathletes. Anybody who wants to complete an Ironman triathlon, you simply take this program, you inject it six months before whatever race that you want to do, and bam. It gives you an automatic roadmap to the finish line. I'm really excited to see how the people that implement this plan actually do compared to some of the people who are training 15, 17, 20 hours a week. Because this thing is written for about 7 to 12 hours a week. 12 is about the max that you get up to. And so for Ironman Triathlon, this is.

Going to be a real breakthrough.

Anyways, it's available. I'll put a link to it on the on the show notes. And the entire plan is actually $199.

That's it.

Didn't price it very expensively because I'd like to see a lot of people try it out. I put many, many hours into designing this program. It does include also a free copy of the top 12 resistance training routines for triathletes. A book that I wrote on weight training, resistance Training for Triathletes. I've implemented that entire book into the program and told you exactly how many reps to do of which exercises so that you can take that book and implement it with absolutely no guesswork involved. So that's something really excited that I've added to the website@BenGreenfieldFitness.com and the final edition or final announcement is that I am still offering that discount code on the Thermo Factor weight loss supplement. Thermo Factor is a supplement that a lot of my clients right now are using to successfully shed pounds and reduce their carbohydrate Cravings. It has bitter orange extract for increasing the metabolic rate and increasing the amount of fatty acids that you burn. It's got a green tea extract, which is basically kind of a powerful antioxidant that works along with that bitter orange to enhance thermogenesis or enhance your metabolic rate. It's got L tyrosine in it, which is an amino acid that increases the appetite suppressing abilities of that bitter orange extract. It's got a couple of things to control insulin levels, so to control the rate at which blood sugar could get converted to fat, which is it's got chromium in it and vanadium in it, and then finally manganese, which is a mineral that plays an important role in carbohydrate metabolism. So what thermo factor does is it takes all these ingredients and combines it into one bottle. And anyways, I'm still offering a $10 discount on an entire month's supply of this stuff. You just have to use the discount code Getlean, that's G, E, T, L, E, A, N, all caps. Very important that the caps are included. But you simply put that into the area where you can type a coupon code in when you order the thermo factor and that'll automatically give you $10 savings on it. So this stuff is, is well worth it. And I'll put a link to the thermo factor in the show notes so that you can go discover a little.

Bit more about that.

So without any further ado, let's go on to this week's interview on Sugar with registered dietitian Stacey Trogden.

Hey, podcast listeners. This is Ben Greenfield, and I'm here today with a registered dietitian, Stacey. She's a diabetes educator in Spokane, Washington. She's the owner of Nutrition Today. You can find out a little bit more about Stacy by going to her website, stacytrogdon.com and I'll put a link to that in the show notes. And Stacy specializes in, because she is a diabetes educator, the management of blood sugar. And what I would like to do today with Stacy is talk not only about, about how you can learn how blood sugar will affect your health, not only from a diabetic perspective, but also from a sports perspective and an overall wellness perspective. So, Stacy, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Tell me a little bit about you and what you specialize in, what your background is in nutrition.

Well, I'm a registered dietitian and I practice as a diabetes educator at Inland Northwest Health Services. I'm also a sports dietitian practicing at Champion Sports Medicine in Spokane, Washington. I'm also a freelance writer, and I've written articles that have recently appeared in Spokane, Coeur d', Alene, Living Magazine, in Health Northwest, and Northwest Magazine.

Fantastic. So the audience that primarily listens to this show is comprised of many active individuals, weekend warriors, recreational athletes. And I think that there's kind of a notion out there from the people that I've talked to, and I don't know if you've experienced the same thing that a lot of people think that if they exercise, that they don't have to worry too much about the types of sugars that they consume. Now, when you're exercising, should you be taking blood sugar into consideration?

I think that blood sugar is certainly a point of consideration. Maintaining a normal blood sugar is critical to athletic performance. And we're talking about athletes that perform or train more than 60 minutes to 90 minutes at a time. What happens is athletes with low blood sugar perform poorly and exhibit the classic symptoms of bonking, such as lightheadedness, inability to concentrate, and severe weakness. Now, this wouldn't apply to the recreational exerciser, but to the endurance athlete. Bonking is caused by depleted liver glycogen. Glycogen is stored both in your muscles and liver. And whereas depleted muscle glycogen causes an athlete to hit the wall or feel overwhelmingly fatigued, depleted liver glycogen causes them to bonk. To maintain a normal blood sugar during athletic endeavors lasting more than 60 to 90 minutes, be sure to eat an adequate amount of carbohydrate daily and practice appropriate fueling pre and post exercise. For endurance athletes, daily carbohydrate intake should be about 3 to 5 grams per pound of body weight.

Gotcha. So if I'm £170, let's say. Let me do the math real quick. So we're looking at about that would come out to close to 600 grams of carbohydrate.

Yeah.

For a day. So, like 2,400 calories. That would be for an active individual. Now, when we're talking about blood sugar, I know that the control of blood sugar levels and the control of insulin levels for someone who has diabetes is critical for living. Now, if someone is wanting to control their blood sugar levels just to stay healthy, should they be trying to control blood sugar via exercise and simply not worry about nutrition? Or should they be worrying about the types of sugars that they're consuming? And I guess where I want to go with this is the idea that a lot of people seem to be Exercising, but still eating quite a bit of crap.

Yes, exercise and nutrition are both critically important. There is certainly a lot of information that says that eating a poor diet that is high in refined sugars and starches can actually cause elevated insulin levels. And with chronically elevated insulin levels, this can lead to what's called the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. Exercise certainly helps blood sugar because the muscles uptake glucose to use it during exercise, or they store it as glycogen. But when you eat a poor diet that's high in refined sugars and starches, that can actually elevate insulin levels despite exercise training.

So basically, a fit person with a diet high in simple sugars or processed sugars could still have problems with insulin control or problems with diabetic risk?

Yes, they could. The risk is fairly low. But individuals that may have a problem would be individuals that are genetically predisposed to diabetes if they have a family history of diabetes. And then ethnicity increases risk of diabetes as well. Native Americans, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, African Americans are all predisposed to diabetes. And then age is also a risk factor for diabetes as well. So, typically, athletes are a more healthy set of individuals, meaning they typically don't exhibit the central or truncal abdominal obesity that places a person at high risk of diabetes because they're exercising, they're burning calories, and typically they don't support a higher body weight. But it is potentially a risk of concern for an athlete that is a person that is training. They certainly could have a risk of diabetes, mostly due to genetic predisposition, age, and race, but also due to their dietary practices.

So if somebody is eating a bunch of sugar and they have constantly elevated insulin levels because they're eating sugar, and the insulin is getting released in response to the sugar, whether or not they're exercising, what could be some of the bad effects of having constantly high insulin levels?

Constantly high insulin levels can lead to metabolic syndrome and metabolic syndrome is an interesting combination of metabolic disorders that I actually see quite commonly in my private practice and as a diabetes educator. Metabolic syndrome includes central obesity, or abdominal fat that people carry around their waist. And central obesity is defined as a leaf circumference of greater than 40 inches for a male and greater than 35 inches for a female. Metabolic syndrome is also represented in high blood pressure, high triglycerides, a low HDL, which is the good cholesterol, less than 40 for men and less than 50 for women, and also a fasting blood glucose of greater than 110. Elevated insulin levels can also lead to type 2 diabetes, basically when you have elevated insulin levels, it's causing the pancreas to work really hard and it's actually causing the pancreas to increase more its production of insulin over time. And pretty soon the beta cells that make the insulin in the pancreas just wear out. And that can cause type 2, but diabetes, which we're seeing much more now in the population.

So do you think that, and I'm just going out on a limb here, that somebody who is still say exercising 20, 30, 60 minutes a day, but eating a diet that's high in say bagels, biscotti, sport drink, gel, that type of thing, and just eating that throughout the day for breakfast they're having a bagel and for their mid morning snack thing of Gatorade, and for lunch they're eating say a handful of tortilla chips with a sandwich. Everything that they're putting into their body on a step by step level is causing that insulin release, causing high blood sugar. Do you think that that might actually also stress the beta cells in the pancreas or cause them to become worn out?

You know, I think it would definitely place somebody more at risk of high insulin levels. I haven't read any recent studies that have been done on that. I think that's a really good question as a practitioner.

Yeah, I would be interested to actually see someone do a study in an active population and just compare a couple of different diets. Perhaps one that had control of the glycemic indices of the carbohydrates that were consumed and one that allowed for a higher processed sugar consumption. I think it would be really interesting to see.

Well, it certainly would be and I think that that would be the only way to objectively answer your question. It is certainly a good one. I did a presentation last week to the Gonzaga University freshman athletics population and not surprisingly I found that these group of athletes were consuming foods that were really high in refined sugars and starches and they really didn't know that well what the appropriate fueling practices are, which is really to consume lower glycemic foods and more wholesome food products.

Yeah. Have you ever heard of the Paleo diet?

You know, I have heard of it. I haven't read a lot about it.

Yeah, it seems to focus more on that. What you were just talking about, the low glycemic index, you know, having athletes consume higher amounts of, you know, yogurts, vegetables, vegetables, fruits, kind of non processed sugar type of sources and then nuts, berries, things of that nature. But yeah. Are you Seeing much of a paradigm shift in the athletes that you work with when you talk about things like this and choosing more wholesome or more low glycemic index fuel sources. Or do you think that based off of the sports supplement industry and the encouragement of just drinking Gatorade as a fuel throughout the day, that athletes still think that those processed sugars are the way to go?

I think marketing has a huge presence in our community and population. So I think food manufacturers have done a really good job in their marketing practices. I certainly don't agree with them. I think that people, athletes have really gotten the message that these higher glycemic foods such as Gatorade and sports drinks are the way to go. As a dietitian, I certainly do not advocate the use of those on a routine basis. I do think that those products are useful when people are in their training mode. They're exercising more than 60 to 90 minutes. But the problem is people use those when they really don't need to be using them. And I think they certainly have not gotten the message that more wholesome foods can fuel their energy needs. And I really think that is due to the marketing practices from these sport drink companies and such.

Yeah, it just seems like an athlete, when given the choice between say a Gatorade and a power bar or a banana and a handful of almonds, is always going to go for the thing that purportedly, according to the commercial that they just saw on tv, is going to make them bigger, faster or stronger. And, you know, what you kind of opened up talking about in terms of blogging, blood sugar on insulin levels, I think is something that's important for an athlete to take into consideration.

Absolutely.

I had an interesting interview last week with a naturopathic physician who was discussing the link between nutrition and inflammation. Do you see any link between nutrition and specifically sugar and inflammation?

Absolutely I do. There is something that is very well known out in the community just because of the media attention to it. And it's called the anti inflammatory diet. In fact, Oprah had that on her show. And basically sugar and refined starches, processed foods that are low in antioxidants of fiber and omega 3 fatty acids, do promote inflammation in our bodies. And inflammation can actually be. You can test inflammation levels by something called CRP and usually you don't see that done, but you know, on a routine basis. But I have read studies that show that people that are quite obese and overweight have higher inflammation levels. So diet certainly is a big player in inflammation in our bodies. So the typical Western diet that we see in the United States is pro inflammatory. And there's certainly been studies on Western diets. And in the United States we see a lot of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, obesity, and they certainly are linked to diet.

When you say inflammation specifically, what type of inflammation comes to mind?

Inflammation. How I think of inflammation when I'm talking to my diabetes population because they're at higher risk of heart disease. Inflammation actually can start in the blood vessels in the coronary arteries. That is how heart disease can progress with the development of plaque. And inflammation is seen in joints, like with arthritis. Inflammatory bowel disease is a form of inflammation. Alzheimer's is a form of inflammation in the brain cells. So it actually represents itself in a lot of different ways. I wrote an article recently on arthritis and inflammation and that was published in the in Health Northwest magazine. Really what I found was that again, our pro inflammatory diets that are high in referring sugars and starches, low in antioxidants and omega 3 fatty acids are all culprits or reasons for this inflammatory effect. Vitamin D is a big issue. Many people living in the Northwest do not get enough vitamin D in their diets. So vitamin D has been found to be low. Vitamin D levels have been found to be a real risk factor for things like Ms. And also rheumatoid arthritis.

So basically, if you're consuming a lot of sugar and sitting around indoors, that's kind of a double whammy in terms of initiating and inflammation process.

Absolutely. And the studies support that.

Can sugar be addicting?

I think that sugar can be addicting. What's interesting is that sugar promotes the release of a brain chemical called serotonin. Serotonin is our feel good chemical. And individuals that eat or crave a lot of carbohydrates, which are refined starches and sugars, they actually get a temporary boost in their mood and feeling of calm by eating these types of foods. And what I find in particularly women, they crave carbohydrates that are represented in again, sugars and refined starches. And what I find is that they, those types of foods do elevate mood, but it's only temporary. So the problem is as people eat those things, they feel good for a short period of time, but because it's a temporary increase in serotonin, then they reach for those things over and over again. In a way to increase serotonin levels on a more consistent level is to exercise and eat more whole grain carbohydrates. And that would improve or boost serotonin levels and promote a more sustained release of the feel good chemical, which is serotonin.

That's an interesting observation. One of the things that I tell some of the people that I work with is that often craving carbohydrates late at night is a function of boredom just as much as anything else. You know, wanting some type of excitement or that dopamine or that serotonin release. And often simply doing something else that's fun, something else that's entertaining, such as picking up a musical instrument or grabbing a book that you like, or watching an action movie can sometimes give you that same feeling that you get when you eat sugar.

Absolutely, I agree with that. There is a lot of nighttime eating that happens. I see that often in my role as a diabetes educator in my private practice. And I think part of it has a lot to do with the stress that people feel in their lives these days. And I think that poor eating habits are certainly a foundation of that. Being active and eating a better diet would help people's emotional disposition all around.

Now, I would be interested to hear your take on artificial sweeteners or sugar substitutes. Is that something that you recommend to your clients to use as a sugar substitute or do you have certain artificial sweeteners that you recommend above others?

Sugar substitutes are relatively new to the western diet. If you take a look at their history because of their relative short term use, it is really hard to say the deleterious effects they may have on our health. There have been some studies, but I don't think they're real long term studies that have been done just because they're relatively new. I, as a dietitian, really caution the use of artificial sweeteners, mostly because they are a chemical, they're not naturally occurring. And as a diabetes educator, what's interesting is my clients really do use quite a few sugar substitutes as a way to decrease their total intake of carbohydrates. So I kind of have to be careful. Personally, I have a bias against sugar substitutes. I think Splenda certainly has probably the most research behind it and it appears to be the safest sugar substitute. But again, it's fairly new and we really do not know the long term effects of its use. My main concern with sugar substitutes is that other than we don't know the long term effects of the chemical on our bodies, if you take a look at the products that have sugar substitutes in them, they're often not very nutritious or wholesome products. They're high in preservatives and additives and they're usually highly processed. So I would rather have people consume products that don't have sugar substitutes in them.

What about an artificial sweetener like ste. Stevia? It's my understanding that that is a more natural sugar substitute than perhaps a chemically derived substitute such as sucralose.

Stevia is certainly a sugar substitute that is available. It is a natural sugar substitute because it comes from a plant. I think some of the studies are mixed on stevia. I haven't seen anything that has been really concerning as a dietitian. Some people don't like the taste of stevia, but it certainly is an option as a sugar substitute and perhaps a better one, given that it's not a. Not a chemical, it's a naturally occurring sugar substitute. So I think I am an advocate of stevia. Certainly people have asked me about that, and I would say that it certainly would be a better option than something like Splenda or NutraSweet or saccharin.

Yeah. I asked a naturopathic physician on our show last week about his beliefs on nutritional philosophies, dietary planning. Basically, if he were to kind of choose a basic diet to prescribe to someone, what would be some of the features, some of the components of that diet? Do you have a certain diet or a certain nutritional plan that you think works well across the board for many individuals? I mean, still taking into account some amount of specificity, but from an overall general perspective, is there a certain diet that you believe is better than other diets?

Are you asking about a specific. I think generally what I would recommend and guide people towards and create meal plans for people are foods that are oriented around healthy sources of carbohydrates, healthy fats, eliminating saturated or severely reducing saturated fats and consuming no trans fats, diets that are moderately high in protein and high in omega 3 fatty acids and also well represented with plenty of fruits and vegetables to get antioxidants. Those are the diet principles that I use. And those would be, I guess, my outcomes for a diet like that would be to promote weight reduction if somebody's trying to lose weight, decrease inflammation and decrease the risk of diabetes. If somebody has a genetic preference disposition for that.

Yeah. I think it's interesting that both you and the gentleman, Dr. Todd, who I had on the show last week, one of the first things that you said was eat healthy fats. And I think that so many people just can't get that into their head that eating fat is okay. You know, the avocados, the almonds, the olives the olive oil, the coconut, coconut oil, seeds, things of that nature, plant derived fats, especially those actually teach your body how to burn fat efficiently and they're healthy, good long term burning fuels to put into your body. I think that's interesting that across the board we see healthy fats in diets or in good diets.

Right. And I think people still struggle with the fact of they need to be consuming healthy fats. And I think it's probably because for a long time dietitians and health professionals in general, including the American Heart association, recommended diets that were low in fat. And actually the current practice is to, like you said, consume healthy fats. So actually as a dietitian, I don't really focus in on total fat intake. I focus in on limiting the types of fats that promote inflammation and heart disease. And those are saturated and trans fats. And when you limit those types of fats, they automatically, your total fat intake is limited. Somebody's diet can be high in fat. Like 30, 35% of total fat intake could be represented. But it really depends on where the fats are coming from. I use olive oil and canola oils, avocados, nuts, olives and peanut butter all being healthy sources of fat. Flaxseed and the fats that are in fish, like salmon, are all really healthy. So a diet might be higher in fat, but you need to determine where the fat is coming from.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, with the trans fats and the fact that I think that they're illegal now in what, New York City, haven't they made them illegal in certain cities across the U.S. yeah. I'm sure that we'll see some new substitute that takes a few years for researchers to discover is just as bad as trans fats. But I think that's great advice is you just stick to the plant derived fats that aren't created in a factory or in a fast food joint and you're probably going to be good to go.

Yes, I agree with that.

You know, Stacy, I think we're running short on time, but we've gone over some really interesting things today and it would be really great perhaps in the future to have you back on the show to talk about some other things, perhaps in addition to blood sugar. But I think that the information that we got out there today is just going to be great for people to listen to and I look forward to getting it out there. I want to share again your website URL@staceytrogdon.com I'll put a link to that in the show notes. S T A C e y t R-O-G-O-O-N.com and Stacy, is there anything else, any other resources that you'd like to point our listeners to before we go?

You know, I think that if an athlete wants a good resource, I would steer somebody towards Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook, 4th Edition. Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook is a very good basic resource for recreational and endurance athletes. And if a person would like to read a nutrition newsletter, I would recommend environmental nutrition. And I think it's really important for individuals to be reading about nutrition on a consistent basis because the information changes all the time.

Yeah, that's so true. Well, thanks for coming on the show. Stacy and I will put a link to some of your recommendations for resources in the show notes for this week's podcast. And that is Today's interview from BenGreenfieldFitness.com thank you, Stacey.

Thank you, Ben.

So that's all the content this week from BenGreenfieldFitness.com a few things. Remember, you can go to the blog and post a comment or send me your questions. Ben greenfieldfitness.com is my email. I love to get listener comments and questions. Remember to leave us a ranking in itunes. If you get a chance to go into the podcast rankings, give us a few stars. That really helps us get the word out about this podcast. And then finally, if you haven't checked out Thermo Factor Metabolism Weight Loss Capsule yet, check that out. Remember, your discount code is getlean G E T L E A N R. And then for you triathletes out there, check out that new Ironman training plan. I'll put a link to all this stuff in the show notes. We've got a great interview coming up next week with a Chinese medicine practitioner and acupuncture specialist on how those techniques can help you in your journey to human performance and wellness. So be sure to check back next week. This is Ben Greenfield signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.