Kelsey HigginsonSports Nutrition Coach and Founder at Clutch Day Coaching

Should athletes cut out sugar?

1 Jul 2025 · 0 min

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0:28

In this instructional segment, the speaker explains that completely eliminating sugar would cause an athlete’s energy levels to plummet because muscles require carbohydrates for performance. However, the speaker clarifies that cutting out processed sugars—such as cakes, soda, candy, and cookies—does not harm performance provided the athlete continues to consume other carbohydrate sources like fruits, pasta, rice, and bread. The key message is to maintain adequate carbohydrate intake while avoiding processed sugars.

What would happen if an athlete cuts out all sugar? The first thing that would happen is your energy would tank. Your muscles need sugar or carbs in order to perform well. So if you have no sugar, you've got no energy. Now define what the sugar that you're cutting out is. If it's cakes, soda, candy, cookies, that's not going to affect your performance as long as you're keeping the fruits, the pastas, the rices, and the breads. We want to make sure that we're getting carbohydrates. I don't care if you're cutting out the processed sugars as long as we're filling up our plates with these other carbohydrates that we've been talking about.