Sugars such as sucrose and fructose are the main ingredients in most sports drinks. Despite the commonness of the use of sugar in sports drinks, there is a great deal of confusion among athletes regarding the effects of these ingredients, the optimal types and sugars in sports drinks, and so forth. Here’s the straight dope on sugar in sports drinks.

First of all, sugar has a reputation as an unhealthy nutrient; consequently, there are those who believe that the use of sugar in sports drinks is bad. But sports drinks are formulated for a narrow use and to serve a specific function: to enhance exercise performance. Therefore, consuming the sugars in sports drinks could only be bad if they did not serve this function better than alternative ingredients, or if using sports drinks for their intended purpose caused major negative health problems that outweighed their performance benefits. But research has clearly demonstrated that the sugars in sports drinks enhance exercise performance significantly, and there is no evidence that consuming sports drinks exclusively within the exercise context causes weight gain and metabolic disorders, as general overconsumption of sugar is known to do.

Most endurance athletes understand that the sugars in sports drinks are beneficial, yet they are still affected by sugar’s negative reputation. Within this population, anti-sugar prejudice takes the form of a belief that certain fast-acting sugars in particular cause an energy spike followed by an energy crash that wreaks havoc on performance. According to this viewpoint, slower-acting sugars and non-sugar carbohydrates are better, because they provide a steady supply of energy that does not terminate in a crash.

These beliefs are completely misguided. In fact the human body is incapable of absorbing carbohydrate as quickly as carbohydrate is oxidized in the muscles during moderately intense to intense exercise. Thus, to get the maximum possible benefit from carbs consumed during exercise you want to consume the most rapidly absorbed and metabolized types of carbs possible. There is no advantage whatsoever in consuming carbs that take a long time to reach and be used by your muscles. To the contrary, relying on slower carbs will only exacerbate the unavoidable carbohydrate deficit that results from the differential rates at which carbs are burned and absorbed during exercise.

An excellent example is galactose, which is a slowly metabolized sugar that was once made the principle sugar in a sports drink made by a manufacturer that mistakenly believed that slow carbs are a good thing. But a study found that a sports drink containing the faster-acting sugars glucose and fructose enhanced cycling time trial performance significantly more than a galactose sports drink precisely because galactose takes so darn long to reach the muscles.

Also, the phenomenon of reactive hypoglycemia simply does not occur during exercise. No matter how much sugar of the fast-acting types you consume, you cannot and will not experience a rapid decline in blood glucose resulting from excessive insulin release, as is possible at rest. During intense exercise the only thing that will cause your blood glucose level to decrease is depleting your liver glycogen reserves, which will only happen faster if you fail to consume enough sugar or misguidedly consume “long-lasting complex carbohydrates for steady energy.”

Read more in the full article.

Track your sugar intake and other nutritional data along with your workouts in a free TrainingPeaks account!

Question: As a triathlete, should I be changing my diet through the year depending on my training? Like eating more protein in the winter, more carbohydrate in the summer, etc? In other words, do I change my diet throughout the training year?

Answer: This is actually a more complex question than you may realize! In training, we often hear the term “periodization” thrown around, which refers to splitting a training year into specific blocks that focus on specific aspects of training, like endurance, power or speed.

When addressing nutrition, periodization refers to dividing your yearly nutritional plan into several distinct segments that apply to daily, weekly, or monthly cycles of training. While there are many different ways to put together your annual training plan, the basic idea behind nutrition periodization is that your dietary habits should match your training habits.

Unfortunately, fueling your body for multi-sport training is not as simple as fueling a car. With a car, you simply put fuel in the gas tank when you’re running low or when you’re prepping for high mileage days. With triathlon, however, you not only have several different physiological systems, or “engines”, that you’re fueling, but you also have three different types of fuel: fat, protein, and carbs.

The key to nutrition periodization is to match the amount and timing of these three fuel types with the volume and intensity of your training (which affect which “engine” you’re using).

So you are essentially optimizing carbohydrate intake for glucose and glycogen derived energy, optimizing protein intake for lean muscle mass and immune system recovery, and optimizing fat intake for long fuel sources, as well as physiological balance of hormones and other fat dependent functions.

The final key is to manage your body weight (which ultimately affects your power:weight ratio) by adjusting your nutrition on days or periods of physical inactivity.

Sound complicated? A little bit, but not as much as it sounds. Let’s look at a few examples, using general terms to describe each period of the multi-sport season.

Base/Foundation training
This is the time of the season when you are laying down the groundwork of aerobic conditioning. Workouts are typically long and intensity fairly low, meaning that you’re using quite a bit of fat for fuel, and a good portion of carbohydrates as well. Remember, the lower the intensity, the more fat is used as a fuel for your “low-intensity engine”, and the harder you work, the more you turn to carbs as a fuel for your “high-intensity engine”. Not a huge amount of speed and force work is taking place, and with this decreased muscle repair demand, protein needs are lower (protein will be used to fuel your “muscle-building engine”). A sample carbohydrate/protein/fat percentage ratio might be about 60% carbs, 13% protein, and 27% fat.

Build/Intensity/Preparation
Your longer, harder efforts are increasing, and you are spending a greater period of time at lactate threshold. Many of your workouts include intervals and high intensity workouts, so dependence on carbohydrate as an energy source is increasing, and use of fat will decrease. Carbs now increase to 65%, protein increases to 15%, and fat drops a bit, down to 20% of total dietary intake.

Racing/Specialization/Peak
Efforts during this time of season are hardest, and involve difficult, high-intensity lactate threshold, above lactate threshold, and VO2 max efforts. A good deal of time is spent developing power, speed, and strength, which places a high demand on the body for carbohydrate (for high intensity energy) and protein (for muscle recovery). To enhance power:weight ratio, unnecessary amounts of subcutaneous fat should also be kept at a minimum during this phase, meaning your body fat percentage should be the lowest of the year. Ratios now increase to about 68% carbs, 17% protein, and decrease to 15% fat.

Recuperation/Strength/Recovery
As you transition into the off-season, and focus on goal setting, strength training, and cross-training, carbohydrate and total caloric needs will decrease, while protein will be more necessary for muscle building and recovery. A sample ratio would be back down to 60% carbs, with 18% protein, 22% fat.

Although it requires getting into more detail, these nutrient values can also be defined in terms of grams of fuel per kilogram of body weight. You have probably seen very high recommendations for protein intake in athletes, but the importance of carbohydrates and fat as fuel takes precedence for endurance athletes. At the most, protein only supplies about 15% of the total energy for exercise, and more than 1.4 grams of protein per pound of body weight has not been shown to give much benefit.

To help you have a more dynamic diet, I have created a periodized nutrition plan for TrainingPeaks called “Complete Nutrition Plan for Ironman Triathlon”. It can be used for Half-IM or IM triathletes, and it actually takes all these concepts and puts them together for you with zero guesswork. The plan is downloadable to your TrainingPeaks calendar. You can also check out Ben Greenfield’s Books on Amazon. Enjoy!

This article was also posted on TriathaNewbie.com, Guiding Beginner Triathletes into the World of Mini-Triathlons.

Army Combat Engineer Lee Highsmith is trying to keep his weight under 185 pounds, not only because of a family history of heart disease, but also because 3 roadside bombings have left his lower back too unstable to comfortably support a heavier frame. “One of the things I have to do is watch my weight. During my deployment to Afghanistan from 2006-2007, my vehicle was hit by a road side bomb on 3 separate occasions. Luckily, nobody ever got seriously hurt, just concussions and blurred vision and deafness for a short period of time. Before this happened, I was able to keep my weight around 190-195. Now if my weight gets to 187 or higher, my lower back starts giving me issues, especially when I’m running. My wife (who’s a medic) and a doctor have both said that the concussion from the 3 blasts have contributed to my lower back not being able to support the weight. Therefore I try to keep my weight to 185lbs or lower.”

In addition to his lower back, Lee has to take care of his heart. “I pay attention to my nourishment because I am not trying to end up like my father and have 2 heart attacks before 60 or like my uncle who had 2 heart attacks before he turned 45, not to mention the other heart issues throughout both sides of my family. I also want to set an example for my kids so that they don’t fill their bodies with junk and end up like a lot of kids these days, sitting around playing video games, watching movies, and eating junk food while getting fat.”

Aside from managing his weight, Lee also uses TrainingPeaks to quickly and easily record his runs, which include road marches involving approximately 100lbs of gear and lasting for no shorter than 6 miles but possibly as long as 25 miles. “I use TrainingPeaks to help track my progress in workouts as well as what I eat. With it, I am able plan what I want to do easier and it doesn’t take long to add the results of my workout to the calendar. I started using TrainingPeaks because it is easier than inputting everything into an excel spreadsheet, especially when it comes to comparing your progress. I can also use it to help with the physical training program that we use to develop our soldiers’ physical fitness.”

Lee originally discovered TrainingPeaks when he got his first training device. “I didn’t even know about TrainingPeaks until I got my Garmin Forerunner 305. I decided to check out the site and see what it was about. I was a little wary at first with having to pay for a site I didn’t know anything about, so I decided to try it for a month, before I committed to using it completely. Glad I did, because this site is really convenient and has loads of information.”

Lee’s training goals are a little different from those of other TrainingPeaks members, but the program still works well for him. “What am I training for? Best Sapper Competition. It is an annual competition for the Engineer Regiment, very similar to the famed Best Ranger Competition. The difference is that for Best Sapper, you have to be an Engineer or a Sapper School graduate in order to participate. At Best Ranger, you have to be Ranger qualified, period. It is an extremely physical, very grueling competition that not only tests your physical fitness, but also your knowledge in every aspect of your military occupational specialty (MOS). Teams spend months training for this competition.”

Lee’s job is also quite different from how many other TrainingPeaks members spend their days. “What is my job? I’m a combat engineer. Right now, with the current mission, we conduct road side bomb clearance. You can say we are the subject matter experts of Improvised Explosive Devices (second only to EOD, Explosive Ordnance Disposal who we work with). Other parts of our job range from fighting as infantrymen, to emplacing minefields and wire obstacles to deter the enemy or slow him down, and that’s not even scratching the surface. Our mission depends on what type of unit we’re in. We have the most diversified MOS (military occupational specialty) because we have to know A LOT more than the average combat arms soldier.”

Lee has been in the Army for 11 and a half years, leaving him 8 and a half more until retirement. He is currently on his 3rd deployment, with just a couple of months left in his rotation. “We’re on a 12 month rotation. We’re currently in our 10th month. This is my 3rd deployment with my first 2 being deployments to Afghanistan from 2001-2002 and then again from 2006-2007.”

Best wishes for a safe return, Lee.

With fall upon us and the long days of summer waning, the amount of time to train will change for most of us. This means less time on the bike with possible indoor activities that may not use the same amount of energy. A reduction in energy expenditure per day can happen due to the weather dictating more of our mode of exercise. So, have you thought about the change your eating needs to go through as well? Most likely not, and this is where we make the mistake in not pulling back the consumption of calories in our daily life. Taking the steps to learn what amount of energy your body needs to survive and applying the activity expenditures to find a balance will help you maintain your weight through the fall and winter. With this under control you can start spring training in a better place and find greater progress in the coming year.

Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) [also referred to as Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)] is a measure of the lean mass energy usage of the individual. Put another way, RMR is the amount of calories that muscles, bones, organs and the nervous system use to maintain a current state in the human body. This measure is displayed as an amount of calories used in a 24 hour period. Presented here are two methods to determine an individual’s RMR: indirect and direct measurements. An indirect method is using a math equation that takes into account the person’s gender, age, height and weight. A direct method begins with fasting for twelve hours to bring the body to a steady state. Once fasted and relaxed, expired air is captured for analysis while breathing into a measuring device for up to fifteen minutes. The latter is more accurate due to the known usage of fuels (carbohydrate, fat and protein) in the body by measuring the utilization of oxygen.

Once an individual knows the number of calories they use in a 24 hour period, they can set up daily feeding against daily expenditure. This is where most of us fall behind in accurately monitoring, by either over or under feeding. You can have two very similar individuals and get two distinct RMR readings from both types of measure. Using myself and Joe Athlete as an example:

Math example (indirect):
Rob: Age (38), Gender (Male), Weight (160lbs.) and Height (5’6”) =RMR 1640
Joe: Age (35), Gender (Male), Weight (162lbs.) and Height (5’7”) =RMR 1686

Gas collection (direct):
Rob: fasted 12 hours, tested early morning shortly after waking =RMR 1560
Joe: fasted 12 hours, tested early morning shortly after waking =RMR 1440

With my readings presented here you can see a small discrepancy between the direct and indirect methods-eighty calories. This difference could lead to overfeeding when following the math equation, which can add up to just over eight pounds of weight gain in a year. For Joe, his difference is actually over two hundred calories a day which can add up to twenty-five pounds in a year! This equation could easily trend the opposite direction as well and under feed over time. If this happens too often the body doesn’t have enough energy to adapt to the training, possibly leaving you short of your goals. So, it is important to be able to monitor your intake and expenditure by determining your RMR. OES offers the direct measure RMR test for several price points based on where you live. Check out the website under the ‘testing’ tab for details, www.optimizeendurance.com.

Many of the training data collection devices (i.e. Garmin, Polar, Timex) out on the market today will give you an estimate on expended calories from a ride or workout. Taking this information along with collecting calorie intake data you can start to find a sweet spot to which you can maintain your current state. You can also affect it by adding or taking away body weight. A free resource that I use with my coaching clients, called TrainingPeaks.com, allows for the upload of these devices and the journaling of nutrition data to compile your intake and expenditure into useful graphs. Once all this data is in the same place, it becomes much easier to see how the whole eating and exercising thing comes together. View the graph provided (above) to see my calories burned vs. consumed for a nine day period. The data box in the middle shows an expenditure of 6069 calories and a consumption of 5866 calories, only a negative of 203 calories for this day. Not a bad day considering it was 70 mile MTB ride in which I super compensated the three days prior in preparation for the ride.

So, as you can see real time data capture and knowledge of yourself can give you powerful information. You can make small changes over time to affect your body and your outlook.

Many qualified experts on training and nutrition use TrainingPeaks to help manage their business. Now, a select few are offering professional training and nutrition advice on our blog. The views expressed here are the opinions of the experts and as such do not represent the official position of TrainingPeaks. Read on to learn more about the expert.

About the author:

Rob Lockey, CSCS, ACSM/HFS and a USA Cycling LII Certified Coach, provides testing and coaching through Optimize Endurance Services. Contact him at 303-356-9893 or rob@optimizeendurance.com

Answer: If your goal is to maximize your body’s ability to burn fat as a fuel, then I would give you a couple of suggestions. Zone 2 is definitely the fat burning zone in which your body relies most heavily on fat as its primary source of energy. That being said, it doesn’t necessary mean that by spending more time in Zone 2 you will increase that ability. I am not sure exactly why you want to increase your ability to burn more fat, but I can think of two major reasons and for each reason there is a different solution to the problem.

Situation#1: If you are trying to lose weight and burn off excess fat, then you actually need to train more in zone 4 and 5 in order to stimulate your fat burning metabolism.  There is a myth out there that staying in the fat burning zone helps you to lose weight.  Actually, it just makes sure that you don’t burn carbohydrates as fuel and the intensity stays low.  If you want to lose excess body fat, then you have to ’stoke’ the fire so to speak and that means exercising very intensely.  By exercising in Zone 4 and 5, then you burn off all your carbohydrates and then in the 4 hours after your workout, you burn a ton of fat as fuel. That’s the key to really losing some excess weight.

Situation #2: If you want to burn fat in order to extend your endurance range in a racing situation, then I would offer a few different suggestions.  Many pros that I coach always want to improve their ability to burn fat in races and therefore spare essential glycogen reserves for later in the race when they need them most. This means teaching your body to use fat first and foremost in every workout.  One of the ways to do this is to start off every ride early in the morning before breakfast and ride for at least 2 hours before starting to feed.  Ride at Zone 2 and 3 for those 2 hours and then your body is forced to burn fat.  At the end of 2 hours, start eating some carbs and protein and then finish your ride with intensity and intervals. This will help to teach your body to burn fat at a higher level of exercise intensity, thereby sparing your carbohydrate stores for later.

Hope this helps!

Hunter Allen, co-author of Training and Racing with a Power Meter with Andrew Coggan