Weekend Q&A: How Much Added Sugar Is "Unhealthy" If Your Goal Is Body Composition? Artwork

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Wits & Weights | Strength Training & Fat Loss Over 40

Weekend Q&A: How Much Added Sugar Is "Unhealthy" If Your Goal Is Body Composition?

February 24, 2024 • Philip Pape, Nutrition Coach & Physique Engineer

0:00 | 9:40

How does relatively high sugar affect your health, training, and gains?

We're dissecting the sweet debate on how sugar influences body composition and its role in bulking and strength training. With a magnifying glass on the complexities of carbohydrates, from added sugars to whole foods, I'll guide you through the murky waters of muscle building and fat storage.

The question we're answering is:

"Intuition and general knowledge says it’s not the “healthiest” choice to fill your diet with a bunch of chocolate, sugar, and other treats. But, I’d like to understand more about WHY that’s the case, especially when I have 320 carbs and almost 3,000 calories allotted to me on weekends.

What does that do for my body composition?

Given that I’m bulking, strength training, and eating protein at optimal levels, can my carb choice make me fatter or create different results than if I ate mostly whole food or unprocessed carbs?

For example, for breakfast lunch and dinner I will generally eat oats, rice, and potatoes, and occasionally wheat hamburger buns. For mid day snacks I will eat fruits or rice cakes. Over Christmas I got a LOT of candy. I generally have ~120g of sugar per day, including 34g of added sugars. I understand it’s OK in moderation especially when I’m hitting all the other targets. But, given I hit my carb target every day: how is relatively high sugar intake affecting my training and gains?"

Get the answer in today's Weekend Q&A bonus episode.

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This is a special Weekend Q&A edition of the Wits & Weights podcast, where we supercharge your Saturdays with an answer to one burning question so YOU can put it into action this weekend.

These questions are taken from the weekly #AskPhilip thread in our free Wits & Weights Facebook community. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the endless amount of information and, let’s be honest, MISinformation online and just want a straight up answer without the jargon, that’s what this free service is for.

With the weekly #AskPhilip thread, you can post a specific question relevant to your unique, individual situation that week and have it answered live by me on Friday. If you’d like to experience it yourself, I invite you to use the link in the show notes to join the Wits & Weights Facebook group. It’s totally free and you’ll quickly find out what a positive and supportive community it is.

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Effects of Sugar on Body Composition

Speaker 1 0:00

How much added sugar is unhealthy if your goal is body composition ? How does relatively high sugar affect your health , training and gains ? Find out on today's weekend Q&A bonus episode . Welcome to the Whits and Weights podcast . I'm your host , philip Pape , and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger , optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition . We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement , metabolism , muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry , so you can look and feel your absolute best . Let's dive right in .

Speaker 1 0:41

Hello and welcome to the special weekend Q&A edition of the Whits and Weights podcast , where we supercharge your Saturdays and Sundays with an answer to one burning question so you can put it into action this weekend . These questions are taken from the weekly Ask Philip thread in our free Whits and Weights Facebook community . If you're feeling overwhelmed by the endless amount of information and , let's be honest , misinformation online and just want a straight up answer without the jargon , that's what this free service is for . With the weekly Ask Philip thread , you can post a specific question relevant to your unique individual situation that week and have it answered live by me on Friday . If you'd like to experience it yourself , I invite you to use the link in the show notes to join the Whits and Weights Facebook group . It's totally free and you'll quickly find out what a positive and supportive community it is .

Speaker 1 1:37

With that , let's get to today's Q&A . Why its question is intuition and general knowledge says it's not the quote unquote healthiest choice to fill your diet with a bunch of chocolate , sugar and other treats . But I'd like to understand more about why that's the case , especially when I have 320 grams of carbs and almost 3000 calories allotted to me on weekends . And what does that do for my body composition ? Given that I'm bulking , strength training and eating protein at optimal levels , can my carb choice make me fatter or create different results than if I eat mostly whole food or unprocessed carbs ? For example , for breakfast , lunch and dinner I'll generally eat oats , rice potatoes and occasionally wheat hamburger buns . For midday snacks I'll eat fruits or rice cakes . Over Christmas I got a lot of candy .

Speaker 1 2:27

Looking at macro factor , I generally have 120 grams of sugar per day , 34 grams of added sugars . I understand it's okay in moderation , especially when I'm hitting all the other targets . But given I hit my carb target every day , how is relatively high sugar intake affecting my training and gains and there's some follow-ups here . But I'm going to focus on some of the aspects of your diet . So , first of all , the question about sugar 120 grams of sugar per day , 34 grams of added sugars and for anyone who wants to know how to figure that out , if you go into macro factor and if you don't use macro factor , start using it right away . What are you waiting for ? Use my code witzenweights all one word . It'll change your life . So in macro factor in the food log , if you tap on the macros at the top , you can see for different periods . You can see today , one week , one month , I think three months and one year . Something like that is different ranges , the average of all your macros and micros , including sugar and added sugar . So , for example , you said it's 120 grams of sugar per day . I think I get something like 100 a day .

Speaker 1 3:33

Now , sugar comes from a lot of sources natural whole food sources , including fruit , and there's nothing wrong with fruit and you can pretty much have as much as you want . It also comes from other sources of carbs . Right and complex carbs , of course , have sugars in them . The added sugar is 34 grams . I think the American Heart Association for Men recommends limiting daily added sugars to 36 grams . I looked at it before I recorded here or went live . I think it's 36 . So , whether or not you agree with or want to follow government or association recommendations , you're still under that limit as well .

Speaker 1 4:11

The simple answer to this is always going to be it depends on you and your biofeedback . How do you feel , how do you perform , and so on . Less , much more so than some of the myths we hold onto about carbs making you fat and having too much sugar making you fat and this and that . However , having said all that , if you have too much sugar in your diet , it's going to displace other things , of course , it's going to displace more nutrient-dense foods . Now , again , we're talking added sugars , because natural sugars are found in whole foods that have lots of nutrients . So we don't want to confound the two , and what I would do why it , of course is look at a given day that matches that profile and drill down into the meals that show the higher sugars and see where the natural sugars come from , just to take comfort in the fact that they are probably mostly coming from whole foods . And then the added sugars are maybe where the concern is , but the amount isn't that much .

Speaker 1 5:04

I'm going to be honest A few things that you might be concerned about . Blood sugar regulation If you have a lot of added sugar , it's going to cause probably a more rapid blood sugar and insulin spike really any form of simple sugar and people are worried about this . People are worried about this in the context of fat gain from carbs , for example , your strength training . You are utilizing those carbs very effectively and I suspect that there's no issue there when it comes to metabolic disease and whatnot , and this is why I always talk about having more muscle and strength training , being so protective against those things . There's also the idea that too much sugar promotes fat gain , promotes visceral fat gain due to insulin driven fat storage pathways . Again , I think that's mitigated somewhat by a healthier lifestyle , by lots of activity , by lots of movement , and again , the added sugar amount you have is probably far less than what the average person walking around is getting , let alone people that have even more unhealthy lifestyles .

Speaker 1 6:06

And there's some other trickier areas . There's the inflammatory response that could be caused by added sugars . I find any discussion of inflammation , cell inflammation , of gut micro and gut health kind of a mystery , and it's not just me . I think the general body of knowledge is in primitive stages right now when it comes to understanding of gut health , for example , and inflammation , and there's so much misinformation about inflammation which leads to recommendations for certain extreme diets . It's always do low carb or do carnivore because it's going to reduce inflammation .

Speaker 1 6:43

We're not going to jump to those conclusions , but what I would say is , if you notice that you just feel more bloated , sluggish , you get brain fog , you get any sort of symptoms that are off from what is optimal for you and you want to experiment with just hey , I'm just going to get those candies out of my diet and replace them with other things like fruit , and see if there makes a difference , then great , some people , you're training so hard and you're lifting weights and you need all those carbs . Your body is just going to consume them as energy . Right , when you get them , it's going to help with your glycogen and you're going to move on and sit pretty . There's a reason that some old school bodybuilders ate gummy bears and things during and after the workout . That's what you want to do , but I'm also saying it may not be a big deal for you .

Speaker 1 7:33

What's the other thing ? No , we talked about gut health and the gut microbiome . There is a theory that too much sugar causes quote unquote bad bacteria to be able to feed more and grow and displace the better bacteria . So this could affect not only digestion but all the things that the gut cascades to in your body , which is a pretty complicated subject . It's funny you bring this up because I did have Josh Deck on my show . His episode will be coming out , I want to say March 1st . It may be sooner than that , but I think that's what it is . It's all about that . The gut microbiome , gut health . We talk about sugar , we talk about these things .

Speaker 1 8:10

Long story short , man . See how you feel . Is it causing any issues , any symptoms of any kind ? If you're feeling just as fine as you did with less sugar , it's probably fine for you . You're also within the AHA recommendation . If that makes you feel better , great . If you'd rather have more nutrient-tense foods and not so much candy , just displace them with other things that taste great instead of candy , and fruits are perfectly a good substitute . All right , man , hope that helps .

Weekly Q&A for Health and Fitness

Speaker 1 8:39

That's it for today's weekend Q&A bonus episode . Remember this is just a small part of the weekly Ask Philip live Q&A in the Wits and Weights Facebook group , which you can join totally free using the link in the show notes . I invite you to join us as we improve our health and physique together . Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights . If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits or Weights , please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode . Until then , stay strong .