The Hallmarks of Sugar-Based Energy

Sugar-Based Energy is Inconsistent

Training or eating to burn sugar can get you through the moment, but what about later? Chances are you’ll seriously strain your body’s ability to maintain its blood sugar levels. Once the blood-sugar level becomes unstable, you are susceptible to frequent energy highs and lows. You impair your mental alertness and ability to focus for long periods.

Sugar-Based Energy Makes You Acidic

As small amounts of sugar are being metabolized into energy, lactic acid is constantly being produced. It travels through the blood stream to the liver, where it gets converted into sugar (glucose) for use as energy. There is a natural give and take to this process in the body. The anaerobic fat-burning system gets rid of it (remember, some sugar burning is going on in the aerobic fat burning muscles). The more developed your aerobic fat burning system is, the more likely it is that you will be able to counterbalance and neutralize the lactic acid producing effect of sugar burning. As long as the lactic acid production remains low and manageable; your body can function and flourish.

Sugar-Based Energy Leads to Sugar Cravings

A normal body has approximately 160’000 calories of stored energy. Approximately 2’500 of those calories come from sugar, 23’000 from protein and a staggering 134’500 from fat. If you decided to run at a relatively high intensity for 60-90 minutes, you can metabolize approximately 1’000 calories of sugar – nearly 40 percent of your body’s total sugar stores. Your body cannot allow its sugar stores to be reduced by more than 25 percent without being replenished. Therefore, if you burn sugar, especially a relatively high percentage of your reserves, you set off an alarm signal in your brain, which demands you eat more sugar. However, if you metabolized 1’000 calories of fat, which is not even 1 percent of your fat reserves, there is no alarm signal demanding that you must eat more fat.

Just remember, if you burn sugar, you will crave sugar! Plus, your health will significantly deteriorate over time due to the fact that all the simple sugars being consumed will be metabolized into acids.

Sugar-Based Energy Causes Physical Aches & Pains

Constant sugar burning, and sugar eating, can exhaust your adrenal glands – the body’s primary defense mechanisms in the battle against stress and fluctuating blood sugar levels. The adrenals keep your body energized and satiated with water and electrolytes – and trigger a weakening in muscle groups with which they are associated. Dysfunctional adrenal glands can also inhibit the secretion of cortisone, the body’s natural inflammatory medication.

Burning Sugar Makes You More Vulnerable to Colds & Flu

Your best defense against colds, flu’s, and allergies is to build up a strong immune system. The immune system is composed of a complex network of organs containing cells that recognize foreign substances in the body and try to destroy them. However, regular high intensity sugar burning activity and work-related stress can produce excessive and dangerous levels of free radicals in the body, by products of energy production that can speed up the aging process.

Burning Sugar Reduces the Amount of Fat Your Body Burns

The more sugar your body burns, the less fat it uses. What are the benefits of burning fat? Stored fat accounts for more than 80% of the calories available as fuel to your body. Burning fat promotes health in ways that burning sugar can’t. The fat-burning system does not promote lactic acid build up, nor does it stimulate the production of harmful amounts of free radicals. Lower intensity training (Energy Zone) produces a greater amount of natural killer cells to help the body protect itself from viral, bacterial, and fungal attack. Fat-burning also stimulates the growth in size and number of mitochondria, the fat burning ovens found in muscle cells. Secondly, Energy Zone training increases your sensitivity to insulin. Increased insulin sensitivity means a decreased presence of this sugar burning, fat storing hormone, reducing the likelihood of high insulin production, and promotes stable blood sugar levels.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Serve others. And do what is right, not what is easy!