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Originally Posted by thingstodo
I have to disagree. Your body has no need of refined sugar. If it did you'd be able to find the stuff in nature and you wouldn't have to refine it! That's what leads to crashes. Refined sugars are empty carbs. That means they do nothing for your body but take up space. they don't even burn well for energy and are short term at best. That means you have to keep adding them the second they are gone. Why consume refined when there are better ways? Also, now is the time to develop good nutrition habits!!
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As for the weight loss results - great job and keep it up!! I read everywhere that 1-2 lbs a week is plenty, especially if you want to keep it off for the long-term. So if things even out, don't worry, just keep moving that needle.
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The sugar we're talking about in Gatorade and Accelerade (and I'm willing to bet most other sports drinks) is sucrose, which is found extensively through nature in plants. The refining part removes the rest of the plant from the sucrose, it doesn't change what it is. Sucrose is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose (the other two sugars found in Gatorade), two important energy molecules in the body. The other sugar found in Accelerade is trehalose (also found naturally), which according to wikipedia is a disaccharide of glucose.
I'm not exactly sure what "empty" carbs are, my assumption is it's something like empty calories which comes from a low nutrient density. I can assure you however these sugars do much more than just take up space, glycolysis is one of, if not, the most efficient/important process in the body for creating energy from foods. Also your body does store glucose in the form of glycogen for when your glucose demand increases beyond what is readily available in the cells/bloodstream. You do not have to keep consuming them as soon as they are used, consuming them shortly after/during use helps the body keep steady levels of glucose and aids recovery. If you ran out of glucose and didn't have any stored you would very quickly enter a sorry state of being.
The protein doesn't do much unless you aren't getting enough in your diet otherwise.
Thanks for the encouragement though, it helps to know people are on your side. While I haven't really leveled off yet, I know it's coming, drops like this don't hold off forever, I just hope it happens somewhere around 200 lbs so I only have to kick the exercise into high gear for the last 10 lbs or so.