Coca-Cola and sugar

Good, because as an ex-marathon runner I didn't use or need any energy drinks. We'd carb load pre run on other high carb foods such as pasta.

These 'energy' drinks are yet another useless item flogged by companies to the gullible.

Your body is designed to use glycogen stored in muscles as an energy source. When this starts to be depleted (after about 20 minutes) it switches over to accessing fat stores, so 50-50 glycogen and fat use. As you continue running your body starts to use up fat stores more effectively providing water is taken in at regular intervals.

At least this is what we were taught and it must have worked for us.

I've a friend who was a hill-runner and she used to carb load before a big day too. Sugar's just an even-quicker-to-where-it's-needed carb. That's the only difference between it and pasta.

Having said that, I've never really understood the pre-exercise carb loading thing. Eating a much slower release food before an energetic day would make much more sense to me instinctively.

DH has talked about that stuff, anya, but he seemed to think it was muscle tissue that got broken down rather than stored fat.
#don'taskmeIhaventaclue

Sugar will enter the bloodstream and be available for immediate use and then be quickly used up. Our fat reserves are there to be burnt to provide energy when carb supplies start to run down. Your DH is wrong I think. The body is not going to break down muscle until it has used up other available energy sources.

That would only happen when there's nothing else left to use. It wouldn't make sense biologically

How the body gets its energy

PS Bags the problem with eating a slow release food before a run is that 1) it would be bulky in the stomach as it will take time to digest and 2) when you are running your body slows down digestion to divert a greater percentage of its resources to lungs, muscles, heart, etc.. - parts of the body which are in greater need during this kind of exertion.

The body can store quick large amounts of glycogen if given the chance which is why runner build up this supply before a long run.

Thanks, anya, the order of food breakdown of carbs, fats, proteins is what I'd always understood too.

Re the PS, I was wondering about the heavy stomach load. I hate feeling over full and it certainly wouldn't make running (or, more probably in my case, dancing) any easier. Quite the reverse. I might need to eat more the day after a particularly strenuous evening of dance but not before.

One of my nieces is a mountaineering maniac (in the best sense!). When she organised a family hike up Snowdon that I went on, she said she suggested having a small carton of squash or fruit juice in one's pocket that one can sip at intervals during the climb. I found that very useful.

Next time you hike up Snowdon bags come down the Beddgelert path, there's a lovely home-made ice cream parlour there which will help top up your glycogen reserves

Anya we always stop for ice cream there too!

On The Wright Stuff this morning it was reported that Coca Cola is planning to take their distinctive Coca Cola lorries round various British towns at Christmas and distribute free (small) cans of Coke to children over 12 |(how would they know?). This is portrayed as a generous gesture, meant to contribute to the joyful spirit of Christmas, rather than a marketing ploy.

Yasmin Alabhai-Brown thought it was disgraceful. Richard Madeley thought she was being a "kill joy".

granjura I will state my views whenever and wherever I wish. I will certainly not ask your opinion Madam.

Bloody cheek.

Let's face it, most of this thread is just going round in circles anyway.

Not so jingl in fact if you kept an open mind you might find you'd learn something.

It's a blatant marketing ploy wrapped up as a kind gesture Eloethan - not a Richard Madeley fan at the best of times I always thought Judy was the brains of that team.

If it's blatant marketing, and I agree it is, does it matter? We should be teaching our young folk about blatant marketing and how to resist it/combat it.

A bottle of coke was very welcome to me twice in my life: once in Thailand when I'd run out of water, and once in a New York hotel when it's all there was when DH and I needed a rehydrating drink after a loooong flight and delays getting to the hotel. Foul stuff but it has its uses .

Apparently flat Coke is great if you've had a 'tummy upset' (euphemism for a word I can never spell)

Is not agreeing now to be classed as having a "closed mind"? I would have thought it was the opposite.

Bit pathetic there Anya.

I certainly do not advocate a high intake of sugar by anyone. You are talking to someone who breakfasts on non-sugared wallpaper paste Ready Brek. I just don't see the point of going overboard and becoming obsessive about it. A bit of sugar occasionally will not harm an otherwise healthy individual.

"Closed minds" are what the hearers have when they won't give up their own opinions in favour of what someone wants them to think.

You could say that handing out the tiny cans of Coke at Xmas helps to associate it with special occasions, rather than something to be indulged in year round.

And how do you know they do not offer the sugar free version? Which, so long as not drink excessively, is harmless?

It is very interesting. I remember when someone showed that saturated fat was worse for you than unsaturated fat and keen people at once turned away from fat completely as sheer poison. Now it is carbohydrate that is the number one enemy. Next year it will be protein, or perhaps liquids. It seems that everyone is looking for a magic way to lose weight fast by eliminating some rogue element from their diet.

As far as I can see, the worst thing for weight increase is dieting - those who are always on some restrictive diet or other are the ones who put on most and have to go on another one.

I never used the phrase 'closed mind' that was your interpretation jingl

Elegran we're talking specifically about sugar, and sugared drinks in particular, not about carbohydrates in general. And how firms with a vested interest are involved in research.

Yes, Anya but that has been extended by some posters to include carbohydrates full stop. There is a difference between fast-release carbs and slow-release carbs.

Jingl- just saying again and again that something is 'rubbish' and that you can't be bothered to read (learn) - is not really an 'opinion'- especially if repeated again and again. What is the point?

Discuss, debate, counter, disagree- all fine by me and all I am sure. To have an opinion, especially an informed one- needs indeed an open mind and agree to read evidence- even if to later counter it.

Otherwise it is just 'rubbish' as you so rightly say. And why is it a 'cheek' to give mine?