PODCAST - Sugar Is Killing You (And You Don’t Even Know It)
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[00:00:00] Sugar is killing you and you don't even know it. ~Well, ~today I'm gonna share ~with you first of all, ~how much sugar you should actually be getting. What happens when sugar enters your system? I am gonna talk about sugar's impact on the deadliest diseases in the world that take the most lives every single year.
Then I'm gonna talk about what you can do in your life to escape the clutches of sugar, and I'm gonna share with you the impact of sugar and what it means to be an athlete with asthma. Now I am an ultra endurance athlete with asthma ~and sugar, ~and carbs are extremely helpful for me in races and ~in ~training. ~I, ~in order to achieve what I've achieved, winning a hundred K Ultras training for my 12 hour [00:01:00] endurance race that goes through the night, I'm going to be eating sugar.
~Now ~I personally try and stay away from processed sugar, and even though you can get quick energy from processed sugar and so much processed sugar is sold to us, especially as endurance athletes, the gels, the gummies, all these ~different ~things are ~just ~packed with processed sugar. There are better ways ~for us ~to get the sugar ~that ~our body needs to create ~that ~energy and ~for us to ~achieve our goals.
And we're gonna get there later on in this episode.
Welcome to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host Johnny Ha, an ultra runner endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone a hundred K ultra. I prove them [00:02:00] all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
To start, how much sugar should you be intaking on a daily basis? Well, for men it's somewhere around. 36 grams. And remember, this is just sugar in general. This isn't processed sugar. This is healthy sugar. It's gonna be sugar from fruit, honey, all these different things that are healthy for you, [00:03:00] 36 grams or less per day for women.
This figure is somewhere around 25 grams or less, and this is based on the A HA American Heart Association. ~With that being said, typically out of the 36, 25 grams of sugar, whatever it is,~
you need to be keeping your processed sugar less. And 10 grams per day. Zero would be best processed ~sugar, white ~sugar is very bad for our systems. Children under two. Should have zero added sugar. They can have fruit. This should be zero grams of added sugar. ~This processed sugar, I~
fruit is fine, but zero grams [00:04:00] for children. In general, ~you're looking at. ~25 grams or less. So what do we ~all ~typically eat in America
the actual sugar intake is on average 68 grams. This is basically double. If not triple the amount of sugar we should be having in our system on a day-to-day basis. This is why one in three people over the age of 65 end up with diabetes. This is why two thirds or more of Americans are overweight. Now it's not completely our faults that we're eating so much sugar. Well, going to the local donut shop, and one of the craziest things I've ever [00:05:00] seen is some of the biggest and most renowned hospitals ~in the world ~have donut shops in their lobbies. Crazy. There are obviously things that we know have sugar and ~uh, ~are obvious that we need to avoid.
Cakes, ice cream, donuts, ~brown sugar, powdered sugar, ~sugary drinks like soda. Sugary alcoholic beverages. We know that there's sugar in these things. Well, sugar isn't just in these things. It is hidden in sauces. The other day, my significant other and I, ~we ~went out for Chinese food and even though we didn't get dessert. There was sugar in probably every single sauce that we had. There is sugar in yogurt. [00:06:00] Even if you think you're buying a yogurt that just has fruit added for flavor, I bet you that most of the time there's also added sugar.
I love kombucha. For the longest time I could get my favorite kombucha brand and there was no added sugar. Now there's a couple grams of added sugar in my favorite Kombucha brand, and I still drink it on occasion. I don't drink it nearly as much as I used to. Maybe one 16 ounce bottle a week, versus ~I used to have it ~every day, ~so.~
Drinks. I mean that is an obvious one too. But drinks that we may not think have sugar. ~Uh, ~fruit juices. Fruit juices don't just have a bunch of natural sugar and if they do just have a lot of natural sugar, it's still a lot of sugar to enter our system all at once. There can also be added sugar dried fruits.
You can have a lot [00:07:00] of added sugar. Healthy bars have added sugar. I'll tell you this, those snack bars you ~get and ~bring on your hike that you think you should be eating because you're on a hike, is basically a candy bar, and you are most likely not doing enough exercise during that hike to burn that whole thing.
I even as an ultra runner, avoid eating those things. Instead, we make homemade power bars where it's all natural sugar and it's not even that much sugar. We put more carbs ~and ~proteins and healthy fats in the bars. We have bread condiments. Yeah, ketchup salad dressings. So you know how you're on that salad diet now and you're not losing any weight [00:08:00] or your A1C and other leading indicator blood numbers, blood test numbers aren't going down.
~Well, ~it might be because the salad dressings ~you're using ~have sugar in them. This is why I opt for olive oil and lemon. ~Just ~freshly squeezed lemon ~in my salad dressings ~and that's it. Sometimes I'll put a little mustard in there, maybe a little honey if I want something sweet. But typically just olive oil and lemon is enough.
If after you eat something. You start feeling maybe a little irritable, maybe you have a spike of energy, and then 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes later, your energy dips. There was probably sugar in what you ate. There was at least carbs in it. So I invite you to really look beyond the donuts, the cakes, the ice creams, and start really thinking about what else is in your diet.[00:09:00]
We love going to sushi and ~we ~have a favorite all you can eat sushi place. And I especially love ~doing ~this during big training cycles. I'm in the middle of a pretty big training cycle right now. Last week I ran 80 miles this week I'm. Running 90, so 170 miles in two weeks. It's ~actually the biggest training cycle I've ever done.~
~This is my second time doing that.~
~It actually, Ty, is ~the biggest training cycle I've ever done ~doing 170 miles in two weeks. Well, ~I have the calories to eat. All you can eat sushi. ~What ~we've realized is 'cause we have really started prioritizing our sleep, and I have an entire podcast episode about how the majority of people are sleep deprived and are functionally drunk.
~Are you? ~I highly recommend you check out that episode. ~Well, ~we've been very cognizant of sauces now, and we're even ordering ~our ~sushi and other things without sauces. ~Now, ~we still like to get Costco ice cream, ~and I love sauce. Serve ice cream in general. But ~if you're going to ~eat these things, ~eat sugar, ~then ~you need to burn it right away.
~You need to do something after it. ~So I'll run five, 10 miles after eating ~a serving of ~Costco ice cream. ~Just really yogurt. ~I love yogurt [00:10:00] as an alternative to other sugar retreats, but you gotta be careful what yogurt you buy. ~Okay.~
~So ~before I get into the impact that sugar has on ~the ~major diseases ~that afflict us as humans, let's, ~I wanna share ~with you ~what happens when sugar enters our system. It does one of three things. ~He thinks ~the first thing is immediately.
Used as energy ~or consumed for energy. This is a positive outcome. ~Sugar comes in your system, your body needs the energy burns it. Sugar is used metabolized into energy. This is why if you are an endurance athlete or an athlete in general, this is. Why you need sugar in your system Now I opt for fruits for sugar in my system.
I remember when I was a kid, I played a lot of soccer ~as a kid ~year round, despite having asthma, ~I played year round. ~I trained my lungs ~up ~since I was four ~years old, to be able ~to play full [00:11:00] games, three to five games ~in ~a day, tournament, weekends, ~all this stuff. Well, ~one of the things that fueled me ~during that ~was orange slices.
~And similarly, last year when I was, and ~similarly back in 2024, ~I remember ~I discovered how much I liked eating pairs deep in ultra races when in my a hundred K Ultra, I couldn't stomach anything other than three pairs, 50 miles into my a hundred K or 62 mile ultra race
fruit is a great source of sugar and energy. However, if you eat any kinda sugar processed or not processed, this is what happens. Sugar does this first immediately as energy. Second, if you eat sugar and you don't have a need for the energy. Then it will be stored [00:12:00] as fat,
if immediately using sugar as energy is a positive outcome, then it being stored as fat is actually more of a neutral outcome come, well, this can cause
~issues with. ~Issues with weight gain, obesity, et cetera, from a metabolic perspective, ~you at some point, ~at least for me as an ultra runner, if I burn through all ~of ~my sugar energy, ~then yeah, I mean, ~I'm going to start burning ~some ~fat way back when humans would ~only ~eat one meal and then. ~They ~gorge themselves.
I'm talking about ~like ~caveman era ~here, and then won't eat for a few days is what would happen. ~Sugar would be stored as fat. All these things would be stored as fat so that you have a energy source to pull from.
There is healthy and unhealthy fat accumulation. So you wanna check with your doctor with all this. And [00:13:00] by the way, disclaimer, I am not a healthcare professional. I'm a disclaimer linked in the show notes and in the YouTube description, definitely check with your doctor with everything that I'm sharing with you today.
~So ~if sugar isn't burned ~and converted into energy ~or stored as fat, ~which by the way, ~you could be very skinny. And, ~uh, ~still store a bunch of sugar as fat. You can also be very large and not ~actually ~have ~the ~space to store sugar as fat. I highly recommend you check out the book Outlive by Dr. Peter Atia.
I have it linked in the show notes and in the YouTube description talks all about how this works, and you can get the medical perspective of all of this. The crazy thing though is if we don't burn it and we don't have the room in our system to stored as fat, and then number three happens, [00:14:00] and this is the worst one, it just floats around our bloodstream.
This is not good. ~This ~causes inflammation, causes diabetes, ~can cause ~other diseases when sugar floats around your bloodstream. ~'cause it wasn't burned and we couldn't sort as fat. ~It impacts your sleep, ~impacts your ~mood, irritability. ~It causes ~this is why we get our A one Cs checked and our blood tests because that is the average amount of sugar floating around your bloodstream.
We wanna lower rate. Check with your doctor about what that rate needs to be. For me, I know when this is happening because it increases my heart rate. My resting heart rate is between 35 and 40 beats per minute. It almost doubles it.
~And uh, ~in that case, I can't sleep. I'm angry, so what do I ~usually ~do ~when that happens? Well, I know it's there, so ~I put myself in a place to burn it, to create energy.
[00:15:00] Hey, friend, I wanted to take a moment to ask you a quick question. Are you struggling to lose weight due to your asthma? If so, I get it. I used to run marathons and still kept gaining weight. It wasn't until I learned about the three pillars of healthy living that everything changed,
so I put together a healthy living guide that you can access absolutely free by clicking the link in the description. This guide shares these amazing three pillars of healthy living that you can easily integrate into your life. To start losing weight and live healthier today. Click the link [00:16:00] in the description or go to athlete with asthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your free copy.
Now let's get back to the rest of the show.
Now let's look at how sugar impacts the four biggest diseases ~in our culture. ~First, diabetes I, when we have all of this sugar unused, not stored as fat, bouncing through our system. It creates ~something called ~insulin resistance, ~and what that does is that sadly means that ~one in three people, ~I ~65 plus has diabetes.
This equates to.
38 million [00:17:00] Americans and ~even crazier ~96 million are pre-diabetic,
which means that you are metabolically dysfunctional even more. Americans are pre pre-diabetic, which means that your body is not metabolically healthy. The craziest thing about diabetes, and you'll learn even more about this in the book Outlive by Dr. ~A ~Peter Attia, is ~that insulin resistance, sugar, ~insulin resistance, and processed sugar.
Even if you're not part of the 38 million Americans or one third of people, 65 plus who have diabetes, maybe you're part of the 96 million, her pre-diabetic ~or the numerous that are pre, pre, pre, pre.~
This. Affects the other major diseases. Let's look at cancer.
this is what put me on the path of I want to cut as much [00:18:00] processed sugar outta my life as possible. Did you know that cancer cells thrive on glucose, specifically
cancer cells eat 10 times or more
glucose.
The normal cells.
So when you're feeding yourself sugar, you're feeding your cancer cells sugar. We all have cancer cells inside of us. ~You just do so ~by decreasing your sugar. Maybe you're decreasing your chances of cancer. Yet again, I'm not a healthcare professional, so I highly recommend you talk to your healthcare provider about this we got the biggest disease out there, cardiovascular
disease,
sugar spikes. So yet again, that sugar bouncing around our system in our [00:19:00] bloodstream, creating pre pre-diabetes, which Dr. Peter Atia talks about in detail and outlive. That's why I'm just leading it as pre. Pre, so you can go learn more there. The 96 million ~of ~pre-diabetic and ~the ~38 million ~of ~diabetic sugar spikes cause inflammation and inflammation.
It equals arterial damage.
It also makes our hearts work harder. Creases strain on our hearts.
Our hearts are pumping that excess sugar through our system has to work harder when there's more of it. Our resting heart rate goes up, which means our heart rate in general goes up. Sugar is a big factor in cardiovascular health. Last is neuro logical damage or diseases dementia. [00:20:00] Alzheimer's brain fog.
Sugar is directly linked to these things.
Sugar impacts sleep negatively. ~Well, ~when you decrease ~your ~sleep. Your brain doesn't have time to repair itself. Your whole body doesn't have time to repair itself. That's why you deal with your sugar intake. You increase your sleep, ~you ~decrease all of these things
now I wanna share ~with you ~what you can start doing today to aid in your metabolic health and to live a healthier life. The first thing is cut out, added
and processed sugar.
~Now, I shared with you that ~I love ice cream ~and ~specifically Costco ice [00:21:00] cream. I love different types of foods that have sauces, that have sugar in 'em. So. What you really need to do is just be mindful of your intake of added and processed sugar. ~Do your best to ~keep it under 10 grams a day, and if you ~are going to ~eat it, ~then number two, ~burn it.
Work out after. ~Eating sugar now. This is any type of sugar. ~Take a walk, even if it's fruit, even if it is honey. Work out. Use that sugar. We don't want it bouncing around our bloodstream. ~That's number two. ~Number three.
Eat fruit
berries have amazing anti-inflammatory and [00:22:00] antioxidant ~antiflammatory ~properties. ~So ~when you eat fruit, ~yeah, ~you get ~that ~sugar, but ~you ~also ~get other ~health benefits. ~So ~replace ~that ~added sugar with fruit. Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, apples, bananas. ~You gotta be careful though.~
You still wanna be mindful of eating fruits and not using the energy ~that you get ~from them right away. ~So you still circle back to number two here. Another thing I do is I substitute. Healthy sugar sources like organic honey, so ~substitute sugar for organic honey.
Honey ~also ~has amazing healing properties. ~Another thing. Because ~Tatiana ~and I both do like to bake. She ~is a much better baker than me. I ~will ~make waffles pretty frequently ~though. And ~recipes call for sugar in ~most of these things. ~Waffles, pancakes, muffins, scones, ~all these things. ~What you can do is either substitute, so you're either gonna [00:23:00] substitute.
The sugar for organic honey, or really you wanna do both of these things, cut sugar in recipes in half or more. I don't even like. Recipes that have a ton of sugar in them. If I eat a cookie that has the amount of sugar that's in these recipes, I actually feel sick than if I have a cookie that has half the sugar and it's from an alternative source, like organic honey. you wanna make ~sure that you come up with ~a list of ~all the things that are ~your biggest sugar triggers. For me, ice cream is number one. I love ice cream. It's the best thing ever. And I still eat it when I eat it much less. And what I've done is I have actually substituted. Yogurt without [00:24:00] added sugar, by the way,
has replaced
ice cream for me.
~Without the added sugar. ~I love Icelandic yogurt. It is so good. ~And yes, ~I get the normal one, not the low fat, 'cause I'm eating it as a replacement for ice cream. I still have ice cream and I have it way less because I've done this. And same thing for you. You need to think about what ~is the thing that ~you are going to miss the most with sugar.
Maybe it's soda. I luckily have never really been in the soda. ~Well, ~if it's soda, ~then ~you can replace that with sparkling water and ~then ~adding fruit to it. I actually, when I found out that there was a lot of sugar in kombucha and there's added sugar and some of my favorite kombuchas, now I opt for sparkling water as a replacement, and ~I ~squirt in some lemon ~squirt in some ~lime.
~And I drink that ~you need to come up with a replacement so ~that ~this becomes ~a lot ~easier for you.
The last thing ~is,~
~okay, and the last one.~
Is eat sugar earlier in the day
~earlier. So ~go against what culture tells [00:25:00] you to do
sugar or dessert after dinner is the worst thing you could do instead of having dessert after dinner. Have it after lunch. Have it after breakfast. I have it earlier in the day so that you have time to burn it when you have it later in the day, you're setting yourself up for poor sleep. I have a whole episode about poor sleep and how it affects our health as humans eat sugar earlier in the day, preferably before noon, before noon.
Now I want to help you even more. And that's why I put together my three Pillars of Healthy Living Guide, where I go through the three pillars of healthy living movement, tracking and accountability, and how you can integrate these three pillars into your life today. By taking a couple minutes of your time [00:26:00] to ingest this Healthy Living Guide ~and okay.~
You can grab your free copy in the show notes. In the YouTube description or going to www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your free copy today. This Healthy Living Guide is a conglomerate of principles ~that ~I came up with while. Losing 40 pounds and keeping it off ~just ~by integrating these three pillars into my life, I am living much healthier, happier, and a fulfilling life as a human and an ultra endurance athlete with asthma. Speaking of asthma, sugar also has a negative impact on asthma. Sugar
equals inflammation, inflammation. Equals narrowed [00:27:00] airways, which means decreasing your lung capacity.
So ~along with everything we talked about today, ~by decreasing your sugar intake, your asthma should theoretically get better because you're going to reduce the amount of inflammation in your body, which is going to open up your airways and. Increase your lung capacity. I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. I. It is about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals, and if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and [00:28:00] share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible.
