Real Talk | Runners and Fuel Sources

05 Jun Real Talk | Runners and Fuel Sources

Doc talks about what fuels your body when you go for a run.

I bet we could say that everybody in the United States could go for at least two weeks without eating with no ill side effects whatsoever. Now, a lot of people would push back on me and say, well, that wouldn’t be healthy. I didn’t say it wouldn’t be healthy. I’m saying you wouldn’t have any ill wanted side effects from it. There wouldn’t be any devastating thing that would happen to him in two weeks. Oh, you’ll be uncomfortable. You’re going to have some stomach pains. Reading through the literature of that fellow that went for 386 days. He said if source two or three months were the hardest after that. It was a cakewalk. I guess he just got used to feeling the new him, but it is it hunger is an incredibly thing to overcome. A lot of things we get from it is the shakes hypoglycemia. People are thinking all they it’s it is a horrible feeling. I’ve gotten those before myself and it’s not pleasant to be for sure. Heart rate kicks up breakout and the sweat get a little bit lightheaded shaking like a leaf on a tree, but there is something good behind that. That means my blood sugar is bottoming out, which means I don’t have any blood sugar left. Well, if I only have no blood sugar left, I only have one fuel left to burn, don’t I? That’s fat. Now I’m losing weight. So I tell people when you get those feelings of shakiness and lightheaded and sick to your stomach. All you gotta do is get up and go for a brisk walk. Get your heart rate up. You’ll blow right through it and they’re sitting there thinking how does that work? Well, you look at marathon runners when they’re running 26 miles. You mean to tell me at the end of 26 miles, they’re actually going to have some sugar left in their bloodstream? No, they lost that blood sugar at mile 5 mile 6 because they only contain that much sugar in their body at mile 5 mile 6 mile 7. They’re out of sugar. They only have one fuel left to burn. But you know, what’s interesting is you don’t see him at mile 7 stopping shaking like a leaf on a tree getting lightheaded. Oh my God, where am I running to? No, their body made the switch for them. We are sitting down not doing anything when that occurs. We’re not active. So that blood sugar is drifting down and your body’s sitting there thinking my God, are you going to get up and do something? Or we’re going to have to switch over here. And the only way we can switch is to release adrenaline. A little bit of norepinephrine, epinephrine, that helps us break down free fatty acids. Gives us the fuel we need to keep on pushing through. When you’re running, your body knew was going to run out of weight. You started releasing adrenaline the minute you started running down the road and it just takes about 5-6 miles to run out of your sugar. Now you’re going to burn fat the rest of your journey.