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Fitness, Supplements

Dextrose Supplements And Fitness

Dextrose Supplements And Fitness

  • October 4, 2010 6:36 pm
  • 8 comments

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Author evilcyber visit my website

Sometimes knowledge doesn’t prevent you from doing something really stupid, if you choose to ignore what you know but should be well aware of.

Rain And Retching

Last week it constantly rained around here, so I hopped on our stationary bike to do my cardio and went for a 36 minute HIIT regime: warm-up, 4 minutes 200W, 3 minutes 150W etc.

Already after the first 10 minutes I felt that my performance won’t be the best, so I went for fewer RPM. But when I finished my unit, my pulse was still above 175 and during the cooldown I started feeling shaky. When I finally got off the bike I trembled and just trying to put on my sweater gave me really bad nausea and led to actual retching. I had to lie down for 15 minutes and take a dextrose tab to get my blood sugar level to normal again.

My Total And Utter Stupidity

While I was lying there on the couch I analyzed what had happened and came to the conclusion that I had been utterly and completely stupid.

I hadn’t eaten much that day and felt slightly tired and yet not very hungry. To have energy for my cardio session I had two of those dextrose tabs before getting on the bike. Dextrose is nothing but another word for glucose, the one and only form of carbohydrate the body uses as energy – every carbohydrate you eat and not stored as energy reserve in the form of fat is one way or the other transformed into glucose. A dextrose tab therefore goes directly into the bloodstream and I was swimming in a sudden high of raw energy.

Soldiers riding stationary bikesWhat the body however tries to do is keep a constant supply of glucose going, by always maintaining the same glucose concentration in the blood. If that wasn’t the case, we would have more than enough glucose right after we eat, but starve between meals and while we sleep.

Blood Sugar Regulation

So our organism developed a simple, yet elegant way to avoid this and keep the level constant.

When there is too much glucose around, it produces insulin, which gets your liver and muscle cells to store glucose in the form of glycogen. When too little glucose is around, it produces glucagon, which does the exact opposite of insulin and makes your muscles and liver release the stored glycogen and convert it to glucose.

Which works very well when you eat food, whose digestion takes some time. The carbohydrates in it get broken down to glucose and through the bloodstream are distributed to all cells in the body. If the body has all the glucose it needs, the surplus carbohydrates from your food are turned into glycogen and when those reserves are full, too, what still remains is transformed to fat.

Dextrose Without Food?

Now consider what I did: Before I took the dextrose I had low blood sugar because I hadn’t eaten and my body was busy producing glucagon – glycogen was turned into glucose to keep me going. But I spiked up my blood sugar with dextrose, which stopped this process, my body released insulin and my liver and muscle cells started to think they have to store glucose. While I was physically exhausting myself.

At the end my blood sugar level had dropped to unknown depths. In essence this is what happens to a diabetic who injects too much insulin and goes into a condition called hypoglycaemia, whose list of symptoms include what I experienced and finish with the happy outlook of ” temporary loss of consciousness, confusion, convulsions, coma”.

Supplementing dextrose works well when you need some immediate energy around and there are other carbohydrates to buffer it, but isn’t a good idea to have in a fasted state and then hop on a bike.

My stupidity amazed me, as I knew all this, but chose to ignore it.

Picture courtesy of US Air Force.

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Latest Comments

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8 Comments

  1. Ninjuries says:
    October 4, 2010 at 6:58 pm

    Oh dear! Meh, we all make mistakes occasionally and thankfully you weren’t hurt and didn’t fall and hit your head.

    Jeez you’d have burned off a lump of bodyfat doing that though! Should you have any of course. πŸ™‚

    Reply
    • evilcyber says:
      October 4, 2010 at 11:11 pm

      Nin, you think if I title my first book “Getting Slim by Killing Yourself” it will become a bestseller?

      Hm, when you think about, death is the ultimate diet πŸ™‚

      Reply
  2. Eric says:
    October 4, 2010 at 8:52 pm

    The nice thing about doing something stupid is that we now have a vivid memory to go along with our knowledge. Brain says “don’t do this”, and “remember what happened last time you ignored me”…

    πŸ™‚

    Reply
    • evilcyber says:
      October 4, 2010 at 11:09 pm

      Oh yes, you’d have to pay me quite a bit of money to do that again πŸ™‚

      Reply
  3. Sebaschtian says:
    October 4, 2010 at 11:33 pm

    What! Can’t believe it. I’ve read your article just this afternoon and the same thing (at least I think its the same, same symptons) happened to me. I hadn’t eaten all day, just shortly befor my workout a small bowl of oats. When I was nearly finished suddenly I felt absolutely worn out, cold sweat, like I had to throw up. I had to sit down and cancel my last exercise and just drink water.

    But glad I remembered your article, I thought I would get really sick!

    Thumbs up!
    Auf Wiedersehen πŸ˜‰

    Reply
    • evilcyber says:
      October 5, 2010 at 4:38 pm

      It consoles me that I’m not alone in doing this πŸ˜‰

      Warum machen wir so einen Scheiß? πŸ™‚

      Reply
  4. Plazma says:
    October 5, 2010 at 11:42 pm

    When I train in martial arts.. a few times I wouldn’t eat enough before hand and the instructor would make us do mega cardio (more than ‘normal’) and a few times I’d have to run to the bathroom and sit next to the toilet for about 5-10 minutes.. in a cold sweat.

    Then my nutrition wasn’t that great, but wasn’t super poor.. now when i go back I’ll be sure to have a good dose of protein and complex carbs to keep me going

    Reply
    • evilcyber says:
      October 6, 2010 at 7:54 pm

      Yeah, I think having something more solid is a good idea. I can vouch for that by experience πŸ˜‰

      Reply

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