The Biochemistry of Fructose and Energy Pathways

So when you actually look at the sugar breakdown, so let's say you've got a banana. If you look at a moderate-sized banana, you're talking 25, 26 grams of carbohydrate. But when you look at it, there's only really about five to six, maybe seven grams tops of fructose. So, if you look into the research, you're going to see wildly varying amounts of fructose causing issues from 30 grams a day all the way up to 150. So they don really know at what level causes the issues And then that going to be different for everybody So if I already dieting and I eating a lot of fruit it probably not going to be a big deal But if I in a hyper diet then it might become a big deal But you still have to have a tremendous amount of fructose for that to happen. So one of the things I talk about in our seminars is if you think about it, you like bananas, right? Yes. Yes, I do. Yeah. When's the last time you sat down and ate six bananas in a row? Well, I ate 10 bananas pre-workout once because my buddy claimed when he did it, it felt like he was on PEDs. And that's the thing. Like, we do it as a joke. You know, it's like when you're with your buddies and see who can drink a gallon of milk and then you puke all over yourself, right? So it's not something that a normal person is going to do. It's sit around and eat like six bananas in every meal, you know, unless you're really the 30 bananas a day girl. But when you look at the biochemistry of it, where fructose can be a problem is there's no rate-limiting step in it making energy. So when glucose enters the cell, it has a few different pathways it can go down. So it rate-limits it. Fructose pops in far under some of these steps. And so once fructose gets in, it rapidly gets converted into pyruvate. And then if you're overproducing this too quickly, then, yeah, then it can start to pop out as fat. but it's not likely going to happen, especially if you're eating them in training. It's only really going to be a big deal when you have somebody who's playing World of Warcraft all day and they're drinking like Red Faction Mountain Dew by the leader and they're drinking in like 200 or 300 grams of the stuff and they're not training. So in case you got lost, Luke is saying that the don't eat fruit or you'll get fat and unhealthy myth is based on some cognitive leaps. Some studies showed that high doses of fructose, such as from high fructose corn syrup in sedentary individuals, can lead to issues. The studies weren't done using fruit. What has happened is the high fructose intake findings have been extrapolated to suddenly mean that all fructose intake is bad, and because fruits contain some fructose, they are therefore bad and going to make you fat. Now here's something that will blow your mind a bit. You might feel a little defense mechanism pop up and shut out what Luke is saying. Resist that urge for a moment.