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Comment by lfliosdjf | Hacker News Reader

Has any one successfully code with same focus after cutting sugar? Seems sugar is really important for focus. Whats your experience?

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If you're addicted to cocaine, then cocaine is really important for focus. Same for sugar. If sugar is really important for focus for you, then you're likely heading for diabetes type 2.

I did keto for a few months a long time ago (2010/2011). This was early in my career and long coding and debug sessions were a normal part of my day-to-day.

There was zero impact to my work focus, positive or negative, from cutting nearly all carbohydrates out for several months.

I am curious were you heard or learned that "sugar is really important for focus". Just a vibe, perhaps?

Personal experience. Then I found many well known programmers shared the same experience online. It feels deliberate work without sugar. ie. if coding = work + fun. without sugar its just coding = work. It does not get any better after 3 days or so too.

It might feel good but spiking your blood sugar isn't healthy for you, and the crashes afterwards will get worse over the years. Improving metabolic health might be a better long term solution; have you explored how endurance or high intensity exercise affects your focus?

Been coding while fasting on keto and it's absolutely amazing. Fasting is hard socially, being ketogenic puts a bit more stress on my kidneys, but for me (adhd) it's amazing.

remember your brain can run on ketones which provides a more stable energy than glucose spikes. the brain is metabolically flexible, can run on glucose, ketones or lactate

If anything focus gets better without sugar and excessive carbs for me - but those work well for outdoors or workouty days I find.

Definitely, carbs means alternating drowsy, hunger cycles with blood sugar level. While an even level enables the zone.

That's addiction. You'll need time to get out of it.

Cutting off sugar will help you have more focus, not just during coding but the whole day. However, if you were on high amount of sugar before, at initial stage, your body will scream.

For me, it takes a few weeks to get settled in. After that, I don't miss sugar at all. Can focus just fine.

I don't code, but I do know that not eating sugar significantly improves my focus no matter what I'm doing.

I have never heard of anyone using sugar to "focus," if you want to focus take amphetamines or cocaine.

Why are you cutting out sugar, unless you mean reduce. But you shouldn't stop eating sugar, its required, just not in excessive amounts.

Not required to eat any sugar at all. Your body will actually produce its own glucose if and when needed through gluconeogenesis [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis

Yes it can and it does that when there is an absence of available glycogen provided through carbohydrates, it is not to replace but to support in addition to appropriate sugar intake. It is a less efficient source of glucose, does not provide a large enough amount for exercise and also uses amino acids from muscle to help. Do this long enough and you end up in ketosis which is a whole other kettle of fish.

Why neglect one aspect of our bodies digestive energy systems for just gluconeogenesis. Wouldn't you be better off eating a balanced meal of complex carbohydrates and unsaturated fats. Our bodies have multiple pathways to producing energy, focusing on using only one is silly and not the right approach because it wasn't designed to be that way.

Just because our bodies can survive doing a particular thing in the absence of another, doesn't mean that thing we're absent of isn't required.

Its optimal to solve all the constraints or requirements of needs of the body. But we don't fully understand the requirements as a whole and conflicting information from expertsh. So the rational thing is to rely on the historical data and make judgements on the probability.

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