Post Heavy Lifting-Glycogen-Butter on Sweet Potatoes or White Rice page

[NWPrimate]

Here's a quick question for all of you glycogen gurus.

I'm ordinarily in the 30-50g of carbs range normally feel great as an "Inuit Warrior" as one poster put it recently.

I've been adding in a couple of sweet potatoes or white rice made with bone broth instead of water after heavy lifting to refill glycogen. I've seen some nice strength and size gains in the last month after incorporating this, so it's something that I'm going to continue on my 2-3 days a week of heavy lifting.

As I understand it, it's best to limit fat on these days in general, and especially in the carb loading meals.
How critical is this? A sweet potato or bowl of white rice just doesn't sound appealing without the Kerrygold butter on top.

The way I've heard it told is that the fat will lower the glycemic index of the meal, and slow the sugar going into my blood and then glycogen to the muscle. Won't my muscles still uptake the glucose/glycogen if it comes in over the following 2 hours instead of 45 minutes? (just guessing at the numbers)

I realize it might not be ideal, but maybe good enough considering how delicious a buttery sweet potato is?

[NWPrimate]

I'm not sure how everyone feels about bumping my own thread back to the first page, but it seemed like a relevant question that if discussed could help a lot of us. The forum is just so active (a good thing) that new topics dropped it down to the second page and I doubt if it will be seen there.

[Chaohinon]

The concept of the "post-workout window" is pretty heavily exaggerated, and you can still incur its benefits while consuming fats (especially if you fasted prior to working out). It's just that combining fats and carbs tends to be very dangerous for people with a history of poor appetite control, but a small pat of butter really ain't no thang.

However, you can make great nonfat mashed sweet potatoes/potatoes by replacing butter with chicken or veg. stock. And white rice really doesn't need any added fat, as long as you season the water prior to boiling (it should be very salty, like ocean water).

[activia]

I find I can eat white rice without any added fats just some salt and its pretty palatable, I cant say the same for sweet potatoes.. but I dont like spicy foods..maybe if you added some spice to it like Choco does. Do the best you can and don't beat yourself up if you have to have a little butter. Just try to minimize it.

[jakey]

i don't think there's a problem with the fats, but martin berkhan is the one that has promulgated the low fat, high protein/carb on workout days thing - to great success. i find that after i workout (lift heavy), my body is a friggin caloric sponge for about 8 hours. it's kind of amazing, seriously.

[paleo-bunny]

It's really boils down to a trade-off between speed of lean gains and how delicious you want your dinner to be. I've gained muscle quickly for a female eating around 100-120 g of rice (by dry weight) with a couple of cups of veg fried in about 20 g of fat plus some oily fish and or cheese as my typical post-workout meal. So in my personal experience, eating low fat has not been critical.

Optimisation is fine if you want it and enjoy experimenting on yourself... and it does becomes more important as you get closer to reaching your goal.

[NWPrimate]

You guys rule. Not just for telling me what I wanted to hear (which you did), but for stepping up and answering after my bump.

I figured as much, but wanted to check with you.
For the time being, I'll keep buttering up the yams, and try seasoning the rice.

Any additional or dissenting opinions will be just as appreciated.

Thanks again.

[feren6]

White rice is really easy to down when you put some sauce on top. I just use Trader Joe's BBQ sauce. It isn't necessarily Primal, but if you're working out and trying to get a carb refeed in then I don't see any harm. I'm doing the LeanGains protocol, so I eat fully Primal on rest days and other than BBQ sauce. I just don't worry about adding extra carbs on workout days, especially since I'm trying to gain weight. As long as it isn't bread or pasta or anything with gluten in it I say it's fine.

[paleo-bunny]

You guys rule. Not just for telling me what I wanted to hear (which you did), but for stepping up and answering after my bump.

I figured as much, but wanted to check with you.
For the time being, I'll keep buttering up the yams, and try seasoning the rice.

Any additional or dissenting opinions will be just as appreciated.

Thanks again.

No problem. I recommend traditionally cooked Italian risottos, using arborio rice. It's a basic recipe/technique that can be varied and experimented with to your heart's content. Also South-East Asian stir-fries with rice noodles or Thai rice, Jasmine rice etc. The latter can be prepared very quickly if you use rice noodles and is again very flexible. And you'll find plenty of recipes out there that are suitably primal, with the odd tweak here and there (e.g. replace PUFAs with coconut oil, butter or ghee).