Post WO carbs

Hey guys

While reading some of Pasquales work today he presents an idea that post WO carbs can be detrimental. Something that Mat Lalonde also said in the seminar linked to here on the site. The idea is that the insulin sensitivity gained from exercise is blunted as soon as glycogen stores are filled up which they will be with PWO carbs.

Basically there should be two advantages:

By excluding PWO carbs one can rely on a more fat dominant metabolism after exercise (improvement in body composition)

Protein synthesis can be maintained for a longer period of time because the insulin nutritive route will be switched on while waiting for those carbohydrates to come.

I'd love to see a discussion on this. Perhaps an optimal way is to only load up on carbs after exercise once a week as in a cyclic low carb sorta deal. Glutamine could probably be used in larger amounts in the PWO shake instead of carbs to refill some glycogen without messing with insulin sensitivity.

I have read the same and not used carbs PWO in a long time. I heard that keeps the growth hormone in effect longer. Poliquin also doesn't use pwo carbs for people trying to lean out. I use Ido's high fat shake method.

I generally don't do a carb pwo, but that's because it makes me feel terrible. It's nice to think I might have some science behind me this time...

Does this include vegatable carbs or just carbs from grains, bread, pasta, rice etc...? I have been reading the hell out of the nutrition forums today and I think it is safe to say that I am completely confused! Everything seems to have a contradicatory arguement backed by study. Haha, I am lost.

Well yeah nutrition is hard to understand because there is such big variability. Some people are more carb tolerant, some are not. Depending on your goals (leaning out, performance, mass gain) carbs will vary aswell and yeah it's a mess. I'm currently doing whey+insulin sensitizers+glutamine and then I'm thinking once a week I'll put in a sweet potato PWO. This is for leaning out btw.

Gotcha. Well the thing is my goals are all 3! Haha. I would not say that I am carb intolerate because I have never been on a carb free diet. Lately I have basically gone to mainly meat and vegatables and avoiding sugars at all cost. I drink alcohol quite often :wink: , and I due to tend to eat some pizza on the weekends from time to time on a cheat day but for the most part its fairly strict. I am going to remove oatmeal from my breakfast as well as the wheat bread I have at lunch for my foot long sub. I have shrunk down to a very lean 163 lb (74 kg) from my usual fairly lean 170-175lb (77-79kg). This is due to not enough calories and high amounts of cardio from jui jitsu and crossfit workouts. I started BtGB after I began Crossfit, so I am not blaming that. But my point is, very soon I am going to lay off the cardio just a bit and really focus on building maximal strength and lean muscle gains through BtGB. I want to eat in a manner that will promote muscle growth and strength without gaining a bunch of fat that I will have to bust ass to get back off. I don't want to gain a ton of muscle (although if it happens I won't complain!) but maybe like 10 lbs.

Mat did an experiment with heavy CF sessions and no carbs. He had very bad experiences with it...

For healthy, non-obese individuals, no science suggests that 100g of carbs per day should be an issue. In fact, for some people, like myself, I seem to find, going too low cause disaster (I'm prone to depression and seem to recover from exercise VERY slowly, if I don't get carbs PWO).

Oh, and the carbs should be glucose (starch, i.e. tubers like sweet potatoes, yams etc. PHD (Perfect Health Diet) even includes white rice!).

Yeah I seem to do better with around a 100g carbs or so. Some low carb fruits and veggies and a sweet potato. Sometimes dark chocolate I still need to get below 10% bf to really take advantage of some PWO carbs though.