The Paleo Diet for Athletes (12 page)

So how does Stage IV work? Let’s say you exercised for 2 hours and it was a challenging workout. The initial 30-minute recovery period (Stage III) should be followed by an additional 90 minutes in Stage IV. In the same way, a 4-hour workout or race should be followed by the standard 30 minutes in Stage III and then by 3½ hours in Stage IV. This critical stage continues the focus on “macrolevel” recovery, meaning the emphasis is still primarily on the intake of carbohydrate and protein.

As your body returns to a resting state following exercise, sensations of hunger will emerge. After not taking in any substantial food sources for perhaps several hours, the body begins to cry out for complete nutrition. How long it takes for hunger to appear depends on how long
and intense the preceding exercise was, how well stocked your carbohydrate stores were before starting the session, how much carbohydrate you took in during the session, and even how efficient your body is in using fat for fuel while sparing glycogen. The foods you eat now should emphasize moderate to high glycemic load carbohydrates.

Stage IV Recovery Guidelines

The focus of this period is similar to that of the 30-minute window preceding it. The difference is that now there is a shift toward taking in more solid foods, although continued fluid consumption is also important. Here are guidelines for eating during this extended recovery period.

Carbohydrate remains very important at this stage of recovery, but the difference is inclusion of more solid foods, especially starchy vegetables that are high on the glycemic load scale while having a net alkaline-enhancing effect on body fluids. Good choices include potatoes, yams, and sweet potatoes, as well as dried fruits, especially raisins. These are excellent to snack on or even make a meal of during Stage IV recovery because they have the greatest alkaline-enhancing effect of any food studied while also having a high glycemic load. That means a great amount of carbohydrate is delivered to the muscles quickly, which is more valuable at this time than having a high glycemic index.
Table 4.6
lists the glycemic loads of various alkaline-enhancing fruits, juices, and vegetables. Notice that while some foods, such as watermelon, have a high glycemic index, their glycemic loads are low; the lower the load, the more of the food you will need to eat. Glycemic load is a measure of not only how quickly a food’s sugar gets into your blood but also how much sugar is delivered. The foods listed first are preferred, but all are good choices. You may also select grains such as corn, bread, a bagel, rice, and cereal to continue the rapid replacement of carbohydrate stores. Grains are not optimal, for while most have a high glycemic load, they have a net acid-enhancing effect, so be certain to include plenty of vegetables, fruits, and fruit juices to counteract the negative consequence.

During this extended recovery stage, continue taking in carbohydrate
at the rate of at least 0.75 gram (3 calories) per pound of body weight per hour. Otherwise, your appetite may serve as a guide as to how much to eat. After especially long or intense exercise, you may find liquids more appealing than solids. If so, continue using a recovery drink, just as in the first 30 minutes postexercise.

At this time you must also maintain your lean protein intake, using the same 4:1 or 5:1 ratio with carbohydrate. The purpose, as before, is to continue providing amino acids for the resynthesis of muscle protein and maintenance of other physiological structures that rely on amino acids, such as the nervous system. Animal products are the best sources of this protein because they’re rich in essential amino acids, including the branched-chain amino acids that we now know to be critical to the recovery process. Fish, shellfish, egg whites, and turkey breast are excellent choices. It is best to avoid farm-bred fish and feedlot-raised animals, and not just at this time but throughout the day. The physical composition of their meat, especially the oils, is dramatically different from that of wild game and free-ranging animals. It’s common for Paleo athletes to keep a stock of boiled eggs, deli-sliced turkey breast, tuna salad, and other such protein sources easily available in their refrigerators just for this purpose.

TABLE 4.6

Glycemic Load and Index of Selected Alkaline-Enhancing Foods (100 g serving)

If you continue eating fruits and vegetables now, you will also restock electrolytes that may be necessary for recovery, depending on how long the exercise session was and how hot the weather.

It’s still important to drink adequate amounts to satisfy your thirst. This may vary greatly depending on how long the session lasted, its intensity, and the weather. Thirst will tell you when to drink and when to stop. Fruit juices are an excellent choice because they also bolster carbohydrate stores and are rich in most electrolytes. If you’ve otherwise met your carbohydrate-restocking needs by late in Stage IV, then drink water to quench thirst.

Again, we want to emphasize how critical it is to follow these Stage IV recovery guidelines, especially after very long and stressful sessions. If you rush into Stage V directly from Stage III after a long and hard workout or race, then your full recovery may well be delayed.

STAGE V: LONG-TERM POSTEXERCISE

You’ve gotten yourself through a grueling workout and refueled as you should in Stages I through IV of recovery. You’re back at work or in class, spending time with the family, maintaining your house and landscaping—whatever it is you do when you’re not training or racing. This part of your day may look ordinary to the rest of the world, but it really
isn’t. You’re still focused on nutrition for long-term recovery.

This is the time when many athletes get sloppy with their diets. The most common mistake is to continue eating a high glycemic load diet that is low in micronutrient value and marked by the high starch and sugar intake prescribed for Stages III and IV. Eating in this way compromises your development as an athlete. It’s a shame to spend hours training only to squander a portion of the potential fitness gains by eating less-than-optimal foods.

What are optimal foods? These are the categories of foods that have been eaten by our Paleolithic ancestors for millions of years; the ones to which we are fully adapted through an inheritance of genes from the many generations that preceded us here on Earth: fruits, vegetables, and lean protein from animal sources. Optimal foods also include nuts, seeds, and berries. These are also the most micronutrient-dense foods available to us—they’re rich in vitamins, minerals, and other trace elements necessary for health, growth, and recovery.
Table 4.7
compares the vitamin and mineral density of several foods. Those with the highest content are in boldface. Notice that vegetables especially provide an abundant level of vitamins and minerals; most other foods pale by comparison.

Stage V Recovery Guidelines

In terms of athletic performance, the nutritional goals and guidelines for this stage of recovery are as follows.

Maintain glycogen stores.
For some time prior to this stage of recovery, you intently focused your diet around carbohydrate, especially high glycemic load sources such as the sugars in starchy foods. While these foods are excellent for restocking the body’s glycogen stores, they are not nutrient dense (see
Table 4.7
). There is no longer a need to eat large quantities of such foods; in fact, they will diminish your potential for recovery. Every calorie eaten from a less-than-optimal food means a lost opportunity to take in much larger amounts of health- and fitness-enhancing vitamins and minerals from vegetables, fruits, and lean animal protein. The more serious you are about your athletic performance, the more important this is.

TABLE 4.7

Comparison of Vitamin and Mineral Density of Selected Foods (standard units)

The highest vitamin and mineral contents in each column are indicated by a bold listing.

* No information available

Furthermore, one of the beauties of the human body is that, regardless of which system or function we are talking about, it takes less concentrated effort to maintain than to rebuild. This means that by eating prodigious quantities of high glycemic load carbohydrates in the previous stages, you’ve rebuilt your body’s glycogen stores, and now less carbohydrate is required to maintain that level. Low glycemic load fruits and vegetables will accomplish that while also providing the micronutrients needed for this last stage of recovery.

Rebuild muscle tissues.
Despite your best efforts to take in amino acids in recovery, if the workout was sufficiently difficult, you will have suffered some muscle cell damage. If you could use an electron microscope to look into the muscles used in an intensely hard training today, it would look like a war zone, albeit a very tiny one. You would see tattered cell membranes and leaking fluids. The body would be mobilizing its “triage services” to repair the damage as quickly as possible. To do this, the body needs amino acids in rather large quantities. Most needed are the branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) you read about earlier. Without them, the body is forced to cannibalize other protein cells to find sufficient amounts of the right amino acids to complete the job. Also needed are the essential amino acids, those that the body cannot produce and that must come from food.