How to replenish liver + muscle glycogen in 16 hours?

**Sang** · Posted On: 8/30/2010 5:54am

So i have a title fight booked in November but here is the catch, its at 66kg (145lbs). Due to this I've been tightening the hell out of my diet and intend to use all the tricks i know for making weight on the day without sweating out my cardio.

One of these tricks is cutting out carbs for a few weeks before the fight since depleted glycogen makes you automatically drop a kilo or two. I intend to put this weight back on. What is the best way to replenish the glycogen between the weigh in and the fight?

More specifically, which carbohydrates replenish liver and muscle glycogen faster and more efficiently than the others?

**imp1295** · Posted On: 9/16/2010 10:33am

I tend to follow a pretty much whole food approach to replacing glycogen stores PWO. What I have always relied on is a mixture of Sweet Potato and apple sauce. Robb Wolf (former Crossfit nutrition guy) loves this combination because it is gluten free, easily and quickly absorbed and has both the fructose to replenish liver stores as well as starchy carbs to replace muscle glycogen.

You can check some of his stuff out at his site

www.robbwolf.com

Additionally, Loren Cordain in his book "Paleo for Athletes" also suggests raisins as a great way to replace liver stores. Your mileage may vary, but personally these always work well for me.

If you are looking for a drink that works well with a good replacement that I've had good results with you can try Accelorade and gels like Hammer Gel work great for me.

Hope this helps.

**Phrost** · Posted On: 9/16/2010 12:34pm

Drink a crapload of Pedialyte and/or get an EMT buddy to give you an IV?

**tyciol** · Posted On: 9/24/2010 1:58pm

Do carbohydrate even take very long to digest? Usually the criticism I see of things like sugar is that they spike too quickly. Even the starchy or fibrous carbs eaten to digest slowly I figure would be done in under 10 hours much less 16.

When the glucose level of blood is too high, I know sometimes it gets turned into fat but I thought that only happened AFTER the liver and muscles were full, is that wrong?

**Sang** · Posted On: 9/24/2010 8:43pm

Originally Posted by Phrost

Drink a crapload of Pedialyte and/or get an EMT buddy to give you an IV?

One of the other fighters is a nurse, could be arranged haha.

I did some research after making this thread:

*When glycogen stores are really low you don't need to aim for the biggest insulin response you can get like you would for a post workout fast carb + protein mix. The body is so starved of carbohydrates it rather efficiently turns any glucose into glycogen.

*I should concentrate on non fructose. Fructose can't replenish muscle glycogen and liver glycogen is a whore and will take any carbs available and i believe in priority of muscle G.

So my recovery plan is as follows:
Straight after weigh-in: rehydration sachets mixed in with a 1L gatorade,
start munching on some non-fructose gummy bears. Sipping on pedalyte water until sleep.
+1 hour: small serving of rolled oats plus half scoop protein.
+3 hour: small serving of rolled oats plus half scoop protein.
+5 hour: big serving of spag bol, 2L water right before bed.

Wakeup to fight: eat carbs with every meal, have last small meal 2 hours before fight, heaps of liquid.

Having mainly sugar right after the weigh in because I've had problems in the past eating even medium sized meals straight after and I'd like to save the majority of my stomach room for re hydrating initially. The gatorade plus gummy bears should pull me out of ketosis for minimal eating effort.