My favorite pre-workout snack: sweet potato pie shake

For anyone visiting my blog via my article on MDA, you may have noticed that I mentioned that, while I eat low-carb, I get some starchy carbs before a workout. This is my favorite pre-workout snack. Strict low-carbers can substitute pumpkin for the sweet potato, making this a pumpkin pie shake; a great way of getting your orange veggies.

This uses coconut milk (for medium-chain fatty acids), sweet potato (a nice starchy medium-GI carb with lots of health benefits), cinnamon (improves insulin sensitivity), and whey protein (a fast-acting protein source). It works out perfectly to fuel my workouts!

I use canned organic sweet potato puree because it's fast and easy. You can definitely cook and mash sweet potato ahead of time, though. If you do that, I recommend running the sweet potato through a food processor so that you can easily shake up the resulting puree up in a blender bottle. Otherwise you will need to use a blender.

SWEET POTATO PIE SHAKE
Serves 1

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup sweet potato puree
• 12 fl oz lite coconut milk (full-fat is too thick) or almond milk
• 1/2 scoop (I use a 25cc scoop) of vanilla whey protein (I use True Protein whey isolate in natural premium vanilla, which is sweetened with stevia only. More info here.)
• Lots of pumpkin pie spice and/or cinnamon (I use Penzeys)
• Pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Shake up everything in a blender bottle.
2. Drink
3. Train hard!!

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