Full transcript of the episode:
Hey everyone. And welcome back to another episode of the fueled triathlete. I’m your host, Andrea. And today I’m talking about the best and worst foods for carb loading. So we’re going to talk a little bit about what exactly carb loading is and how to do it. If you listen to today’s show and you want to learn more about carb loading, go on back to episode number four, carbo-loading mistakes to avoid.
So, first of all, when should we actually carb load? So carbo-loading is going to have a benefit for races that are over 90 minutes. So if you’re doing something that’s going to not take you quite as long, maybe that’s a sprint, a five or 10 K running race, then you don’t necessarily need to carb load. Carb load is purposely increasing the amount of carbohydrates that you consume in the few days leading up to your race. So usually this is going to last anywhere from one to four days before your event.
And like I said, you’re purposely increasing the amount of carbohydrates that you consume. There’s going to be a higher proportion of calories that you eat coming from carbohydrates. So as you’re carb loading, you are increasing. The amount of carbohydrates that you consume, but you’re also decreasing a little bit protein and fat.
The reason you want to carb load is because it will give you a performance benefit. It can give you a performance benefit of two to 4%. So meaning two to 4%. Off your time. If you carb load. And this can really add up for those longer races. And the reason that you want to carb load is because you’re maximizing your muscle glycogen stores. Your muscle glycogen stores are basically your stored carbohydrates in your body.
And when those are fully topped up, that’s going to help prevent you from hitting the wall. That’s going to help you be less likely to run into fatigue through the race. I kind of think of it as like filling up your gas tank before you head out on your road trip.
So, how do we carb load?
You can do a one day carb load, but you need a very high amount of carbohydrates. So about 10 to 12 grams per kilogram of your body weight. So, if you are someone who is 60 kilograms, that’s going to be 600 to 720 grams of carbs. The way I usually do it with my clients and recommend people to do it is spaces out, do more like two to three days sometimes four, depending on the length of time that your race is, but about two to four days consuming eight grams per kilogram of your body weight in carbohydrates.
So eight grams for that 60 kilogram athlete is going to be 480 grams of carbohydrates. Now you want to do this maybe two days for a marathon, half iron man do two to three days and then a full iron man, three to four days. When you combine carb bloating with tapering your exercise, then you’re going to maximize those muscle glycogen stores.
So really, when I say the best and worst foods for carb loading, it’s important to keep in mind that really, it just matters that you consume that amount of carbohydrates.
It doesn’t really matter where they come from, but it’s easier to get high amounts of carbs when you’re choosing certain types of carbs. So let me explain a little bit. So if you’re choosing carbohydrate foods that are also really high in fiber, those foods are going to be too filling.
They may make you have to use the washroom a lot, get some gas, bloating. Also if you’re choosing carbohydrates that also tend to be very high in protein and fats, then you may be over consuming protein and fats in those days. And the issue with that is that protein and fats are more filling. So if you increase your carbohydrates along with either keeping your protein and fats the same, or even increasing those, it may be difficult to get those amount of carbohydrates.
So I find it’s easier to consume the amount of carbs that you need, and it’s easier in a digestive system when you’re choosing low fiber, simple carbs from foods and drinks.
So in no particular order, these are the best foods that I recommend for carb loading, and this is stuff that I use personally. These are all pretty simple carbs and low in fiber, along with being low in protein and low in fats.
So first up is white rice, watch out for wild rice or brown rice stick to white, you could add soy sauce to that, to get some extra sodium as well which can be helpful for hydration in those days. Potatoes are also awesome. Whether you want to do regular potatoes or sweet potatoes and you can avoid eating the skin to cut back on the fiber.
. And I would just avoid adding oil to potatoes and baking them or frying them, but rather choose like a baked potato. Or maybe a mashed potato, but again, watch out for adding extra butter, sour cream. Maybe just do your mashed potatoes with some salt, pepper, and a little bit of low fat milk.
Bread is also a great option. Your white breads in many different forms, pita bread, sliced bread, bagels. These are all great. And a good vehicle for adding more carbs. Right? You can make a sandwich with a little bit of peanut butter and jam, peanut butter and banana.
Pasta can be a great option. So again, white pasta, watch the sauce. So maybe just choosing like a plain pasta or, having that with some tomato sauce. Fruit is also great. Some fruits can be really high in fiber, so you may want to avoid overdoing it on things like berries, because those are high fiber, but bananas are a great option.
Other options that aren’t too high in fiber could be mango, you could do cherries. You could do even applesauce as well. So with applesauce, the skin is removed. It’s pureed easier to digest.
Crackers, look at the label, choose things that are low in fiber, less than two grams. Some types of crackers I recommend are saltine crackers, Graham crackers, also those crispy minis are a great option as well, and pretzels are good too.
Awesome breakfast option is pancakes. So just regular old pancakes, not your protein pancake mixes. with pancakes you can add so many extra carbs on there. Right? You can add some maple syrup, you can add some sliced banana, fruit jam. There’s so many different options
that kind of leads me into sweeteners, like maple syrup. Honey, jam. These are great ways to add a lot of carbs without adding a lot of extra volume so, putting honey on a banana, on some toast, maple syrup on your pancakes or some waffles.
Or if you want to do some oatmeal in the morning, I always recommend adding some extra honey, maple syrup, or even brown sugar into that.
Something along with the fruits I forgot to mention is also dried fruit. Dried fruit is a great option. You can get a similar amount of carbs, but in a smaller portion size because they’re dehydrated. Dates are awesome apricots, watch out for banana chips because those do tend to be fried with some extra oil in them, raisins.
I like to recommend certain types of granola bars or energy bars. So a couple ones that I personally like to recommend would be cliff bars or Bobo’s bars, nature’s bakery fig bars. These are all high carb., if you want to go ahead and look at choosing a\ granola bar, just watch that there’s not a ton of like chocolate or nuts or things add to that.
Back to the breakfast options, things like cereal with low-fat milk. So choose a cereal that’s low in fiber, zero grams, one gram or two gram per serving, like Chex, Cheerios, corn flakes, rice Krispies.
If you’re going to have them with milk have it with low fat milk, zero or 1% just again, to help keep that fat, low those days. Or a non-dairy alternative., Like almond milk, cashew milk. If you choose the unsweetened option, there’s not really a lot of carbs in there, so on these cards and card loading days, you could go for the sweetened versions. And speaking of milk, chocolate milk is a great option as well. Beverages can be a great way to get your carb intake up because they’re not as filling. So choosing sports drinks can be a great way to also get your carbs and hydrate, juice. Like I said, milk, chocolate milk. You can use these even to make a smoothie. So taking some milk with banana, some low fat,, low protein yogurt blend that up
You can even add dates into your smoothies. You can add oatmeal to your smoothies. And lastly candy. So what are your favorite gummy candy, sour candies. I like to do fuzzy peaches, or fruit snacks, like your Welch’s fruit snacks.
So you may hear some of these foods on this list and thank God these are so high in sugar. These are processed, but you know what, in those carbo-loading days, this is what we want.
If we want to increase our performance by maximizing our muscle glycogen stores. We can’t just consume a bunch of whole foods, fiber foods, because we’re probably not going to reach those carbohydrate targets. So try some of these foods the next time you carb load.
So what are some of the worst foods for carbo-loading. So I’m gonna kind of cut out some of the obvious, right? So any high protein foods that are low in carb or high fat foods that are low in carb, right? So. These are not going to contribute to carbs. It doesn’t mean you have to completely avoid them, but we’re eating less.
So let’s say at dinner, you have a full chicken breast cut that back three quarters or half, so you can make more room on your plate for adding more rice or more pasta. Um, maybe we’re using less peanut butter, less nuts, less oils and all that kind of stuff. But I want to point out some foods that may seem like they’re good for carbo-loading, but aren’t really, and here’s why.
So beans, legumes, chickpeas, lentils, black beans. Yes. These are high in carbs, but they also come with protein and they also come with a ton of fiber. They’re really filling. And again, it just may boost your fiber intake a little bit too much on those days. So if you do have those, keep it to a small amount or just avoid it those days.
Pastries, like croissants or donuts, muffins, like certain ones that have a lot of like chocolate in them. These may seem high carb, but again, they’re also high in fat.
They’re going to be filling, it’s going to take away from you eating enough carbs those days. So keep these four, maybe after the event.
Chocolate may seem high in carbs too, but it’s also high in fats.
Avocado it’s a fruit technically, but it is high in fat and high in fiber.
Trail mix. So I did say how fruit is a great option, dried fruit, but usually a trail mix is going to have a lot of nuts. It’s going to have a lot of seeds, it may have some chocolate or M&Ms, and then usually the add some oils to that as well. So stick more to the dried fruit or make like trail mix that has like some low fiber cereal with some dried fruit mix in there and keep it to that.
I also mentioned how potatoes are great, but you want to watch how they’re prepared. So potato chips, French fries. These are something that we would want to avoid when carb bloating.
Pasta with a creamy sauce, or like a fettuccine Alfredo. Again, this really increases the fat content.
And then lastly, certain types of pizza. So sometimes you think of pizza, a lot of bread, high carb, but if it’s a pizza, that’s got a ton of cheese on it, or a lot of pepperoni, sausage high-fat meats. This isn’t the best choice. If you really want to have pizza, maybe it’s not the night before the race. Maybe it’s at the lunch. Choose something that’s a thick crust, with a little bit of veggies on there, skip the pepperoni. Making sure it’s a little bit light on the cheese as the cheese can be kind of high in fat.
Okay. So thanks for listening today. A little bit short and sweet, but I just want to talk about what are the best foods to carb load and what are some of those foods that, may not really help you all that much?
Because again, nothing’s super wrong with these foods, but there may be high carbs, but they also come with a little bit too much fat or too much protein or too much fiber. So they may hinder you from getting the amount of carbs that you need and may affect your digestion in certain ways.
Do you need a carb loading and race day fueling plan. Maybe you feel good about your daily nutrition habits, but you really want to nail in what you’re going to do on race day and those days leading up to race day. So this is something that I do offer.
If you are someone that just can follow a plan, and when it comes to carb loading, you don’t want to mess around with the math and put together a meal plan for yourself, this is something that I can create for you. So we would meet and I’ll learn about your preferences puts together a plan for you, and you can also add on a race day fueling plan.
So if you have a triathlon coming up, if you have a running race coming up and you really still need to figure out what you’re actually going to eat and drink on race day, this is also something that I can put together for you.
So by following a carb loading plan and having a solid race day plan that’s custom to you this will help you perform so much better on race day. It’s going to help you avoid feeling extra fatigue, to avoid you hitting the wall.
So if you want to learn more about this, Then you can go into the show notes so you can fill out an application to work with me and we can just set up a call and talk a little bit more about what’s involved with this.
I would say getting these carb loading and race day plans is good to do at least two months out from your race. Two to three months allows you enough time to practice at least one day of carb loading before a long workout and then also practice your race day plan.
But if you are in crunch time and it’s one month before your race and you still need some support, it’s not too late.
Okay. So thanks for listening, all about the best and worst foods for carbo-loading. And just as a reminder, if you want to learn more about, carbo-loading go to episode number four, carnb mistakes to avoid.
Thanks and have a great day.