Did you know that carbohydrates are your body’s main source of energy?
They can be the difference between hitting your peak performance or not.
Making the game winning play or not.
Carbohydrates
Athletes need carbohydrates to be at their best. If you don’t get adequate amounts, your energy levels will suffer. This negatively affects not only your physical performance but also your mental performance—causing slower reaction times, poor decision-making, lack of focus, and deterioration of technique (think: throwing, shooting, and running mechanics).9
While you might have heard that low-carb diets help athletes, the body of scientific evidence just doesn’t support that.9 Rather, getting enough carbs is crucial for optimizing your performance, recovery, and body composition.
What’s more, eating carbohydrates can also help you:
- keep your thyroid functioning well
- maintain healthy levels of sex hormones (testosterone for men; estrogen and progesterone for women)
- regulate your mood and emotions
- sleep better
How many carbohydrates do athletes need?
Eat 2-3 grams of carbs for every pound you weigh (5-7 grams per kg).9
(That number is slightly higher—3-4 grams per pound (7-9 grams per kg)—for endurance-sport athletes, so if that describes you, get more precise recommendations in our sports nutrition guides.)
For example, if you weigh:
- 150 pounds (68 kg): Eat 300-450 grams of carbs every day.
- 200 pounds (91 kg): Eat 400-600 grams of carbs every day.
- 250 pounds (113 kg): Eat 500-750 grams of carbs every day.
As with protein, you can use your hand to track your intake. A portion of carbohydrate-rich foods—fruit, potatoes, grains, beans—is the size of your cupped hand and provides about 25 grams of carbs.
Based on this, a 150-pound (68 kg) athlete would need about 12-18 cupped handfuls of carbs each day.
(Here’s the math: 150 pounds of body weight x 2-3 grams of carbs = 300-450 g total carbs. Then 300 g or 450 g of total carbs / 25 g carbs per cupped-hand serving = 12-18 cupped handfuls of carbs per day.)
The best carbs for athletes
Choose high-quality carbohydrate-rich foods that are minimally processed. This includes any whole fruit, starchy vegetables such as whole potatoes and corn, a variety of whole grains (including oats, whole grain bread, and wild rice), and beans.
Use our continuum to guide your choices: About 80 to 90 percent of your carbohydrate intake should come from the “Eat More” and “Eat Some” columns in the carbohydrate food list below. The other 10 to 20 percent can come from whichever column you prefer. (Note: If you’re wondering about vegetables, check out “The importance of micronutrients” below—they have their own category.)
This guide was created by our resident nutritionist, Matt Ryan, in conjunction with Precision Nutrition. If you have further nutrition questions, please contact Matt at 365MattRyan@gmail.com.
As always, if you think we can help your child improve their performance, contact us here!
