Carb Loading Meal Plan for Peak Performance
A carb loading meal plan is an essential tool for endurance athletes looking to hit a personal best on race day!
By planning ahead, you can be sure that you will be getting the right amount of carbs to keep your energy stores optimised and fulfill your potential. You’ve put in the hard effort - don't leave your nutrition to chance!
I have used carb loading meal plans like this one for many an endurance event. Using these plans has helped me achieve personal bests in both half marathons and 70.3 triathlons!
Over the years, I have really honed these plans, so that the carb loading plan you can download here today, is a reliable and effective one, with proven benefits. I've done the work so you don't have to!
Of course, since everyone is different, the carb loading meals I suggest may need tweaking for your preferences and your digestive system. However, I can confirm that I have chosen foods that are, generally, easy to digest and ones that I’ve personally had no adverse effects on my stomach - and I have a sensitive stomach!
Before we get to the carb loading meal plan itself, I want to talk you through some of the key aspects of carbohydrate loading, so you know what you're doing, why you're doing it, and how to do it effectively!
If you want to just check out the carb loading plan, scroll to the bottom of the page.
What is the purpose of carb loading before a race?
The science behind upping your carbohydrate intake before endurance events like long runs is pretty simple.
You have two sources of energy in your body; fat and carbs. Your fat stores are enormous. Most people have up to 50,000 kcal worth of energy stored as fat.
Your carb stores are more limited, at only around 2,500 calories in the form of glycogen.
Your body uses up your carbohydrate stores as a fuel source during exercise, and you have about 90 minutes of hard, steady exercise in you before you hit a wall.
The purpose of carb loading is to increase the amount of glycogen in your body to its max potential, which will improve your performance and help keep your energy levels up for the whole of your big race!
I suggest starting your carb load period about 36 hours before the start of your event, as you'll see in the plan.
Pasta - a firm favourite for carb loading
Does carb loading work?
To put it simply: yes! There is plenty of evidence to suggest that carbo loading improves athletic performance, particularly for endurance athletes like marathon runners or triathletes.
By understanding how to carb load for a triathlon or marathon (or other endurance event) you could improve your performance somewhere in the realms of 2-3%.
That might not sound like a lot, but let’s put that in context.
Just a 2% improve changes the below finish times (consider this for a marathon or ironman triathlon)
3 hours —> 2 hours 56 minutes
4 hours —> 3 hours 55 minutes
9 hours —> 8 hours 49 minutes
14 hours —> 13 hours 43 minutes
That could easily be the time between a podium place or a qualifying time, or even just beating your friend.
There are different pitfalls to understand when it comes to carbohydrate loading and I’ve created this carbohydrate loading template to address them.
You don't want too much fibre protein or fat in your carb loading meal ideas. In regular everyday life to support a healthy athlete, these are crucial for a balanced diet! Just not when carb loading for endurance exercise.
Confectionary can be a great way of getting easy-to-digest, simple carbs in
How to carb load effectively: a nutrition strategy
The food you eat when you carb load isn’t just ‘a bit more carbs’. It should be based on a structured plan to help you reach your goal target of carbohydrates.
Current guidance for a carb loading calculator suggests consuming 10 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight, which is quite a lot!
You will want to focus your meals around simple carbs like white rice, white bread and white pasta, which contain large amounts of carbohydrate without the fibre and heaviness of whole grains.
If this is your first time carb loading, it's a good idea to practice your carb loading meal plan before the race. The switch to a low fibre, high carb diet can cause stomach issues for some people. Give yourself time to find out what the best foods are for you.
You only want to be eating familiar foods on the run up to the race, because you don't want any unforeseen digestive issues to spring up!
Sweets like gummy bears, fruit juices and certain sports drinks can be excellent sources of simple to digest carbohydrates during a carb loading phase, as they contain a concentrated amount of carbs but aren't heavy. A great carb loading snack!
Some people are worried about weight gain during a carb loading period. Don't be! You will only be doing this for about 48 hours, and the performance benefit will outweigh the slight weight gain.
As you store more carbs you'll naturally store a bit more water with it, so don't be put off. It'll settle again after.
You’ll see the carb loading meal plan below contains info on how to get enough carbohydrates as a 60 kg, 70 kg and 80 kg athlete.
I hope you find it useful!
P.S. If you would like to watch a full video on it, click this link to watch how to carb load for triathlon, or if you want to learn more in general, check out our ultimate guide to carb loading!