Latest News

Carbohydrates for Muscle & Strength

0

Today we are diving into the wonderful and crazy world of carbohydrates.

Despite what you may have been told, carbohydrates are not just ultra-processed and refined options. In fact, carbohydrate selection is incredibly diverse and very important to your daily energy intake. By looking at the big picture of what fuel you need when it comes to your training regime, you can get better outcomes when it comes to your training, energy, and recovery.

Click play to listen right on this page, no app is needed:

Or, listen on your favorite app: iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Spotify | Stitcher

Want a free week of strength workouts? Click here to get started!

Watch the Episode on YouTube

Key Takeaways

If You’re Thinking About Optimizing Your Carb Intake:

Get clear on the type of training you’re doing

Stay above carbohydrate minimums and match the amount of carbs you need to the type and frequency of training

If you’re an athletic woman over 40, get the majority of your carbohydrates from whole food sources and limit refined sugar intake

Many Women Are Missing Out on Carbohydrates

When considering carbohydrates through the lens of strength athletes, power athletes, and moderate to high-intensity training in short durations, carbohydrates are widely misunderstood. I am speaking from personal experience here when I say that carbohydrates are a key fuel source that many athletes, particularly women, are missing out on.

If you undertake regular weight training and are looking to build muscle and add strength, you need to consume enough carbohydrates to support your training. While this is all highly contextual, you may not be consuming the proper amount of carbohydrates that your body needs.

Carbohydrates Are Your Friend

We all have a baseline of carbohydrates that we need to support our training and recovery on a daily basis. However, this can get complex. Your body is not a spreadsheet, and you don’t just eat macronutrients out in the real world. This is why it is all about the finesse of understanding what your body needs in relation to the training you are doing.

Carbohydrates could be the key that you are missing that is keeping you from falling short of your nutrition and fitness goals. The longer and more intense your sessions are, the more carbohydrate intake you are going to need. I know that sounds simple on the surface, but it can take a lot of repetition and guidance in order to really soak that up. That’s why I’m here.

What is your favorite carbohydrate source? Share your thoughts with me in the comments section of the episode page.

In This Episode

The problem with the ‘low carb high fat’ approach that has become popular among the peri-menopause crowd (7:52)

Understanding the science behind what your body requires on a daily basis (14:28)

Sex-specific considerations when it comes to carbohydrates for female athletes (18:07)

Carbohydrate ranges for strength athletes or short intense training sessions (20:54)

The importance of support and guidance when it comes to bridging the gap in your nutrition (27:12)

Quotes

“When I work with my students who come into Strength Nutrition Unlocked, my one-on-one clients, or I get questions  DM’s from all of you out in the world, carbohydrates are absolutely at the top of the list when it comes to things that people are confused and also curious about.” (1:23)

“As an athletic person, you are going to have needs that are probably different from a general baseline of solid nutrition.” (12:42)

“This is where knowing your needs, and working with someone who can help you figure that out, can really be helpful in customizing this to your training.” (22:05)

“Many, many of the women that I work with underestimate how much actual energy they need daily.” (22:19)

“This is really where a coach or nutritionist who is certified and experienced in sports nutrition or a sports dietitian. Those folks like myself can actually help you to move forward instead of being stuck in the weeds.” (29:58)

Featured on the Show

Apply for Strength Nutrition Unlocked Here

Carbohydrates for Women Athletes Article

Follow Steph on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Pinterest

I’d really love it if you would take 1 min and leave us a rating and review on iTunes!

Podcast production & marketing support by the team at Counterweight Creative

Support the Podcast

Get 20% off Legion Supplements with code STEPH (20% off your first order, double points on follow up orders)

Get 10% off GORUCK with code FUELYOURSTRENGTH

Follow Steph on Instagram

Rate and review on Apple Podcasts

Related Episodes

FYS 376: Peri-Menopause, Low Carb and Fasting in Women Athletes with Dr. Stacy Sims

FYS 392: Understanding Total Daily Energy Expenditure

How to Pick the Best Protein Powder Transcript

Steph Gaudreau

Many of the topics that I cover on this podcast come from a place of both personal experience, and also my experience working with my students and clients.

And when it comes to controversial and misunderstood topics in performance, nutrition and carbohydrates are probably at the top of the list. If I look back to my endurance racing days, and then my transition into strength training and high intensity training, I absolutely missed the mark at the beginning when it came to carbohydrate intake, and really fueling in general, it wasn’t until I started working with a sports nutritionist in 2012. And I saw it listed out in black and white, that I realized really how low my carbohydrate intake was, by the way, along with protein, and my overall energy intake as well.

And when I finally started to implement some of the changes that he recommended, that’s really when I saw my strength take off, and my performance really started to improve. And a lot of the issues that I was dealing with really resolved when I work with my students who come into strength nutrition a lot, my one on one clients or I get questions, and DMS, from all of you out in the world. Carbohydrates are absolutely at the top of the list when it comes to things that people are confused, and also curious about. And one of the things that you can really move the needle on in your nutrition so that you get better outcomes from your training.

In this episode, today, we’re going to be covering what do we know about carbohydrate intake for strength training? Taking a look at some general recommended ranges, what are some considerations for the menstrual cycle, and a little bit more about practical takeaways.
If you’re an athletic 40, something woman who loves lifting weights, challenging yourself and doing hard shit, the fuel your strength podcast is for you.

You’ll learn how to eat, train and recover smarter, so you build strength and muscle, have more energy and perform better in and out of the gym. I’m strength nutrition strategist and weightlifting coach Steph Gaudreau. The fuel your strength podcast dives into evidence based strategies for nutrition training and recovery. And why once you’re approaching your 40s and beyond, you need to do things a little differently than you did in your 20s. We’re here to challenge the limiting industry narratives about what women can and should do in training and beyond. If that sounds good, hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app. And let’s go.

Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you very much for being with me. If you’re watching on YouTube, hello, welcome. Make sure you hit subscribe and ring the bell for more notifications. And if you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, then absolutely hit subscribe there as well and never miss a new episode. Before we hop into all of the very juicy content that we’re going to get to today. I just want to remind you about strength nutrition unlocked.

This is my group coaching program where we help you to implement and put into practice the fuel your strength framework, we’re really talking about performance nutrition, training and recovery principles and practices for women over 40 with an AI to help optimize what’s going on in our transition into perimenopause and beyond. So if you’re curious about that you’re ready to stop DIY eating and you want a coach who’s going to be with you every step of the way to help you personalize, customize, get past your mindset sticking points, then I absolutely absolutely want to invite you to apply.

And you can do that over at Steph gaudreau.com/apply We’re going to provide you with the expertise, the coaching and support that you need to be successful toward your goals in terms of strength, muscle and performance. Alright, let’s go ahead and dive in. And this concept, this concept, this topic is so meaty and deep. And we cannot cover in this episode, all that there is to know about carbohydrates and all of the different controversies and everything that exists.

What we’re really going to be looking at here is through the lens of strength athletes, and folks who are doing shorter but intense training sessions. So generally speaking, what we’re looking at here is strength athletes, power athletes, and people who are really engaging in maybe moderate to high intensity training in terms of cardio, but keeping it on the shorter duration side in general. And this is a general sports nutrition concept. The longer your sessions go, and the more intense your sessions get in terms of duration, the more carbohydrate intake you need.

So this is something I absolutely fucked up. When I was racing, mountain bikes, endurance distance mountain bikes, and then triathlons and I was also running prior to even doing any triathlons too. So I’ve done it, I’ve made the mistakes, I was very low carb and not eating enough. And I bring this to you from not only personal experience, but what I know about sports, nutrition and all my training there. And so if you are somebody who’s doing longer endurance sessions, we’re really talking about anything over the two hour mark.

So whether it’s just regular endurance, or ultra endurance, your needs are going to be different, your carbohydrate needs will increase, you’re going to have to start introducing intro workout fueling as well. And that is beyond the scope of this exact episode. So if that applies to you just know that your needs will change and be higher than even what we talked about here. So first and foremost, we need to understand that carbohydrates are a key fuel source, in terms of the type of training that you’re likely to be doing. If you’re listening to this episode, like if you didn’t click away, because you’re an endurance athlete who does no strength training, and you don’t do any shorter sessions, which is probably unlikely, you’re probably doing some shorter stuff as well.

But if you’re still here and listening to this, you need to understand that the vast majority of what you’re doing in terms of your training, right, your intense training occurs along the glycolytic pathway. So we do have that sort of creatine phosphate, ATP, quick explosive, one rep max type of energy system that we have are glycolytic, or sort of a lactic anaerobic system, where we’re really relying on muscle glycogen, and then also blood glucose for those efforts. And then we have our longer duration aerobic system, right? So we have this continuum.

And chances are, if you’re listening to this, still, you’re probably falling in. And along that glycolytic pathway, we need to understand though, that these fuel sources are used simultaneously, it’s just which ones are being which ones are the star of the show, if you will, right. So some people think, oh, once I, you know, surpass a certain time, like that’s when I start using free fatty acids or doing fat oxidation. And really, it’s happening all the time, it’s just that that is so slow, compared to something like a glycolytic, the glycolytic pathway, and everything that’s going on there, that we really can’t use that fuel very efficiently to fuel our very short efforts, because it’s cellularly just happens to slow to be able to support your activity level, and intensity.

The breakdown of glycogen into glucose for energy is really what we’re talking about here. And it’s very difficult for folks to consistently fuel your energy requirements for these types of training, especially if you’re doing that kind of low carb, high fat approach that we see has become very, very popular even amongst the perimenopause and menopausal crowd. And that’s really unfortunate, because if you are training in new systems, you’re probably not going to feel very good if you’re cutting your carbohydrates very, very low.

So remember, fat is not a significant fuel during things like strength training and high intensity exercise, we also have to remember before we have this discussion, and we’ve had many, many podcasts on this, where we’ve touched on and then even dive deeply into things like energy balance. So we need to make sure we’re not under eating, we’re not falling into a low energy availability state, which can then lead to the prolonged syndrome that we know is called Red s. And that’s so common, especially in the crowd of, of athletes that I work with, which is we’re just not even aware of how much energy intake we need. We’re not understanding the different parts of our energy expenditure, did a whole podcast episode on total daily energy expenditure?

And sort of what are the four pillars or the four buckets, if you will, that make that up. So we really need to make sure that you have, you’re ticking some boxes, right? In terms of sports, nutrition and performing, we have to have an adequate daily intake of calories. That’s very important. We want to make sure we’re getting enough protein to support our lean mass, and not start to lose muscle mass along the way, especially if you’re somebody who tends to like straddle the line where you’re not quite eating enough.

So we want to have enough protein energy and of non protein energy. And that non protein energy we’ve talked about this in a previous episode is really our carbohydrate and our fat intake. So what that tends to mean is that if you are not feeling very well, but your protein is somewhat adequate, it usually means increasing your carbohydrate intake so that you can meet your energy expenditure and have better performance.

So you have this added benefit of course that you’re intaking and increasing a much more appropriate fuel source for the kind of training that you’re doing, which is like strength training, high intensity conditioning, and those sorts of things. So I’ve also done an article on this on the website, and I’m not going to touch on this specific piece too much. And so if you’re curious about this, we’ll link it up in the show notes, I want you to go back and read the read the article because it is packed with primary literature on this topic, and really gets into the weeds on what is the difference between things that are efficacious in highly controlled research environments.

So for example, if we’re looking at a low carb approach, that’s like a short term study done in a highly controlled research setting, and maybe looking at certain clinical populations, that what is efficacious in the research may not necessarily be effective for the real world. And that includes for busy, athletic people like yourself. So we went into a whole section on that, it’s got a lot of research that’s listed out, but just go check it out, I’m not going to be kind of going through like low carbs, specifically, I will kind of touch on it at the end here.

But suffice to say, when it comes to doing this stuff in the real world with real people who have real challenges, and are dealing with things like schedules, and habits and behavior change, and environmental challenges, like what’s going on around you, and social support, and in the presence or lack of that thing, that it is very difficult for people to sort of make the necessary tweaks that they need to in order to even possibly see that this is going to be like their best bet for a fuelling approach.

And then we’ve also talked about this a little bit on the podcast in the past that when we’re talking about fueling, we need to also remember that fueling is specific to like our strength or performance related goals. And that those things that we need to do differently, or we need to like tweak or consider changing in order to support the goals that we have, have to also come from that fueling perspective as like, the the extra or different things that we do in our approach, not just a general nutrition perspective.

So in other words, as an athletic person, you’re going to have needs that are probably different from just a general baseline of like solid nutrition, it will still be there, by the way. And when my students come in to strike nutritional unlocked, we assess very quickly, where do you need to go first? Do you need to start focusing on foundations first?

Or do you can you go ahead and jump to like the more advanced topics, because a lot of the challenges and difficulties or the reason people aren’t seeing results? Off the top of the you know, I was gonna say off the top of the bat, that’s not the right thing. Off the bat, are due to like the inconsistency with foundations and the chaos that’s going on with what they’re eating or not eating, and those sorts of things like their approach, and their habits and those sorts of things.

So, yes, the performance elements, the fueling elements matter, but the foundations, the baseline that we lay, is extremely important as well. So just to say that, all of that preface is what I’m gonna go into next. And again, we could talk for like, days and days and days about this, but I really want to present
from the perspective of athletic women who are lifting and probably doing shorter duration conditioning sessions, like what do we need to think about in terms of carb intake? So again, it’s always going to be contextual.

And I’ll probably say that 50 more times in this episode. So if you’re somebody who’s undertaking regular weight training, you’re trying to build muscle you’re trying to add strength. Again, our the general gist here in this episode is specific to that context. So before we go into anything specifically about sport requirement, technically speaking, our carbohydrate requirement for our absolute need is technically zero. Because our brain has a requirement for glucose, it’s about 130 grams a day. Our red blood cells have a need for glucose about 50 grams a day.

And we have this process in our bodies called gluconeogenesis. Which is so if you think about what the word is gluco, meaning glucose do meaning new Genesis means make so we can make new glucose from other substances in our body, things like lactic acid, certain amino acids, and the glycerol backbone of fats. So we have this idea that while we have like a minimum protein requirement, we know that as people who are training and prioritizing muscle, we have a higher need, generally speaking, than the bare minimum, so that we can actually accomplish the goals that we set out.

So we can build muscle tissue, for example. So I guess the flip side to this or the analogy here, the parallel could be that yes, we can make. And we can make glucose from these other things. However, SignNow. Also, we don’t want to be consuming amino acids from our muscle tissue in order to make
carbohydrate in order to make glucose through gluconeogenesis. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, if we have food available, we don’t want to consume the amino acids, some of which may come from our muscle tissue in order to create new glucose to then feed our brain and feed our blood cells.

Right. So what we want to think about here is, if you are strength training, you are participating in these kinds of activities. You’re doing this, like moderate to high intensity, you’re lifting weights, Sorry, ladies, shorter duration, types of training, that you want to be able to consume enough carbohydrate to support the training itself. And we also need to think about carbohydrates being protein sparing as I just mentioned. So we want to use carbs for, for our training to fuel our training, while proteins are being used to repair and build new tissue.

So this is just kind of a general argument for or general nudge toward having a baseline of carbohydrate intake that allows these other things like sparing protein to occur. And also to be able to fuel our sessions in terms of that energy system domain that we’re hanging out in quite frequently, I’m sure there can be someone who is able to argue with me either way, and again, know that I’m not presenting this here from the context of somebody who’s like on a very specific therapeutic diet for a very, very particular reason.

So I like to think about it from the perspective of adequate fueling goes beyond absolute minimums. So I tend to encourage people to start with a more realistic starting point, and having a minimum of carbohydrate in their day, if they’re physically active and participating in these kinds of training. And then to, to try not to decrease past that minimum, but really build on that as a place to go. So that’s about 130 grams of carbohydrates a day. And I’m not gonna on this podcast give like specific examples, because that can really be tweaked in and sussed and judged based on what you are doing and what you like and what you need.

But suffice to say, it’s like, we really don’t want to dip much below that, and really use that as a baseline as a basement that we can build on top of what about sex specific considerations for females research into the menstrual cycle and performance or performance, nutrition really still needs to come up? There is still not a lot of consensus. And it’s been really hard at this point for researchers to draw universal recommendations about things like exercise requirements, or for example, changes in nutrition between the follicular phase and the luteal phase for all men straining individuals, we’re not quite there in terms of the research supporting those things. And we know at least with exercise was training and N equals one approach is probably your best bet. But what do we know about things like carbohydrate or fuel usage, research tends to indicate that there is a difference during the menstrual cycle, that in the follicular phase versus the luteal phase, there might be a difference in fuel usage.

So for example, in the follicular phase carbohydrate oxidation appears to be greater than in the luteal phase. Also, in the luteal phase, we tend to have more protein oxidation, which means proteins are being broken down more readily. And this along with other factors may be at play. Although from what I’ve read, we, you know, again, still need more information before making a broad sweeping generalizations.

Also, some studies tend to indicate a higher basal metabolic rate or BMR in the second half of the menstrual cycle, the luteal phase, although the amount of that increase tends to vary, and I’ve seen kind of a general range anywhere from two to 11% of a slight increase in basal metabolic rate. Now can we translate that into exact amounts that every menstruating individual should eat more in the luteal phase automatically, it’s a little bit hard to draw those universal recommendations based on the current research that we currently have. However, one thing I did see listed in one of the reviews that I will include in the show notes is that the information on the difference in carbohydrate oxidation between the two halves of the cycle could potentially be influential in strategies like carbohydrate loading, that are really relevant for endurance sports, and that’s, again, kind of outside the scope of this particular episode.

So now let’s take a more specific look at carbohydrate ranges for strength athletes, or people who are doing shorter duration, perhaps more intense sessions, what, what do we know? So, in the field of sports nutrition, there is kind of a movement away from solely using total energy for the day. So for example, total calories, or total energy expenditure, and then calculating macronutrient percentages off of that. And I talked about that in a previous episode, why is it an issue or why it can be an issue.

But suffice to say, you may still, on your travels around the internet, hear things like, you know, athletes should look for somewhere between 45 and 65% of their total daily calories coming from carbohydrates. Again, that’s going to be highly contextual, because if somebody is training for an ultra marathon, or is doing a lot of endurance training, they may be at the higher end of that range. Whereas someone who’s lifting weights or doing shorter sessions, maybe you’re doing some sprinting or some short high intensity sessions might fall lower on that end of the spectrum.

So that’s where knowing your needs, and working with someone who can help you figure that out, can really be helpful in customizing this to your training. The other issue with using percentages is that many, many of the women that I work with at least under estimate how much actual energy they need daily. And so because of that, everything you calculate off of that estimate is too low. So this can be really challenging. And I’ve seen it happen so many times, or someone will calculate or I should say, estimate their total daily energy expenditure.

And they won’t like the number that they see. Because it’ll it’ll freak them out, or like, Oh, that’s too high. So then they go back and they, they readjust maybe their activity level, and they kind of like, lie a little bit in order to drive the calories down. So then when they’re calculating how much carbohydrate or how much protein they need off of that total. So they’re looking for that percentage, they are far too low. And we’ve talked about that again, on a previous episode. But suffice to say there’s, there’s a bit of a push now to work off of like, absolute requirements based on body weight.

So taking like a grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight approach, we’ve also talked about protein and absolute requirements for protein, and how that can be calculated off of grams of grams of protein per kilogram of body weight for a daily amount, and then how we split it from there. So when it comes to I’m going to kind of list off a spectrum here of like, different quantities, you can see like there’s kind of a happy medium here. So the ISSN International Society of sports nutrition, which is where I have my sports nutrition certification recommends a carbohydrate intake of three to five grams per kilogram of body weight per day, for general physical activity of 30 to 60 minutes per day, on a frequency of like three to four days a week.

So this covers a lot of you actually, who are listening to this show that you’re kind of in that shorter duration, you know, maybe you train three, four or five days a week, you’re kind of in that range. But again, even there is a range, right? Your individual needs may fall within that range, but you’re gonna have to figure out what that is. And that’s where somebody who’s qualified and understanding this stuff can really help you. The International Olympic Committee also uses that three to five grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight per day as a baseline amount of carbohydrate.

And then for strength training athletes, they recommend four to seven grams per kilogram of body weight per day. Precision nutrition, which is a really widely known nutrition coaching Organization recommends up to three and a half grams per kilogram of body weight per day for, quote, regular people undertaking little activity or only light activity. But that strength athletes might be more in that range of again, three and a half to five and a half grams per kilogram of body weight per day.

And then we see other recommendations for menopausal women, which might be a little bit lower, kind of in that two and a half to three and a half grams per kilogram body weight per day, are we seeing kind of a pattern here, right, where we’re kind of in that three to four or three to five range, when we’re talking about grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight per day. And for the athletes that I work with, again, we’re kind of looking at a range based on their intensity level, which is very similar to some of the things that you just heard, that I listed off.

So we really want to start thinking about setting up a baseline intake and then adjusting from there. And again, that’s what a really good coach nutritionist who’s qualified in sports nutrition, especially our registered dietitian, etc, can help you actually do so when it comes to over and above a solid foundation.

We know that there are some things that generally you have to think about in order to make sure you’re properly fueled. We talked about the difference between kind of general nutrition and fueling. Right. And it depends on several factors. How often do you train? And I would also say along with that, like, what is the flow of your week? Do you have three hard days back to back? And then you have two days off? Or is it every other day? Or what is the what is your actual training split look like from week to week? Are there multiple sessions in a day? Are you currently preparing for a competition?

What is the duration and intensity of your sessions? What is your nutrition been like in the hours prior to your training? So yes, we want to think about that baseline, and making sure that we’re meeting our energy needs. But from there, how you start to move those levers seems on the surface to be quite simple, however, and I can again speak from personal experience, this is where I was falling short as an athlete, you know, 1012 years ago, and prior to that as well, until I got support and worked with a sports nutritionist. And it was really in the implementation of the concepts and the information that was so valuable, and the head trash that I’ve had to deal with.

And I see, you know, a lot of my students have mindset challenges around even the concept of eating more. And bless, bless the person that I worked with, because I probably frustrated him a lot because I was constantly, you know, sending updates. And I was talking about my frustration or my my reluctance to like increase my carbohydrate intake and like my fears of what would happen and being unsure and probably being a little bit non compliant at times, although I was really trying, but that’s where the support comes in.

And I know it’s easy to listen to a podcast and say, yep, yep, tick, tick, tick, I gotta do all these things. But when you get out into your real life, and you you eat food, not just macronutrients, you don’t just eat numbers on a page, you know, your body is not a spreadsheet. I always say that to my students. It’s in the implementation, it’s in the the finesse of, you know, how did the pieces come together, like your schedule and your environment and your support social supports, and the support of a community or your coach?

Like, how do you start to put all those pieces together. And frankly, most of you listening to this show don’t have formal training in nutrition. And that’s fine, you don’t have to, but you’ll oftentimes put a lot of pressure on yourself to be able to do those things. Or you feel like oh, I should just keep doing it myself and doing it myself. And then you kind of keep rolling into the same challenges and and not being able to like see above the weeds and go, oh, actually my destination is like in that direction. Because I’m down here in the weeds and I can’t get that perspective.

So that’s really where a coach a nutritionist who’s who’s certified and experienced in sports nutrition or a sports dietitian, like those folks, like myself, can help you to actually move forward instead of being stuck in the weeds. So, you know, I think it’s important to tell Talk about that as the little add on here to why getting support is so incredibly valuable and important. Let’s finish up with some very general recommendations here.

And, you know, specifics we do inside strength nutrition unlocked, I’m just gonna say that because we have to look at the big picture, we have to look at what are the training sessions that you’re doing, how often like this is all the customization that we do. But some very general reminders for you if you’re doing the type of training that we discussed in this episode. So we want to make sure we’re hitting our baseline of 130 grams of carbs a day, and really making an effort to not drop below that. And then based on our activity level, we’re kind of in that three to five grams per kilogram of body weight carbohydrate as a, but again, even within that range, there’s a lot of customization that can happen.

And of course, if we are more active than that, then that number goes up, our energy requirements during training are rising, our energy need total in the day therefore increases. So you can see why the more training you do, the more you need to fuel. I know that sounds simple, but it’s it takes a lot of repetitions sometimes for for you to soak it up, right, we want to think about, you know, potentially based on your your training schedule, may be consuming 15 to 20 grams of carbohydrates prior to a training session, especially if you are training in the morning, and you have not had a full meal or two yet, or maybe even three, right.

So highly recommend you start to think about getting away from fasted training. We’ve done episode with Dr. Stacey Sims on that as well. So if you want to go dive into that one, and we’ll link it up in the show notes away from your training, you know, we want to focus on mixed macronutrient meals that include protein, complex carbs, fiber and fat, the closer you then get to your training, the focus shifts to more simple or easy to digest carbohydrates and more minimal fiber.

So tapering off on the fiber intake, as you get a little bit closer to your sessions themselves. We want to think about complex carbohydrates, right? Those are plant based whole grains, beans, legumes, fiber, rich fruits and veg, and you know, athletic women over 40. If you’re concerned about things like managing your energy intake, like, you don’t want to be in a huge surplus, you know, you’re just a little bit concerned about that stuff, then we focus a majority of what we eat on those sources. You know, I think everybody thinks that carbs are all just highly refined and ultra processed options. And that’s simply not true carbohydrate selection is so diverse, you have so many choices. And it’s not all just junk food, and I’m using heavy air quotes here.

Okay, and then of course, if you’re training more like twice a day, your strength sessions are more extensive, then you may need to do some more specific tweaking to say for example, what you’re eating beforehand, or what you include in your post workout. So those are just some general recommendations. Of course, we will help you to customize that within strength nutrition unlocked or in one on one coaching. So highly recommend that if you’re looking for somebody to just help you lay it out. With all without all of the confusion and in a way that makes sense that goes with the training and includes things like recovery, checkout strike nutrition unlocked. I hope you learned something on this episode.

Let me know in the comments here on Youtube. What did you learn? What are your favorite carbs? I would love to hear that was your favorite carbohydrate source. And if you’re following along on your favorite podcast app and you want to share that with me, send me a DM we’d love to hear from you there make sure you hit the subscribe button on all the places that you listen to this podcast and on YouTube. Ring the bell for more notifications of new episodes and other videos as well.

Thanks so much for being with me here as we dived into the wonderful and crazy world of carbohydrates. And until next time, stay strong.

Carbohydrates for Muscle & Strength | Steph Gaudreau.

admin

5 Skin Friendly Fabrics Suitable For Your Hair And Skin

Previous article

Built to Move with The Ready State

Next article

You may also like

Comments

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in Latest News