Carbohydrates for runners

Carbohydrates, or just carbs to most runners, are your body’s main source of energy for aerobic exercise. One gram of carbohydrate contains four calories. Your body converts the carbohydrates you eat into glucose, a simple sugar. Glucose is then either used immediately by your body for energy or converted to glycogen, which, is the fuel stored in the muscles that power your running. When runners “bonk” or “hit The Wall” and have to slow dramatically, they’ve run out of carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are classified as either complex or simple. This classification has to do not with how philosophical they are, but with how they’re constructed chemically. Complex carbohydrates are starches, such as grains, and simple carbohydrates are sugars, such as the fructose found in fruits. Common food sources of carbohydrates include fruits, vegetables, pasta, rice, bread products, cereals, and jellies. You should aim for 60 to 65 percent of your calories to come from carbohydrates. This amount will keep your muscles well-fueled so that you’ll be able to meet your training goals. A high-carb diet chosen from the right sources also means that you’re more likely to be getting all of the nutrients that you need because fruits, vegetables, and grains are packed with vitamins and minerals.

Most of the carbohydrates that you eat should be either fruits and vegetables or complex carbs such as pasta. Aim for this level of carbohydrate intake each day:

• 10 to 12 servings of grains (one serving equals a slice of bread, half a cup of cooked pasta, half a bagel, or one ounce of cereal)
• 5 to 7 servings of fruit (one serving equals a medium-sized piece of fruit, half a grapefruit, or four ounces of juice)
• 4 to 5 servings of vegetables (one serving equals one cup raw vegetables or half a cup cooked)

If these amounts seem like a lot, keep in mind how small one serving is. If you pour yourself a decent-sized bowl of cereal, that’s probably three or four servings right there. Complete your breakfast with half a banana on your cereal, a slice of toast, and a small glass of juice, and you’re already past 5 servings for the day. And that’s not counting the carbs in the milk that you put on your cereal.

But aren’t starches going to make you fat? No. Starches are complex carbohydrates. They contain four calories per gram, just like the carbohydrates found in fruit and vegetables. If you gain weight from eating a lot of starches, that’s from eating more calories than you burn, not because of anything inherently fattening about starches. The reason that people think that starches are fattening is that they’re often eaten with high-fat foods that contain a lot of extra calories. You butter your bread, fry your potatoes, or have pizza with sausage and extra cheese.
This kind of misunderstanding shows that it’s important to make sure that what you think is a high-carb food really is. When you have a thick crust pizza loaded with veggies, that’s high-carb. But when you have the thin crust meat lover’s special, more than half of the calories are coming from fat. Other supposed high-carb foods that are usually high in fat include muffins, granola, and macaroni and cheese.