To increase the quantity of carbohydrates stored in your body, carb loading entails making dietary and exercise changes for one to three days. Exercise performance may be enhanced by it, although not all activities require it.

One of the main fuels your body uses is carbohydrate.

The body stores carbohydrates as glycogen, which is mostly located in the muscles and liver.

These glycogen stores serve as your body’s main energy source during moderate-to-intense exercise. But your body can only hold so much glycogen at once, and as you exercise, the stores are burned up as the energy is utilized to power your body.

A nutritional technique for raising your body’s glycogen levels over normal is called carb loading.

It entails cutting back on exercise for a few days and consuming more carbohydrates than normal.

Carb loading might not be helpful for shorter workouts or less strenuous activities, but it might be helpful for high-intensity exercise sessions lasting more than 60 minutes. To find out more about carb loading, its many tactics, typical blunders, and the kinds of foods you should consume, continue reading.

What is the process of carb loading?

Before a lengthy or intense event that is likely to deplete your glycogen stores, carb loading entails raising the ratio of carbohydrates to glycogen stores in your body for one to three days.

You might need to increase your intake of carbohydrates while decreasing your workout.

Experts generally advise ingesting approximately 10 grams (g) of carbs per kilogram (kg) of body weight (4.5 g per pound) each day.

Therefore, 700 g of carbohydrates per day is equivalent to 70 kg (154 pounds).

In the past, several experts employed a percentage ratio in which 60% to 70% of total calories came from carbs.

However, as calorie techniques vary greatly from person to person, this is no longer used.

It’s crucial to remember that even though you could be eating more carbohydrates, you won’t be consuming more calories overall.

Proteins and lipids will also decrease when you increase the amount of carbohydrates.

Who is a good candidate for carb loading?

According to experts, carb loading might mainly enhance performance during particular kinds and lengths of exercise.

In particular, it might be suitable for physical activity that causes significant drops in muscle glycogen levels.

Sports like soccer or high-intensity endurance exercises like cycling and jogging may fall under this category.

Fatigue may develop during these kinds of exercises if glycogen levels go too low.

Carb loading, however, may assist extend energy storage, allowing you to have energy for longer periods of time and postpone weariness, according to research.

According to a previous 1997 study, carb loading increased performance for activity longer than 90 minutes by 2% to 3%Trusted Source.

When engaging in prolonged high-intensity exercise, carb loading might be advantageous.

However, shorter workouts or lower-intensity activities, like weight training, are unlikely to benefit from it. This is due to the fact that the main fuel source for these kinds of exercises is fat.

Strategies for carb loading

Traditional 6-day

In the 1960s, the traditional 6-day carb load plan was initially created.

The plan is to consume a lot of carbohydrates over the next three days to fill the stores of glycogen after they have been totally depleted during the first three days.

Days 1 through 3: High-intensity exercise is coupled with a low-carb diet, in which 5% to 15% of your calories, or 100 g, come from carbohydrates.

Days 4–6: Low-intensity exercise is coupled with a high-carb diet, such that over 70% (500 g) of daily calories are derived from carbohydrates.

Research from 2017 suggests that the initial “depletion” phase may not be required, despite experts’ long-held belief that it aided the body’s production of more glycogen after carbohydrates were resumed.

Traditional 2- to 3-day

Nowadays, medical experts advise a 36–48 hour carb loading phase prior to the high-intensity event.

This usually entails taking 10–12 g of carbohydrates per kilogram (4.5–5.5 g per pound) of body weight.

To help reduce potential gastrointestinal issues, some persons additionally follow a low residue diet for three days before to the high-intensity event.

High-fiber meals that could be difficult to digest and leave “residue” in your digestive tract after early stages of digestion are limited by this diet.