As a nutritionist and a Paleo eater, I’ve (Neely) thought a lot about people’s carb intakes.
My own journey has taken me through periods of eating lots of carbs as a vegetarian kid and teenager, then down to very low carbs when I first started Paleo and when I experimented with the ketogenic diet, and now I’m back to a moderate carb intake. I probably eat around 25% carbs, 25% protein, and 50% fat every day. That’s about 120g of carbs for me (on around 1800 calories a day – and no, I’m not on a diet, I just guesstimated that).
For reference, many Americans’ diets are made up of about 40% carbs or more. That’d be around 240g on a 2,400 calorie diet. Low-carb is considered anything under 45% (by the USDA, at least).
I personally found that on low carb diets, I feel pretty awful. My performance sucks, I’m tired, grumpy, hungry, and get muscle fatigue really easily. So throughout my 7 years on Paleo, I’ve made a pretty concerted effort to add more carbs into my diet in the form of tapioca flour, sweet potatoes, veggies, fruit, and some honey.
I’ve noticed a similar trend among my clients and friends when they go low carb and try to keep up with their climbing training (or running or whatever they’re doing): they feel tired and grumpy and hungry when they’re too low carb.
While I think people’s bodies are all different, and we all thrive on different macronutrient ratios, I do think there are some generalizations that can be made about carbs and athletes – especially power athletes like climbers.
The guy over at www.climbingnutrition.com did a really great job of summing up the research on this topic and making some awesome points about how carbs affect climbers, and particularly, how low carb diets affect climbers. I think you should give it a read if you’re on the fence or in the low-carb camp.
Read the Low-Carb Article from ClimbingNutrition.com
I do not know much about diets but check out the last result from Dave MacLeod (great Scottish climber). He seems to get great results with low carb diet (to be confirmed though). Cheers.
Well. While I think carbs are important, Climbing Nutrition is recommending 55-65% carb intake which seems extreme to me. Thoughts?
Kelly – Yeah, I agree. That’s a little excessive for most people. There’s a spectrum with carbs and that’s the high side. That’s actually what the USDA recommends for people, and I think their recommendations are why so many people are overweight. So yeah, I agree with you. Having said that, some people can eat that way their whole lives and be totally fine, so it’s kind of a crap shoot with nutrition sometimes. You have to figure out what works for your own body.
Thanks for the article Neely! Interesting. Im still torn, as I’ve always included significant carbs in my diet, I did do a raw, plant based diet for a month this summer in preparation for a a series of climbing trips. I certainly felt weaker throughout the day, but managed to climb stronger than before.
I guess the jury is still out for me.
J