Have You Taken Carbohydrate Fuelling Too Far?

If you're training consistently, eating well, and still not seeing the body composition changes you expected, this is for you.

I put a poll up on my stories recently. Two simple questions. What impacts your running most, and what do you find hardest. 44% of you said the hardest thing is balancing performance and physique. And 44% said food pre-training and fitness levels both impact your running most.

But here's what those numbers don't tell you.

The women I work with who are struggling most right now are not the ones ignoring nutrition. They're not the ones eating whatever they want and wondering why nothing changes. They're the ones doing everything right, fuelling, tracking, trusting the process, and still not seeing the results they expected.

That is so much more frustrating than not trying at all.

The client doing everything right

This client is brilliant. Committed, educated, genuinely clued up on performance nutrition. Before a sprint session she had dates, orange juice and electrolytes — textbook pre-session fuel for high intensity work. She was ready to go.

Then her foot played up. Instead of the full sprint session, she did a 2.5km warm up and called it. The right call, if something's off, you stop before it becomes a bigger injury. But then dinner came around. And it was a double carb meal. Big on carbohydrates, moderate on protein.

On paper that looks fine. She trained, she fuelled. But when I looked at the full picture, she had fuelled hard for a high intensity session that didn't happen. Her actual energy expenditure was close to a rest day. And then she added a high carbohydrate dinner on top of pre-session fuel her body never got to use.

This is not a criticism. She had every intention of doing that session. She fuelled for it correctly. The session just didn't happen. And that's where the next skill comes in recognising when the plan changes and knowing how to adapt in real time.

The pattern I'm seeing everywhere

Women have got the message that carbohydrates fuel training. That's true. Carbohydrates are your primary fuel source for high intensity work. I will never tell you otherwise.

But there's a threshold. And a lot of women are crossing it without realising.

The pendulum has swung. We spent years in diet culture being told carbs are bad. Now the performance nutrition world is saying carbs are good, eat your carbs. And women are applying that message across every meal, every snack, every day, regardless of what their training actually looked like that day.

At the same time the macro balance has shifted in a way that's quietly working against them. Either protein has taken a back seat entirely as carbs dominate every meal, or they're caught in a different trap — the high protein AND high carb combination that tips them into a surplus without realising. Either way, same confusing outcome.

The important thing to understand here is that it doesn't matter which macro is high. If you're in a surplus, you will gain weight. Carbs aren't the villain. Total energy intake is.

The training to eat trap

Some women are still — subconsciously — using training as permission to eat. Not in a disordered way. But quietly in the background, hard sessions feel like they unlock food freedom. The harder the session, the more you feel you've earned.

After years of diet culture and restriction, training can feel like the one time you get to eat without guilt. But your body doesn't work on a reward system. It works on energy balance. And if you're eating significantly more on training days not because you need the fuel but because you feel you've earned it — the cumulative intake across the week can be much higher than you realise.

The framework — the session shapes the plate

Think of it as a traffic light system.

🔴 High intensity day — intervals, HYROX, sprint sessions, heavy lifting. Carbohydrates around the session before and after. High protein all day. Moderate fat. Calories are higher because output is higher.

🟡 Moderate intensity day — easy run, reformer Pilates, lower intensity strength. Carbohydrates pull back slightly. Protein stays high. Fat stays moderate.

🟢 Rest day or unplanned low output day — protein becomes your anchor. High protein, lower carbohydrate, moderate fat. Not because you're punishing yourself. Because your body doesn't need the carbohydrate fuel it would on a hard training day.

One important caveat — if you're in a heavy training block, rest days still need decent fuel so your body can adapt. Context always matters.

On the restriction question

There is a difference between restriction and awareness. Restriction is eating less because you feel you don't deserve more. Awareness is understanding what your body actually needs based on what you asked it to do that day. One comes from fear. The other comes from education.

The protein piece

Protein is still the most underused tool for most female athletes. As soon as women start running, carbohydrates get prioritised and protein quietly gets left behind. This is where we start to see muscle loss and the physique where you look like you don't train despite training consistently.

Target: 1.8–2.2g per kilogram of bodyweight per day, spread across 3–4 meals.

The takeaway

You're probably not under-fuelling. A lot of you are fuelling hard and fuelling well. But the type of fuel, the timing of that fuel, and whether it matches the actual demand of the day — that's where the gap is.

High protein every day. Carbohydrates around training. Calories that flex with your actual output. And when the session doesn't happen — adapt, don't punish. That is the skill.