Intro to Sports Nutrition: Chapter 1 - What are Carbohydrates?

What are carbs? What do carbs do? Are there carb socks? Is pizza a carb? Is anyone listening to me?

First off, we make clothes. We’re not nutritionists, but we do have an interest in what makes a body look, feel and perform the way it does. We’ve seen that pretty much nothing in nutrition is safe from having a Netflix documentary telling you how bad it is for you. 

Our advice is not to latch on to one way of thinking too early on. We’ve changed our minds a bunch. Nutrition is a journey, not a destination and your body’s needs can change too. Our intention here is to share our experience, with endurance athletes in mind. If you’re wondering what exactly is right for you, there are a ton of great professional nutritionists out there - listen to them.

Ok, with the intro out of the way, where was I? Oh, yeah carbs - the topic for today.  

What do you think of when you hear “carbs”? For many, white bread, bagels and pizza pockets come to mind. While that is correct, those are just some examples. The first big breakthrough I had was to understand that sugar is also a carbohydrate!  

At the end of the day, it's all Glucose...

Furthermore, it blew my mind that whether you eat a bagel, or dump a packet of sugar in your mouth, your body converts it all into one thing to use for energy - Glucose. It’s all the same to your body. Seriously, your body converts Cheerios into the same thing as cake frosting. Mind equals blown, right?!

So you ask, is there really no difference between eating a sweet potato and a packet of sugar? Well, there is definitely a difference.  For one, the time it takes to convert to glucose is different - which matters for training and health. Also, you get other benefits from the potato -  like fiber, micronutrients, etc. Then there are the harms from the packet of sugar like insulin spikes, which goes back to the timing part, but that is a topic for another article. So that’s it - concept number one: Stop thinking of white bread and sugar as different things to your body. Your body converts them both to Glucose as fast as it can, and glucose is a major fuel source your body uses to make your muscles and brain work.

Glucose is a sugar

As a quick note, glucose is a type of sugar, which now you know, is a carbohydrate. So that is concept number 2 - there are different types of sugar. For example, glucose, fructose, sucrose, galactose, and others. We don’t want to get too in the weeds for you, but essentially the molecular structures of these sugars are different, with some having more parts in its molecular chain. That means for some sugars, your body has to break down a bigger structure to get it into its final form - glucose. 

So now you know that “carbs” is a macronutrient category that includes sugar. There are different types of sugars, but at the end of the day, your body is converting them to glucose to use as energy. If you’re exercising, you may use that glucose immediately to fuel the work, or your body can store that glucose for energy later (in a form called glycogen).  Glycogen = stored Glucose. 

Storage is limited

Why does storage matter? Well, your body has a storage limit for glycogen. You can only store glucose (as glycogen) in your muscles and in your liver. In total, an athlete’s body can store roughly up to 500 grams of glycogen. If you feed the body extra carbs that are not being used in the moment and they don’t have room to be stored, your body can turn those carbs into fat and store them as fat instead. Fat has essentially unlimited storage capacity in the body. That is the beginning of the story behind carb restriction for weight loss, but again, weight loss is not our topic today. 

Ok, the end for chapter 1. Here is the concept cheat sheet. Keep reading Chapter 2 to learn more about carbs and why mental toughness isn’t enough in endurance sports. 

• Many foods are carbs, but it is important to recognize that sugar is a carb. 
• Your body breaks down all carbs into Glucose to use for energy. 
• Your body can use glucose now, or story as Glycogen for later use. 
• Unlike fat, there is a storage capacity for Glycogen in the body. 
• If you run out of storage and have no immediate use for the glucose, your body can convert those carbs to fat for storage. 

Chapter Two: More on carbs and why mental toughness isn’t enough in endurance sports >>>