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Welcome to Issue 20 of the my newsletter.

Carbohydrate is one of the most important topics in sport, exercise, and fitness nutrition.

It matters for training.
It matters for performance.
It matters for recovery.
It matters for body composition.
It matters for health.
It matters for how people feel, function, and adhere to a nutrition plan.

But because carbohydrate matters, it is also easy to over-simplify.

When someone wants more energy, the answer is often assumed to be:

Eat more carbs.

When someone wants fat loss, the answer is often assumed to be:

Eat fewer carbs.

When someone feels flat in training, struggles with performance, wants to change body composition, or wants to “clean up” their diet, carbohydrate often becomes the first lever people reach for.

Sometimes that is appropriate.

But not always.

Because “more carbs” and “less carbs” are both incomplete answers unless we first understand the problem we are trying to solve.

Carbohydrate is a lever, not a diagnosis

A common mistake in nutrition practice is to treat a potential intervention as though it is the diagnosis.

Low energy? Increase carbohydrate.
Fat loss goal? Reduce carbohydrate.
Poor recovery? Add carbohydrate post-training.
Body composition plateau? Cut carbohydrate further.
Inconsistent performance? Periodise carbohydrate.
Feeling bloated? Remove carbohydrate sources.

Any of these decisions may be appropriate in the right context.

But the decision should follow the assessment.

Not replace it.

Carbohydrate can be a very useful lever.

But it is not always the main problem.

And it is not always the first thing that needs to change.

Before deciding whether someone needs more carbohydrate, less carbohydrate, better-timed carbohydrate, different carbohydrate sources, or no major carbohydrate change at all, we need to ask a better question:

What problem are we actually trying to solve?

Low energy is not always a carbohydrate problem

Let’s take a familiar example.

An athlete, client, or recreational exerciser says:

“I need more energy in training.”

A simple response would be to increase carbohydrate intake.

And sometimes, that may be exactly the right move.

If the person is under-fuelling, training hard, restricting intake, avoiding carbohydrate unnecessarily, or failing to eat appropriately around training, carbohydrate may be the key nutritional lever.

But low energy can have many causes.

It may reflect:

Poor overall energy intake.
Inadequate carbohydrate availability.
Poor meal timing.
Low fluid intake.
Insufficient sodium intake.
Poor sleep.
Accumulated training fatigue.
High life stress.
Illness.
Iron deficiency.
Low energy availability.
Poor recovery between sessions.
Unrealistic expectations of how training should feel.
A training load that exceeds current capacity.

In that situation, “eat more carbs” may help.

But it may also miss the main issue.

If the real problem is sleep, training load, illness, iron status, or chronic under-recovery, carbohydrate alone is unlikely to solve it.

This is where context matters.

Not as a vague slogan.

As a practical decision-making requirement.

Fat loss is not always a “cut carbs” problem

The same applies in the other direction.

When someone wants to lose body fat, carbohydrate is often treated as the obvious place to cut.

Again, sometimes reducing carbohydrate may be appropriate.

If it helps create an energy deficit, improves dietary structure, reduces low-quality snacking, or helps the person manage intake more consistently, it can be useful.

But fat loss is not automatically a carbohydrate problem.

The issue may be:

Total energy intake.
Large portion sizes.
Weekend eating patterns.
Alcohol intake.
Low protein intake.
Low fibre intake.
Poor appetite regulation.
Inconsistent meal structure.
Low physical activity.
Poor sleep.
High stress.
Low dietary adherence.
Over-reliance on ultra-processed foods.
Unrealistic expectations.
A plan that is too restrictive to sustain.

In many cases, carbohydrate reduction is not the magic ingredient.

It is simply one possible way of reducing energy intake.

And if reducing carbohydrate makes training worse, increases hunger, reduces enjoyment, or makes the plan harder to sustain, it may be the wrong lever.

The question is not:

Should we cut carbs?

The better question is:

What change is most likely to improve the outcome while remaining realistic, sustainable, and appropriate for this person?

The problem with one-dimensional nutrition thinking

Carbohydrate debates often become one-dimensional.

More or less.
High or low.
Good or bad.
Performance or fat loss.
Simple or complex.
Essential or unnecessary.

But applied nutrition rarely works well when reduced to a single dimension.

A better carbohydrate decision may involve several questions:

How much total carbohydrate is needed?
When is it needed?
What type is most appropriate?
What is the training demand?
What is the body composition goal?
What is the athlete’s current intake?
What is the person able to implement?
What else is going on?
What matters most right now?

For a high-volume endurance athlete, carbohydrate availability may be central.

For a field sport athlete, carbohydrate timing around key sessions may matter more than simply increasing intake across the whole day.

For a physique-focused client, carbohydrate reduction may help with energy control, but only if it supports adherence and training quality.

For a busy recreational exerciser, the main issue may not be carbohydrate at all, but poor meal structure, inconsistent protein intake, alcohol, sleep, or stress.

For a masters athlete or general fitness client, the decision may need to balance performance, body composition, health markers, appetite, routine, and lifestyle.

This is why “it depends” is not a cop-out.

It is the start of proper practice.

But only if we explain what it depends on.

Figure 20. Beyond More or Less Carbs. Carbohydrate can be an important lever, but the right decision depends on the problem being solved, the context, and the outcome that matters most.

Carbohydrate timing is often more useful than carbohydrate ideology

In practice, many carbohydrate decisions are less about high versus low and more about timing, distribution, and purpose.

Some people do not need a dramatically higher-carbohydrate diet.

They need carbohydrate placed better around the work that matters.

A hard training session.
A match.
A race.
A heavy lifting session.
A double training day.
A demanding workday followed by training.
A key adaptation session.
A recovery window between sessions.

Equally, some people do not need to remove carbohydrate from their diet.

They need better structure.

More consistent meals.
Higher protein.
More fibre.
Better food quality.
Less grazing.
Less alcohol.
More awareness of total intake.
A clearer plan for weekends.
A less chaotic food environment.

Carbohydrate is part of the picture.

But it is rarely the whole picture.

That is why a practitioner’s job is not simply to defend or attack carbohydrate.

It is to decide what role carbohydrate needs to play in this case.

Performance, body composition, and health are not separate boxes

Another reason carbohydrate decisions become difficult is that people rarely have only one goal.

An athlete may want to perform well and improve body composition.

A fitness client may want to lose fat and maintain training intensity.

A runner may want better energy and fewer gut issues.

A team sport athlete may want to reduce body fat without compromising repeated sprint performance.

A masters athlete may want health, strength, leanness, recovery, and consistency.

These goals can interact.

Sometimes they support each other.

Sometimes they compete.

Reducing carbohydrate may help reduce energy intake, but impair training quality.

Increasing carbohydrate may improve performance, but increase total energy intake if nothing else changes.

Keeping carbohydrate stable while improving protein, fibre, meal structure, and timing may be the better move.

Periodising carbohydrate may be appropriate for some athletes, but unnecessary complexity for others.

The point is not that one approach is always better.

The point is that the decision should match the situation.

What good carbohydrate practice looks like

Good carbohydrate practice is not simply knowing the guidelines.

It is knowing how to apply them.

That means understanding the evidence, but also understanding the person.

A good practitioner should be able to ask:

What is the training demand?
What is the goal?
What is the current intake?
What is the current problem?
What is the timescale?
What is the person willing and able to change?
What are the risks of changing carbohydrate intake?
What else could explain the issue?
What should be monitored?
What would tell us whether this is working?

This is where science-to-practice thinking becomes essential.

The research can help us understand what carbohydrate can do.

But context helps us decide what carbohydrate should do here.

A more useful carbohydrate question

Instead of starting with:

Do they need more or less carbs?

Start with:

What outcome are we trying to improve, and what is limiting that outcome right now?

That simple shift changes the decision.

For training energy, the limiting factor may be carbohydrate availability, but it may also be sleep, total energy intake, hydration, stress, illness, or training load.

For body composition, the limiting factor may be carbohydrate intake, but it may also be total energy intake, alcohol, appetite, low protein, poor structure, low activity, or poor adherence.

For recovery, the limiting factor may be carbohydrate, but it may also be protein, total intake, sleep, training density, travel, or stress.

For consistency, the limiting factor may not be physiology at all.

It may be routine, environment, food access, preferences, confidence, or the fact that the plan is too rigid to survive real life.

This is why the better practitioner does not ask only:

How many grams of carbohydrate?

They ask:

What problem does this carbohydrate decision need to solve?

Applied Practice Takeaways

Before changing someone’s carbohydrate intake, ask:

1. What is the actual problem?​
Low energy, poor recovery, body composition, appetite, adherence, performance, health, or something else?

2. What outcome matters most right now?​
The right carbohydrate decision depends on whether the priority is performance, fat loss, recovery, health, consistency, or a combination of goals.

3. Is carbohydrate genuinely the limiting factor?​
Consider total energy intake, protein, hydration, sodium, sleep, stress, training load, illness, iron status, and behavioural consistency.

4. Is this a question of amount, timing, type, or structure?​
The answer may not be more or less carbohydrate. It may be better-placed carbohydrate, better food choices, or a more realistic routine.

5. How will we know if the decision worked?​
Track the outcome that matters: training quality, performance, hunger, adherence, recovery, body composition, energy, symptoms, or confidence.

The practical point

Carbohydrate often matters.

Sometimes the answer is more.

Sometimes the answer is less.

Sometimes the answer is better timing.

Sometimes the answer is better food quality.

Sometimes the answer is to leave carbohydrate alone and address something else entirely.

That is the point.

Good nutrition practice is not about defaulting to more or less carbs.

It is about understanding the problem, interpreting the evidence, considering the context, and making the most appropriate decision.

That is the kind of thinking I want this newsletter to keep developing.

And it is exactly the kind of science-to-practice conversation I want to explore more deeply when We Do Science returns.

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To better practice,
​Dr Laurent Bannock