Carb for Runners: Go Low or Aim High with Lindsay Orbeta
In this episode we have Lindsay Orbeta, a Sports Dietician at UCSF’s Women’s Sports Medicine Center. Lindsay specializes in performance nutrition and works with many endurance athletes to improve their health and performance. Prior to being in her current role, she worked as an Exercise Physiologist for UCSF where she did exercise testing as a part of metabolic research. She has recently published papers as a co-author on dietary strategies for endurance cyclists and the importance of nutrition after injury and surgery.
In this episode Lindsay discusses carbohydrates for pre-race fueling, in-race strategies, and post-race recovery. Current guidelines are to eat 2-4g carbohydrate per kg body weight for the pre-endurance breakfast, but for sessions lasting 3-4 hours Lindsay sheds light on the merits of a more moderate glycemic breakfast composed of 1g of carbohydrate per kg body weight coupled with 40g protein. See linked paper for reference.
Running Specialist Report Subscribers can find the full report on Carbs for Runners in the March 2025 issue.
Learn more and download a sample of the Running Specialist Report:
https://www.celutionseducation.com/running-specialist-report-reference-page-15
Learn more about the Running Clinical Specialist Certification Course:
https://www.celutionseducation.com/the-essentials-of-running-gait-analysis-reference-page
© CElutions Education, 2025
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
1:12 Carbohydrate Guidelines for endurance athletes
2:14 Activity Fueling Guidelines
8:01 Nutrition for Endurance Athletes
9:44 Implementing a Low Carb Diet
14:13 The Difference Between Acute Carb Restriction and Ketosis
16:20 How Low Carb Intake CAN Improve VO₂ Max
19:13 When to use a Ketogenic Diet?
21:40 Metabolic Flexibility
23:50 Impacts of Imbalanced Meals
26:55 Summarizing Metabolic Flexibility
Connect and Refer to Lindsay:
UCSF Women’s Sports Medicine Center
Publications and References:
Wei, R and Orbeta, L et al. Nutritional Strategies for Endurance Cyclists — Periodized
Nutrition, Ketogenic Diets, and Other Considerations. ACSM Current Sports Medicine
