Why You Don't Need to Carb-Load for Leg Day (But You Do Need to Stop Skipping Lunch)

As a recreational athlete who enjoys training for an ultra and lifting, it’s been a challenge to learn how to fuel differently based on the effort. I prefer one simple daily game plan—I often eat the same thing, have the same routine, and hit the same macros daily. But a long run training day is very different from leg day.

Strength and nutrition coach Steph Gaudreau — who spent years racing mountain bikes and off-road triathlons before she ever picked up a barbell — shared with me on the Fuel with Erin podcast that lifting and endurance training simply don't run on the same fuel budget, and treating them like they do is where a lot of women get tripped up.

"Generally speaking, we don't need as much fuel for lifting," Steph said. "If I know I'm going to be doing a hard lifting session, I don't need nearly as much fuel as I would if I was going to go out and run a 10K." It's a distinction that matters more than it sounds, because it cuts both ways: some women under-fuel out of old diet-culture habits, while others, trying hard to "do it right," end up overcorrecting into a calorie surplus they didn't need.

No, You Don't Need to Carb-Load Before Leg Day

For women coming from a running or endurance background — myself included — the instinct to load up on carbs before a hard session runs deep. Steph's message: let it go. "You don't need to carbo-load if you're going to go do a strength training workout," she said. "I think sometimes people hear 'I need to fuel, I need to fuel,' and so they're already eating a sufficient amount, and then they're ending up in a calorie surplus."

The same goes for fueling mid-session. Unlike a long run or ride, most lifting sessions simply aren't long enough to require intra-workout nutrition. "I don't think we need to be slamming gels and sports drinks, eating during, thinking we're going to lose gains if we're not eating while we're mid-lifting," Steph said. "That's just generally not going to be a thing for most people." The same goes for the popular fear around the post-workout "anabolic window" — the idea you have to eat within minutes of finishing to lock in results. Steph called that idea "widely debunked by the literature," at least for anyone not training multiple sessions in the same day.

The Real Problem Isn't Over-Fueling — It's Skipped Meals

According to Steph, it's far more mundane: women skipping meals entirely in the middle of a packed day. "A lot of my lifters don't eat lunch," she said. "They're working, picking up the kids from school, running around like crazy." I often hear of friends eating a granola bar and calling it lunch, which also sounds like an all-too-familiar scenario for a lot of women.

Steph's fix isn't complicated: don't let hours stack up between meals, and stop treating coffee as breakfast. "I had breakfast, it was coffee — I love coffee, but it is not calories generally speaking, and it's definitely not going to have a well-rounded amount of macronutrients and micronutrients for us."

Protein Totals Beat Protein Perfectionism

Protein timing gets the same practical treatment. Rather than obsessing over hitting a protein target at every single meal, Steph says the daily total is what actually matters. "What is more important is that we get enough protein across the day. Our daily total is the thing that matters the most," she said. "Just spread it out across your day."

She also pushed back gently on the instinct to overcorrect once you start paying attention to your numbers. She sees people who track their intake, realize they're getting around 60 grams of protein a day, and immediately set a goal of 150 — a jump that's neither realistic nor necessary. "Why are we shooting for the most?" she asked. "Let's be realistic here and kind of slowly step up and see where you go from there." Often, a modest bump — an extra 20 grams a day, spread across meals — is enough to notice a real difference in satiety, without turning every meal into a protein-counting exercise.

When GLP-1s Quietly Sabotage Your Training

One part of our conversation touched on GLP-1 medications. Steph has seen a clear pattern emerge with clients using them: blunted hunger cues leading to genuinely insufficient fuel to train. "I see this a lot with folks who are on GLP-1s," she said. "They're not trying to not eat, but their hunger signals are so blunted — which is part of what the medication is for — but that ends up in a situation where their calorie intake is so low that they're like, I can't get through this workout, I have no gas."

Her guidance isn't to avoid the medication — it's to be intentional about eating enough regardless of whether hunger shows up to remind you. "We just need to have adequate fuel, not be too low in calories, be fairly well-rounded, eating a decent amount of carbs" — because lifting, she noted, still requires stored carbohydrate (glycogen) in the muscle to perform well.

The Carb Fear That Won't Quit

Perhaps the most pointed moment of the conversation was Steph's read on where many of her clients' eating patterns actually land: chronically, needlessly low in carbohydrates — a holdover from years of Atkins, Whole30, and keto-adjacent trends dating back to the late '90s. "A lot of my folks went through a period where they ate extremely low carb. They adjusted their shopping and buying and cooking habits to match that. And now they have not readjusted," she said. "There's still a fear of carbohydrates... I cannot even tell you how often I'm seeing tremendously low carb intakes. I'm like, how are you still upright?"

Her closing advice doesn't require a tracking app or a macro calculator to start: eat regularly, don't skip meals, spread protein across your day instead of front- or back-loading it, and — despite years of diet culture telling you otherwise — actually eat some carbs. "Please eat some carbs!" she said.

Hear the full conversation with Steph Gaudreau — including her actual minimum effective dose for strength training and why it's never too late to start — on the Fuel with Erin podcast. Find Steph at @steph_gaudreau on Instagram.