Know Your Macros: Carbs, Protein and Fat
Trail Notes | Fuelling
carbs, protein and fat, explained simply
Know Your Macros
Food is powerful fuel, and carbohydrate, protein and fat each play a different role in helping you train, adapt and recover.
You do not need to track every gram, you just need to understand what each one does.
Carbohydrate: your main fuel
Stored as glycogen in your muscles and liver, carbs are not the enemy. Chronically under-eating them leaves you flat and under-recovered. Match intake to the work: harder and longer days need more, easy days need less, never zero. Think oats, rice, potatoes, fruit, wholegrains and legumes day to day, with quicker options like banana, dates or gels around training.
Protein: your building block
Training creates the stimulus; protein helps your body rebuild. It supports muscle repair, immune function, hormones and adaptation, and matters even more as you build volume, return from injury, or move through perimenopause and menopause. Many active women sit around 1.2 to 2.0 grams per kilogram of body weight a day, spread across breakfast, lunch and dinner rather than loaded at night.
Fat: for satiety and hormones
Fat supports satiety, hormone health and the absorption of key vitamins. Aim for quality sources like avocado, olive oil, nuts, seeds and oily fish, at roughly 20 to 35 percent of daily energy. Go easier on higher-fat foods right before running, when easy-to-digest carbohydrate sits better.
Match your fuel to the work
Your needs shift day to day with training load. Some women notice patterns across the month, so track your own and adjust to what you see: we train the person, not the phase. Heavier days need more carbohydrate. Strength work needs enough protein. Recovery days still need enough energy to repair and adapt. For long efforts, build toward about 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour, starting at 40 to 50 grams if fuelling is new to you, and up to 90 grams only if your gut is trained for it, and start fuelling in the first 30 to 45 minutes.
The goal is not perfection, it is consistency.
Written by the Her Trails coaching team
Trail Notes are evidence-informed coaching journals written for women who train, race and run on trails.
Go deeper inside Her Trails
The full version of Know Your Macros: Fuel and Recover in Base Camp covers timing, female athlete considerations and worked examples.
