Development and testing of a carbohydrate monitoring tool for athletes

Karen Moses, M. M. Manore

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Improving carbohydrate intake in athletes will increase muscle glycogen storage. This in turn can improve exercise time and performance by delaying fatigue. However, planning and consuming a diet that contains 60% to 70% carbohydrate is difficult for most athletes. To develop a simple carbohydrate monitoring tool for athletes, we analyzed three sets of 3-day diet records from 17 male endurance runners over a 10-week competitive period and 9 female endurance runners over a 9-week training period. We then developed a simple carbohydrate monitoring tool. To validate the instrument, we compared each athlete's carbohydrate intake as estimated using the instrument with the athlete's actual carbohydrate intake from the 3-day diet records. Mean estimated percents of energy from carbohydrate using the carbohydrate monitoring tool were not significantly different from the actual mean carbohydrate intakes. Examination of individual diets showed that the estimated carbohydrate was always within 2% of the actual carbohydrate. Therefore, the instrument did a good job of estimating the percent of energy from carbohydrate in the diets of endurance runners. This instrument will provide a quick method by which the athlete can assess and improve carbohydrate intake on a daily basis without the use of daily diet records.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)962-965
Number of pages4
JournalJournal of the American Dietetic Association
Volume91
Issue number8
StatePublished - Nov 8 1991

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Food Science
  • Nutrition and Dietetics

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