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Carb load snacks: what to eat in the 48 hours before your race

Grams per snack, low-fiber picks you can buy or make, and when to eat them. · 9 min read · Updated October 24, 2026

How we made this guide: we built it from the research below and checked every number against it: ACSM, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics & Dietitians of Canada joint position stand (Thomas et al., 2016); Burke et al., nutrition strategies for distance runners (2019); IAAF consensus statement on nutrition for athletics (2019); Fernández-Elías et al., muscle water and glycogen (2015); Lenhart & Chey, polyols and the gut (2017); food carbs from USDA FoodData Central and package labels.

This guide is for runners with a half marathon, marathon or other long event in the next few days who plan to carb load and want to know what to eat between meals. Still deciding whether to load? Start with how to carb load for a half or full marathon. For a longer food list, see the best foods for carb loading.

Two terms. Glycogen is carbohydrate stored in your muscles and liver; carb loading fills those stores. Fiber is the part of plant foods you don’t digest, so a low-fiber food leaves less bulk in your gut.

Why eat snacks for a carb load, not just bigger meals?

The joint position stand from the American College of Sports Medicine, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and Dietitians of Canada sets carb loading at 10–12 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight per day, for 36–48 hours, before events lasting more than about 90 minutes (Thomas et al., 2016). The 2019 IAAF consensus statement gives the same range for the marathon (IAAF, 2019). For events under about 90 minutes, the position stand lists 7–12 g per kg a day, its everyday fueling range, with no special loading.

For a 150 lb (68 kg) runner, loading means 680–820 g of carbs a day. Over three meals, that is 230–270 g each, a big pile of food. Snacks split the same total into pieces your stomach can handle.

There is a second reason. Burke and colleagues say a low-fiber diet can be combined with carb loading and “may even assist” with large carb targets, because low-fiber foods pack more energy into less volume (Burke et al., 2019). Its main purpose is gut comfort during the race, and they note it hasn’t been tested rigorously in sport. Treat it as a sensible habit, not a proven performance boost.

How many grams of carbs should each snack have?

Start with your daily number: 10–12 g times your weight in kg. Then decide how much of the day comes from snacks. We suggest about 40%, in four snacks, so each snack is about 10% of the day, or 1–1.2 g of carbs per kg. The studies set the daily total, not the snack size.

Calculated from 10–12 g/kg, with each snack at 10% of the day, rounded to the nearest 5 g.

With three snacks, each is closer to 1.3–1.6 g per kg; with five, closer to 0.8–1 g per kg. Meals still carry the other 60%. If your appetite fades on day two, drinks help: juice and chocolate milk deliver carbs with little bulk.

Which low-fiber snacks are worth eating, and how many carbs do they have?

Burke and colleagues describe a low-fiber diet as under about 10 g of fiber a day, built on white bread, white cereals, well-cooked white rice and pasta, pulp-free juice, honey and jam, and sports products (Burke et al., 2019). That is a strict level. Our rule of thumb is gentler: about 2 g of fiber or less per snack. The sample day further down comes to roughly 20 g of fiber, about double Burke’s level; to get closer, swap some of the bread and applesauce for juice or honey. This table is sorted by carbs per serving.

Approximate values for generic foods from USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy). Brands and portion sizes vary, so check your label.

Two cautions. Burke and colleagues advise avoiding uncooked fruit and vegetables during a low-fiber stretch, skins and seeds included, and allow pureed or cooked versions in modest amounts. A medium banana has about 27 g of carbs and 3 g of fiber, so if it’s your favorite, rehearse it first. And starchy foods that cool after cooking form resistant starch, so the same authors suggest eating rice, pasta and potato well cooked and hot.

When should you eat snacks across the 48 hours?

Count back from the start time. The load runs 36–48 hours before the gun (Thomas et al., 2016). The schedule is ours, built around the published amounts.

One loading day for a 150 lb runner at 10 g per kg, with snack carbs summed from the tables on this page:

Expect the scale to rise. A lab study found muscle held at least 3 g of water with every gram of glycogen (Fernández-Elías et al., 2015), so a heavier weigh-in during a load is normal.

What are the best store-bought carb load snacks?

Most of the table above is a grocery list: plain bagels, white bread, soft pretzels, hard pretzels, corn flakes, applesauce cups, clear juice, low-fat chocolate milk and smooth vanilla yogurt. Skip anything labeled whole grain, multigrain or seeded. Sports products pack carbs into a small package, handy when your appetite is low.

From one example label of each, listed under Sources. Brands, flavors and formulas differ, so read the package in your hand.

On a label, check total carbohydrate, dietary fiber and total fat. We look for about 2 g of fiber or less and about 3 g of fat or less per serving; those cutoffs are ours. The position stand says foods high in fat, protein or fiber may need to be avoided close to the start to lower the risk of stomach problems. The waffle label we checked lists 6 g of fat, so we’d use one now and then.

What are easy homemade carb load snacks?

Homemade gives you control over fiber and fat. Each lands near the 70 g target for a 150 lb runner.

Each total adds up ingredient values from USDA FoodData Central. Your brands and portions will differ a little.

Leave banana, berries, seeds and oats out of the smoothie for these two days, since they add fiber.

Which snacks should you skip before a race?

“Skip” here means for these two days only. Every food in this table is fine at other times.

Approximate values from USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy). The granola is a Quaker oats, wheat, honey and raisins entry; other brands differ.

• Sugar-free products. Sugar-free gum and bars are often sweetened with polyols such as sorbitol, mannitol, maltitol or xylitol. A systematic review found that polyols can cause gas, stomach discomfort and laxative effects in a dose-dependent way, in healthy people as well as people with IBS (Lenhart & Chey, 2017).
• Raw vegetables, fruit with skins or seeds, and cold leftover rice or pasta. See the cautions above.
• Anything new. The IAAF statement says every strategy should be well practiced in training, and the position stand says to fine-tune with experimentation. A new bar on day one of the load is how runners learn their stomach disagrees.
• Fried and fatty snacks. Fat fills you up without adding carbs, which makes a big target harder to reach. That part is our reasoning; the position stand also lists high-fat foods as ones to avoid close to the start.

How do you track snack carbs without turning it into a second job?

Rehearse. Pick a long run two to three weeks out, eat your planned snacks for the two days before it, and write down what you ate and how your stomach felt. If it went well, you have your race plan. If not, you found out while it was cheap to fix. The position stand says plans like this can be fine-tuned with experimentation.

We built My Track Record so logging is one spoken sentence: say “two slices of white toast with honey and a glass of apple juice,” and we estimate the calories, protein, carbs and fat as ranges. You can set a daily carb target in Goals and see your day’s carbs beside it. For packaged snacks, scanning the barcode is free and looks up the product’s nutrition data instead of estimating it.

By Andrew, founder of My Track Record. Andrew has been active all of his life across a variety of sports and continues to stay active through climbing, swimming, weight training, golfing, snowboarding, and more. He built My Track Record so logging food and training takes one spoken sentence and can support any activity. He puts these guides together from published sports science research cited on each page. About Andrew

Sources

• Thomas DT, Erdman KA, Burke LM. Nutrition and Athletic Performance: joint position statement of the American College of Sports Medicine, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and Dietitians of Canada. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2016;48(3):543–568. Source
• Burke LM, Jeukendrup AE, Jones AM, Mooses M. Contemporary nutrition strategies to optimize performance in distance runners and race walkers. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2019;29(2):117–129. Source
• Burke LM, Castell LM, Casa DJ, et al. International Association of Athletics Federations Consensus Statement 2019: Nutrition for Athletics. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2019;29(2):73–84. Source
• Fernández-Elías VE, Ortega JF, Nelson RK, Mora-Rodriguez R. Relationship between muscle water and glycogen recovery after prolonged exercise in the heat in humans. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2015;115(9):1919–1926. Source
• Lenhart A, Chey WD. A systematic review of the effects of polyols on gastrointestinal health and irritable bowel syndrome. Adv Nutr. 2017;8(4):587–596. Source
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, SR Legacy (April 2018) (food composition database). Source
• Example package Nutrition Facts panels (one gel, one waffle, one sports drink), as shown on retailer listings: GU Energy Gel, Vanilla Bean; Honey Stinger Honey Energy Waffle; Gatorade Thirst Quencher, Lemon-Lime.

General information for healthy adult runners, not medical advice. If you have diabetes or a digestive condition, are pregnant, or have a history of disordered eating, talk to a doctor or registered dietitian before changing how you eat.

Related

• Best foods for carb loading
• How to carb load for a half or full marathon
• Race-week fueling timeline
• Carb loading calculator