Myth Busting: Women Don't Need Carbs

I'm Rachel, 

Senior Coach at MARCHON Bath.

Over the years I've worked with hundreds of women looking to improve their health, body composition, fitness, and confidence through training. One topic that comes up time and time again is nutrition, and more specifically, carbohydrates.

I've had countless women tell me they focus on low carb, that they've cut carbs out completely, or that they saw really good weight loss results when they reduced them in the past.

And whilst I completely understand where those beliefs come from, nutrition is rarely as simple as "carbs are bad" or "carbs make you gain weight."

As active women, we ask a lot of our bodies.

We want to perform well in training.

We want to recover properly.

We want to build strength and muscle.

We want energy for work, family, and life outside the gym.

And all of those things require fuel.

So let's talk about what carbohydrates actually do, what happens when we don't eat enough of them, and whether women really need carbs in the first place.

First, What Actually Is a Carbohydrate?

Carbohydrates are broken down in the body into glucose, which is then used as fuel or stored as glycogen in our muscles and liver for later use.

Our bodies can also use fat as a fuel source. Fats are broken down into fatty acids and glycerol and can absolutely contribute to energy production.

But here's the problem.

When we want to push any kind of intensity, the energy we can get from fat simply can't keep up.

And intensity doesn't just mean the hardest sprint session of your life.

It means lifting heavy.

It means pushing hard in a conditioning workout.

It means asking your body to perform.

Just like we do every week inside SHAPE and across MARCHON Training.

We ask a huge amount from our bodies with the training we do. Restricting your body's preferred fuel source is doing yourself a disservice and will ultimately make the time and effort you put into training less productive.

That extra rep you couldn't hit.

The pace you couldn't quite sustain.

The session that felt harder than it should have.

That's often not a fitness problem.

It's a fuelling problem.

But Women Are Better At Using Fat For Fuel...

Here's where things get interesting.

There is an argument that women don't require carbohydrates as much as men.

And actually, there's some truth to it.

Research shows women are more efficient at burning fat for fuel than men, particularly during endurance exercise.

This is partly why the performance gap between men and women narrows significantly over longer distances.

In a standard marathon, men tend to outperform women by around 10%.

In ultra-endurance events, that gap can close to as little as 4%.

So yes.

Women can utilise fat at higher intensities than men can.

But this doesn't mean we don't need carbohydrates.

Fat oxidation can only carry us so far.

The moment we push into the kind of intensity that actually drives adaptation, our bodies need carbohydrates to sustain that output.

Fat simply cannot provide energy quickly enough to keep up.

So even with this natural metabolic efficiency working in our favour, cutting carbohydrates whilst training hard is still working against ourselves.

What Happens When We Chronically Underfuel?

This is where things get really important.

When your body doesn't have enough energy left after physical activity to support its essential functions, it goes into a kind of power-saving mode.

It starts prioritising the things it needs to survive and begins shutting down everything it considers non-essential.

For women, the consequences of chronically underfuelling go far beyond just feeling tired after a session.

You might experience:

• Constant fatigue

• Recurrent illness

• An inability to build strength despite consistent training

• A plateau in performance

• Irregular or absent periods

• Low mood

• Increased injury risk

• Stress fractures

These are all signals that your body isn't getting what it needs.

And this can happen unintentionally.

You don't need to be following an extreme diet.

Simply increasing your training volume without increasing your food intake, or cutting carbohydrates at a time when your body needs them most, can be enough to tip the balance.

"But Rachel, I Lost Loads Of Weight When I Cut Carbs"

I hear this all the time.

And here's the thing.

Carbo-hydrate.

It's literally in the name.

Carbo. Hydrate. Water.

Every gram of glycogen stored in your body holds approximately 3-4 grams of water alongside it.

So when you cut carbohydrates, yes, you'll often see a dramatic drop on the scales almost immediately.

But that's not fat loss.

That's water.

It makes no meaningful difference to your body composition.

And if anything, it often leaves you feeling so depleted that:

• Training performance drops

• Recovery suffers

• Cravings increase

• Adherence becomes harder

Which usually leaves you further away from your goal rather than closer to it.

So What Does This Mean For You?

If you're training consistently, your body needs carbohydrates.

Not just to perform in your sessions.

But to recover from them.

To build the muscle you're working so hard for.

To support your hormonal health.

To fuel adaptation.

To give yourself the best opportunity to become stronger, fitter, and more resilient.

The goal isn't simply to weigh less on a scale.

The goal is to feel strong.

To perform well.

To recover properly.

To build a body that works for you for life.

And for that, you need carbs.

Coach Rachel
Senior Coach
MARCHON Bath