Many sources advise to practise carb loading in the days before a marathon race.
However, I doubt if the expected performance improvement is bigger than the negative impact of the weight gain. Using multiple online calculators/estimators, the positive carb loading effect (for me being around 5 minutes faster) is exactly the same as the negative weight gain effect (5 minutes slower, because carb loading comes with significant weight gain from holding more water).
I also asked ChatGPT (who doesn’t these days?) and ‘they’ confirm my doubt…
Does anyone have additional input on this? Something that can help me decide to carb load or not?
Thank you - Michel