A Paralympic wheelchair racer who's also a dietitian says she ditched her high-fat diet for high-carb - and her performance improved

• Susannah Scaroni is a Paralympic wheelchair racer and is also studying to become a dietitian.
• Scaroni's studies helped her find a new diet that she says has made a difference in her race performance.
• Scaroni swapped high-fat snacks like peanut butter for carbs like apples, and now eats more rice and potatoes.

Wheelchair racer Susannah Scaroni won her first gold medal at the Tokyo Paralympics in August, and she credits her training regimen and a recent change she made to her diet.

Scaroni, 30, who has competed in all three Paralympic Games since 2012, switched from a high-fat diet to a high-carb diet in 2020, and she said it made a huge difference in her racing performance.

She got the idea from her graduate school classes at the University of Illinois, where she has been studying to become a dietitian since 2019, and is set to graduate in 2022.

"I was trying to make sure I had carbohydrates, protein and fat, but I hadn't really ever experimented with, well, 'what if I were to really shift into a higher carbohydrate diet?'" Scaroni told Insider. "I think it has served me well."

Salads are not great for fuel, Scaroni found

For her past meals, Scaroni lunches typically looked like a salad made with lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, avocado, and ranch or Italian dressing - packed with fats, fiber, and vitamins.

But, like many athletes, Scaroni found carbs to be better.

A high-carb diet is more common for long-distance marathon participants, like Scaroni, who won gold in the 5,000 meter T54 - the longest distance wheelchair event.

Carb-loading - a technique based around loading up on bread, pasta, rice, and other grains - is a popular strategy among marathon athletes in the days leading up to a race.

Athletes typically shoot for 2.3-5.5 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day. (So, if you weigh 154 pounds, that would work out to 350-840 grams of carbs per day.)

"I just have made sure to have more carbohydrates than before on a daily basis," Scaroni said. "That was a big shift that I put into my own practice and it really served me well."

Scaroni ditched peanut butter - now she has apples or kiwis as a pre-workout snack

Scaroni said she used to eat two scoops of peanut butter before workouts.

While she hasn't cut it from her diet completely, in 2020 she started consuming it as a post-workout protein boost because it made her feel sluggish if she ate it beforehand.

Before a workout, said now prefer to eat fruits like apples, bananas, and kiwi, since they are more quickly converted to energy that can be used for exercise. Now, she says, that sluggishness has subsided.

Apples are a good source of quality carbs. They're also convenient if you need a quick, last-minute snack - we digest apples quickly, so they can be eaten just five minutes before working out. Peanut butter, on the other hand, takes well over 10 minutes.