5 Costco Carb Snacks for Athletes
Full disclosure, I am not a sport nutritionist. But I have a sport nutritionist. :) And I’d like to think I’ve retained some of what I’ve been taught.
Over the past 2 years, I’ve discovered two nutrition truths.
#1- Most athletes don’t fuel enough to support their training.
#2- Carbs are an endurance athlete’s best friend.
“But I use a sport drink and gels during workouts!” You might say.
“I fuel during workouts, isn’t that enough?”
Not really…
The biggest thing I learned during my last 2 IRONMAN training cycles is that I wasn't eating near enough food, and I wasn’t eating the right foods, both pre and post-workout.
But once I figured out how to properly fuel before a workout, after a workout, and in between workouts, it was a total game-changer. It’s kind of crazy to think that what you eat has such a big impact on how well you can execute a training session and recover for the next workout. And recovery is the name of the game if you’re an athlete doing multiple workouts a day, and/or high volume and intensity.
In today’s post, we’ll cover:
Importance of pre and post-workout fueling
Why eating carbs doesn't mean eating crap
5 Costco carb snacks for athletes
*Triple Threat Life Club members get my go-to breakfast recipe for overnight oats.
Importance of pre and post-workout fueling
Again (not a nutritionist) but here’s what I understand about pre and post-workout fueling. Pre and post-workout fueling helps the body maintain optimal glucose levels (our main source of energy) which promotes high quality training. Fueling properly also helps train the gut and allows us to practice with the foods we will eat on race morning.
But most importantly, pre and post-workout fueling helps the body adapt to stress and deal with overall training load. As triathletes, we can’t look at one workout in isolation, because they’re all connected. This is even more true if you do multiple workouts in a day, like a bike and a run or a swim and strength session.
For example, let’s say you start out a bike ride under-fueled. One of two things will happen. You might have trouble executing the workout properly due to poor energy level/low glycogen stores, or the workout might go ok if you fueled well during the session. Either way, you’re still finishing workout #1 at a deficit, because what you ate or drank during the session was used as fuel for the effort. It’s gone.
Then, you have a run in the afternoon. You’re busy at work and don’t have time to eat a quality lunch, let alone multiple snacks. By the time you get to workout #2, the effect is compounded, and you’re really in the hole from a fueling standpoint. Not fueling properly pre and post-workout prevents the body from performing to its potential, and inhibits our ability to recover and adapt to training stress.
Think of recovery as the time between two workouts. If you do two sessions a day, that recovery time might only be 4-6 hours. This period of time is so important because it’s how the body adapts to training stress. We’ve all felt symptoms of poor recovery: increased fatigue, feeling tired, muscle soreness, poor sleep quality, or being irritable and cranky. But it can also lead to poor performance, difficulty decreasing body fat, difficulty increasing lean muscle mass, poor training adaptation, and even injury.
Now, pre and post-workout fueling varies based on the type of training you’re doing. For example, if you’re training for a sprint or Olympic distance triathlon, it makes sense that your nutritional needs will look different than if you’re training for a long-distance event like a 70.3 or IRONMAN.
So what does this pre and post-workout fueling look like? Spoiler alert: It’s not doughnuts, cupcakes, chips, and cookies
Why eating carbs doesn’t mean eating crap
I like to think that I eat a pretty healthy diet. I have a sweet tooth, definitely, but most meals include a lean protein, vegetables and fruit, carbs, and healthy fats. Something I was surprised to learn during IRONMAN training is that the majority of my daily calories were coming from fat, instead of carbs.
I would eat trail mix with nuts, cheese, avocado, and nut butter. Those are relatively healthy fats, which is great from a dietary standpoint. But when training for an IRONMAN, the emphasis needed to be on replacing the carbs I was constantly depleting.
I think the biggest mistake most athletes make when thinking about eating around training is the work-reward philosophy, ie. I did a long bike ride or hard run so that means I can eat whatever I want.
Pizza, candy, cookies, ect. I mean, you can do that, but should you do it? I remember asking a friend of mine whether he wanted muscles made out of grilled chicken and rice or doughnuts and pizza. Simple analogy, but you get the point.
So what does pre and post-workout fueling actually look like?
If I’m doing a workout under 60 minutes, I try to eat 30-40g carbs with 2-5g fat/protein about 30 minutes before the workout. This might be a bagel with butter and a banana. If I have one workout for the day, and it wasn’t very hard, then I can probably get away with eating a regular meal post-workout. A favorite breakfast is overnight oats, which includes greek yogurt, rolled oats, almond milk, berries, honey, and granola.
But if I have 2 workouts in a day, or a really hard workout, then I’m definitely eating a pre-workout snack, fueling the session, a post-workout snack, and then a meal. Yeah, it’s a lot of eating- every 2-3 hours if you do two workouts a day, which most triathletes do. (There’s 3 sports and only 7 days in a week so…)
For an afternoon snack, I like an apple with peanut butter or some pretzels with hummus. Also, Greek yogurt with berries and a few animal crackers is a favorite. Rice cakes are good, but not carb-heavy, so I add a banana and some peanut butter or honey to the mix.
If we have a long workout on the weekend, like a 3-hour bike ride and a 30-minute run, then I will have a protein shake with 25g protein within 30 minutes, followed by waffles with syrup, orange juice, eggs with cheese, ect.
Here are my personal rules for workout fueling.
Prioritize carbs over fat
Avoid high fiber close to workouts, easy to digest foods only
Never go into a workout on an empty tank
Real food is important
Join the Triple Threat Life Club 🚴♀️🏊♂️🏃♂️
Elevate your athletic journey with exclusive perks designed to help you train smarter, race better, and enjoy every mile:
✅ Monthly expert video calls featuring top coaches, pro triathletes, and mindset specialists.
✅ Members-only discounts from premium brands, saving you hundreds on your favorite gear and nutrition.
✅ Bonus deep dives and in-depth articles just for members, including worksheets and templates.
✅ Support this blog so I can continue providing tips and sharing knowledge with timely posts and original content.
All this for $5 a month. Join today and take your endurance sport game to the next level!
5 Costco carb options for athletes
So this brings me to the focus of today’s post! We went to Costco over the weekend to stock up on all the essentials. Side note: Do you know how much it costs to fuel two triathletes in the same household? We spent $400 and hadn’t even made it to the regular grocery store yet…
I want to share 5 Costo carb options that have pretty good ingredients and won’t break the bank. Now these are processed foods- bars, cookies, chews- and yes, real food is important. But something else I’ve learned is that it’s actually beneficial to eat more processed foods closer to workouts, because it’s easier for your stomach to digest quickly and use as fuel. However, it should still have quality ingredients. Processed doesn’t mean crap.
1. Nature’s Bakery Fig Bar- 200 calories, 38g carbs, 5g fat
These come in two flavors- strawberry and blueberry, and they’re plant-based with no high fructose corn syrup. They’re also dairy-free, nut-free, and vegan. Ingredients include: Whole wheat flour, cane sugar, fig paste, brown rice syrup, blueberry jam, ect.
You can get a pack of 40 for $19.99.
2. Made Good Granola Minis- 110 calories, 16g carbs, 4.5g fat
These come in chocolate chip and mixed berry flavors and are nut-free. Ingredients include gluten-free oats, cane sugar, sunflower oil, agave syrup, brown rice crips, dried apple pieces, ect. A bit low on carbs, so this would be an add-on with something else like yogurt and berries or toast.
You can get a 24-pack for $10.49
3. That’s It Mini Bars- 60 calories, 15g carbs, 0g fat
We got the apple/mango and apple/blueberry flavor and those are literally the only ingredients. We could only find the mini bars at Costco, but we’ve gotten the full-size bars at Publix, so it would have double- 120 calories and 30g carbs. I will grab one of these on the way to the pool for a swim workout.
You can get 24 for $11.99.
4. Kirkland Animal Crackers- 120 calories, 22g carbs, 3g fat for 11 crackers
I can’t explain how happy I was when I discovered that I could eat animal crackers as part of my post-workout snack! Ingredients include organic wheat flour, cane sugar, sunflower oil, vanilla, ect. I might pair these animal crackers with greek yogurt and some berries.
A 4 lb. container costs $12.99.
5. Bobo’s Oat Bites- 160 calories, 22g carbs, 6g fat
Ok, so these don’t come from Costco… but they’re Matt’s favorite so I put them on the carb list. We like the peanut butter chocolate chip, apple pie, and strawberry flavors. You can buy them at Publix. They also have larger bars and sandwich-style oat snacks.
Depending if they’re on sale or not, you can get $5.53 for 5 oat bites.
6. *BONUS Publix Pretzels- Snack Factory and Snyder’s of Hanover
These aren’t from Costco, but they’re our favorite pretzels. Matt likes Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps in Everything Bagel, but they also have Buffalo Wing, Garlic Parmesan, and Honey Mustard and Onion. 110 calories, 23g carbs, 0g fat per 10 crisps. Ingredients include enriched flour, cane sugar, salt, garlic, onions, canola oil, ect.
A 7.2 oz. bag costs $4.97 at Publix.
My favorite pretzels are Snyder’s of Hanover Honey Wheat Braided Twists. 110 calories, 22g carbs, and 1.5g fat per serving. Ingredients include whole wheat flour, organic honey, vegetable oil, cane sugar, ect.
I will eat these with red pepper hummus or with an apple and some peanut butter.
A 12 oz. bag costs $5.31 at Publix.
No matter what we’re eating, it can be really hard to prep for the day, do 2-3 different workouts, work, clean, do errands, ect. Our best tip for saving time during the week is meal-prepping on the weekends. Typically, this involves marinating and grilling 6-7 chicken breasts, porkloin, ect. a lot of rice, and a vegetable to eat for lunches during the week. Then, we divide the portions into glass containers so Matt can grab one on his way to work.
Now, check out the super-easy way we batch meal-prep breakfasts for the entire week.
Upgrade to the Triple Threat Life Club to get our recipe for easy overnights oats.