Step by Step: How To Fuel For Cross Country Skiing

Cross Country Skiing is a popular winter pastime here in Switzerland. It’s fun, fast, and you can cover some serious mileage, but it can also use a lot of fuel, especially if you are touring or competing.

In fact, having enough fuel (food) available for the amount of exercise you undertake is a key factor in your performance recovery and overall health. This was highlighted by Carr et al. 2019 and Kettunen et al. 2023 who found widespread suboptimal carbohydrate intake in female cross country skiers. In this article, we’ll discuss how much food you’ll need to support your cross country skiing, how that could look with meals across the day, and explain how the type and timing of food is also important.

Figuring out how much to eat

Let’s determine how much you need to eat to maintain your body weight and optimally recover. Professional or semi-professional athletes may have access to a sports science lab to help calculate total daily energy needs, but if you are an amateur athlete, you can use this simple equation to determine your maintenance calorie requirements:

Body weight in pounds (lb) x 15.

If you are looking for more complex calculators, then I would suggest the Mifflin-St Jeor Equation, however the above is a great simple starting point for most people.

Let’s start with an example:

Jim is 70 kg (ca. 154 lb) and Jane is 55 kg (ca. 121 lb) and they are training for a ski marathon this winter. Going by our basic equation, Jim would need 2310 kcal to maintain his bodyweight and Jane would need 1815 kcal.

Now let’s factor in some skiing and assume these guys are planning a moderate to vigorous session over several hours. Smartwatch or fitness trackers may be able to give them a rough (very rough) estimate of the number of calories they have burned during a typical session. If not, there are also the ‘back of the envelope’ calculations to figure out a number using metabolic equivalents (METS). Again, in-depth explanation is for another article and professional will use a performance lab, but here is how to calculate rough exercise energy expenditure:

METS Calculation Exercise calories = (MET level of activity (9-12 for X-Country) x 3.5 x Weight (kg) x minutes of activity) / 200

Using the equation and going for a moderate intensity (9), Jim would burn 1323 kcal in a 2hr cross-country skiing session and Jane would burn 1039 kcal.

Putting maintenance and exercise calories together, Jim and Jane would need 3633 kcal and 2854 kcal just to maintain their body weight on their 2 hr training days.

Let's summarise that in a table:

What to eat, when.

Now we have how much Jim and Jane need, let’s see where those calories should come from.

The majority of the fuel for moderate to high intensity exercise will come from carbohydrates. In fact, a person could need anywhere from 3-12g/kg of carbohydrates a day, depending on their level of daily activity and exercise. As cross country skiing is most certainly an intensive sport, I would aim for good midrange of carbohydrates to start. Let’s say 8g/kg as we are exercising in the cold. This would mean that Jim would require 560g of carbs per day, and Jane would need 440g.

The next nutrient to consider here is protein. In this case, It’s vital to aid in repair and recovery and support good immune function. 1.3-2g/kg is typically range for an athlete and there are a couple of additional factors to consider — 1) cross country skiing has an aerobic component, where demands for amino acids is high and 2) we are in the cold, where it can be harder to initiate protein synthesis, so the higher end of this range is a good place to start: 1.8g/kg, so Jim and Jane require 126g/day and 99g/day respectively.

Finally, fats need to be factored in. Typical recommendations are based on percentage of calories instead of per body weight for highly active individuals, with recommendations sitting between 20-30% of total calories.

Let’s see where we are with Jim and Jane’s calorie needs, starting with carbohydrates and protein, before we make a judgment on fat intake:

Jim — (CHO) 560×4 + (Pro) 126 × 4 = 3024.

Jane — (CHO) 440×4 + (Pro) 99 × 4 = 2156.

This leaves Jim 3633-2744 = 889 kcal

And Jane 2854-2156 = 698 kcal

This equates to approximately 25% calories or 98g fat for Jim and 24% or 78g fat for Jane.

That works out pretty great, especially for an off season period, but let’s consider we are doing a lot of aerobic work in the cold, with a performance focus leading into a competition. There’s also a risk of digestive discomfort if fat levels are too high before intense training, so to better account for those factors, I’d move the fat percentage down a little to accommodate more carbohydrates. We’ll move that down to 20% of total calories and toggle the carbs to compensate.

Now we have:

Jim — 3633 × 0.2 = 726.6 (80g fat)

Jane — 2854 × 0.2 = 570.8 (63g fat)

Let’s toggle the carbohydrates… 5% total calories (the reduction from the fat intake) is 181 kcal or 45g carbs added to Jims diet and 4% total calories is 28g carbs added for Jane. Here’s a handy table:

Putting it into Practice

Now we are all set with the number of calories and where they will come from, let’s see what that means in terms of food.

It’s a good idea to spread the carbohydrates and protein fairly evenly throughout the day to optimise performance, recovery, and hydration (an important and often overlooked factor in cold, moderate to high altitude environments). Fats will be tapered a little running into the training window and fibre would be judged on individual tolerance, to minimise the risk of digestive discomfort.

Let’s say there are 6 opportunities to eat during a training day. Here’s what that might look like for Jim: Roughly 93g carbohydrates per meal, 21g protein, 16g fat and Jane 73g carbohydrates, 17g protein, 13g fat.

For Jim, doing an afternoon 2 hr session, this might look something like:

*pre-workout \>1hr pre — 1g-4g carbs is sufficient to keep things topped up

This is good for fuelling the exercise and hydration in a cold environment. 60g/hr because of the cold, intense environment. *I would recommend Jim start drinking this at the latest 30 minutes into the session and sip it throughout the ski, finishing off any left over after he has completed the session.

Post workout will help to refuel, hydrate and start recovery after a hard session.* Note carbs are below 1-1.2g/kg but includes protein to help glycogen replenishment. Jim also typically has some intra-workout carbs left over and finished his intra-workout drink alongside his post workout.

Now let's see how this looks for Jane:

Hydration

It’s important to consider your hydration, especially when exercising at altitude in cold environments. I have previously outlined some basic measures for monitoring your hydration here, and both Jim and Jane are advised to follow this in the first instance.

There are some situations where a hydration plan may be necessary. If you follow the advice in the link above and still find yourself dehydrated, contact me here to discuss personalised hydration strategies.

Fuelling is Key!

Now we’ve designed a nutrition plan for Jim and Jane as they train for a ski marathon, and I've given you some useful tips for how to eat to maintain health and performance on long or intense days out on the tracks. As you can see, the energy needs for cross country skiing are quite high. In fact, elite cross country skiers may require substantially higher intakes of carbohydrate and calories . In some cases double the examples we are using here! (10-12g/kg of carbs, and north of 7000 kcals!).

It's crucial that we fuel our bodies correctly and it can be extremely challenging to get your nutrition right. If you are cross country skiing this winter and want help with your nutrition, whether amateur or elite, get in touch here to book a free first consultation.

Key Takeaways

- Cross Country Skiing can require a high-energy intake.

- You can estimate your calorie needs to help support your training and recovery.

- Carbohydrates should be the primary fuel source, start between 8 and 10g/kg.

- Protein is essential for recovery, aim for at least 1.6g/kg.

- Fat intake should make up 20-30% of total calories.

- Hydration is an often overlooked but important factor.

- Fuel with 30-90g carbs per hour if sessions are longer than 60 mins.

- Meals should be spread evenly over the day to support performance and recovery.

References

Florian M. Messier, Laurence Le Moyec, Carole Santi, Anne-Fleur Gaston, Mohamed N. Triba, Emma Roca, and Fabienne Durand. 2017. The impact of moderate altitude on exercise metabolism in recreational sportsmen: a nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomic approach. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. 42(11): 1135-1141. https://doi.org/10.1139/apnm-2016-0717

Witard, O. C., Hearris, M., & Morgan, P. T. (2025). Protein Nutrition for Endurance Athletes: A Metabolic Focus on Promoting Recovery and Training Adaptation. In Sports Medicine. Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-025-02203-8

Burke, L. M., Hawley, J. A., Wong, S. H. S., & Jeukendrup, A. E. (2011). Carbohydrates for training and competition. Journal of Sports Sciences, 29(SUPPL. 1). https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2011.585473

Schek, A., Braun, H., Carlsohn, A., Großhauser, M., König, D., Lampen, A., Mosler, S., Nieß, A., Oberritter, H., Schäbethal, K., Stehle, P., Virmani, K., Ziegenhagen, R., & Heseker, H. (2020). Position of the working group sports nutrition of the german nutrition society (Dge): Fats, fat loading, and sports performance. Deutsche Zeitschrift Fur Sportmedizin, 71(7–9), 199–207. https://doi.org/10.5960/DZSM.2020.448

Kettunen, O., Mikkonen, R., Mursu, J., Linnamo, V., & Ihalainen, J. K. (2023). Carbohydrate intake in young female cross-country skiers is lower than recommended and affects competition performance. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2023.1196659

Carr, A., McGawley, K., Govus, A., Andersson, E. P., Shannon, O. M., Mattsson, S., & Melin, A. (2019). Nutritional intake in elite cross-country skiers during two days of training and competition. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 29(3), 273–281. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2017-0411