CHAPTER 22

THE TRAINING TABLE—

Healthy Recipes, Shopping Guidelines, and Cooking Tips

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Many endurance athletes insist that they’d rather be outside training than stuck indoors cooking. But your kitchen can be a great training ground. That’s because what you eat will significantly help determine how far and fast you can push your body, how well you recover, and how effectively your aerobic system can develop. It’s wrong to assume that a prepackaged meal or quick stop at a fast food restaurant will provide a shortcut to eating well. In fact, just the opposite can occur—your training could actually start to fall off due to improper diet.

 

 

 

I often had patients come into my office who said they hated cooking and so they were stuck in a bad dietary rut for years. Most showed signs and symptoms of insufficient nutrition. But when they were finally convinced to eat better, they trained and raced better—and became healthier too.

One of my most common recommendations for these athletes was to start with the basics—to eat real food. This begins with shopping. If you only buy real food, while avoiding unhealthy items so prevalent even in so-called health food stores, you’re much less likely to eat unhealthy meals. Proper meal preparation means taking these basic food ingredients—fresh raw vegetables and fruits, fresh meats, whole eggs, and others—and turning them into a tasty, healthy, satisfying meal. However, you don’t need to be a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America to accomplish this daily task. There are plenty of simple-to-prepare recipes that will bring out your inner top chef—that’s the point of this chapter, to offer an appetizing list of healthy recipes that are easy to whip up.

With few exceptions, most of these recipe ideas don’t come with exact measurements and precise cooking instructions. I like to keep instructions simple, which also provides you with the potential to create variations that suit your tastes and needs. From salads and dressings to sauces and entrees—and even desserts—healthy recipes should be easy to make and delicious. Choose the recipes that are appropriate to your own needs and taste buds. For example, if you’re not tolerant to dairy products, avoid recipes that include dairy, or substitute non-dairy sources such as coconut milk or oil instead of cream or butter.

Because athletes often dream of dessert during training—like a well-deserved reward—let’s start with that.