Meal prep is the upbeat abbreviation for "meal preparation", which means nothing other than "meal preparation". Cooking food so that you can eat it for several days is of course not a new discovery. People have been cooking in advance ever since they discovered how to preserve food. What is new, however, are the plans that meal prep can follow. The aim is to have the freshest and healthiest food possible ready for the whole week in one big but efficient action at the cooker. For years, thousands of pictures of meals in jars and bread boxes have been flickering through social media feeds. Meal prep, or "food prep", has long been a modern trend. It promises more time for other things in everyday life without having to give up good food. "This should also be suitable for bikers," thought BIKE editor Jan Timmermann, because if you save time cooking during the week, you have more time for cycling. A self-experiment should show whether Meal-Prep is suitable for bikers.
Meal prep for mountain bikers - the experiment
My lungs are burning, my back aches. I glance furtively behind me. Today, of all days, this guy had to cross round the corner. With 1.6 kilos of extra weight in my rucksack slowing me down today, another bike commuter overtook me just as the traffic lights turned green. I pedalled valiantly and took the lead again. Now my sports friend has been stuck in my slipstream for 20 minutes and my thighs are close to bursting. I try to place my hands aerodynamically on the centre of the handlebars, but the oversized Tupperware box presses against my spine. Who could have predicted this side effect of my self-experiment?
The basic idea sounds promising: I want to eat healthy, reasonably fresh and home-cooked meals this week, but lose very little time in the process. The days at my desk are long and yet too short. I'd much rather be ploughing through the countryside on my bike. I have rationalised away as many hours as possible in the kitchen in order to achieve my training quota. But that's not quite true: I've simply shovelled the time from the working week into the weekend. "I can do that, after all I am the master of my personal time management!" At least that's what I thought when I decided to try the Meal Prep self-experiment. Monday to Friday, I mainly eat what I cooked on Sunday. For five days, I want to put every minute I can into cycling and hopefully be fitter, healthier and yet more relaxed than before. At the moment, every fibre of my body is under tension.
Saturday: Planning is half the battle
Three days earlier: the heavy shopping bags are dragging my arms. That's a good thing, because if you want enough groceries for a whole week of cycling, you need bulk. Rarely have I worked through such a long shopping list. But the preparations for my little experiment go back even further. I had spent almost two hours researching recipes, making plans for which dish I would eat on which day and how I could minimise the amount of cooking I had to do in my working day. I now understand why there is even proper meal-prep planning software online.
But I don't want to make it that easy for myself and have set myself a few rules for the week. Firstly, I will only cook one meal a day. The morning muesli breakfast seems time-optimised to me anyway and even the good old cheese sandwich leaves little potential for perfection. Secondly, I want to eat something different every day. Meal prep usually allows for several approaches. Of course, I could also pre-cook goulash for a whole battalion in grandma's big enamel pot on Sundays and still eat it on Fridays. But a good prepping plan for athletes should be balanced and varied. Besides, that wouldn't fit in with rule number three: Only vegetarian meals are allowed. Fourthly, I live in a partnership and don't want my wife Enni to just watch me eat. So the quantity should be enough for two and the supermarket bags must be full to bursting. It's good that we don't have to feed the children as well.
I quickly realise that you can make a science out of meal prep. Especially if you want to optimise your nutrient intake as an athlete. But even without a master's degree in project management, a good strategy is possible. I make sure my weekly plan includes lots of vegetarian proteins and natural nutrients from pulses. If you want to avoid shopping completely during the week, you can also put bread on ice and stock up on basic supplies such as coffee and milk. - Jan Timmermann, BIKE editor
Sunday: No pain, no gain
Pop! The crown cap flies off the bottle of non-alcoholic drink. I have big plans and I can cope better with good music and a cold drink. Luckily, Enni has agreed to help. Chopping, frying, pureeing: I feel like I'm watching one of those early evening TV programmes. The vegetables are in the oven, time to prepare a salad dressing. Management skills are also an advantage when pre-cooking. It's hissing and steaming. Soon all the windows in our small flat are heavily steamed up. The two of us spend a full 2:45 hours in the kitchen (gross, including washing up, emptying the organic waste and opening a second pint). The menu of the week is:
- Monday: Pasta with pea and herb pesto
- Tuesday: Colourful pasta salad
- Wednesday: Seasonal oven vegetables with yoghurt dip
- Thursday: Chilli sin carne with three kinds of beans
- Friday: Large Meal Prep Leftovers Bowl
By the time the pots and pans have cooled down, I'm not only ready to go, but I'm also glad for our impressive collection of Tupperware containers, which I've often complained about in the past. How much food is enough for five days? Without any meal prep experience, calculating quantities is a big question mark. I like cooking, but I wonder if I could spend my Sunday afternoon in a better way - on my bike, for example. Or could the concept be applied even better to other areas of life? Work-prep for less workload during the week or partnership-prep for gym instead of TV nights, for example? "You're not actually part of the target group," Ennis' voice snaps me out of my thoughts. Maybe she's right? So far, I haven't felt the need to save time on my diet. With a furrowed brow, I close the door of the fridge, where the shelves are bending under the weight.
Even without Meal Prep, I regularly do bulk shopping. I prefer to cook large portions that I still have some of the next day, but rarely according to a recipe. Instead, I just use what I have in the larder. Of course, this requires flexibility and creativity. The self-experiment gives me the chance to bring more planning and efficiency into my diet. - Jan Timmermann, BIKE editor
Monday: An introduction to my taste
Which biker doesn't like pasta? The annual per capita consumption in Germany is just under ten kilos. This is probably also due to the fact that pasta is very easy to prepare. Today I will spend a maximum of ten minutes cooking the main meal. I pull the prepared pesto out of the fridge, a green mixture of peas and herbs that not only smells of basil and mint, but also tastes great. I'm back at the computer and back in the flow of work in no time at all. The problem is that the hours slip away from my fingers, flying by like snowflakes outside the window. In the late afternoon, I have to force myself to close the laptop. I have to finish early so that not only my employer benefits from the extra time. Fortunately, that's possible today - not a matter of course! But I quickly throw on my cycling gear and strap on my helmet light. Even the best pre-cooking doesn't help much against the fading daylight. A little later, I'm happily pedalling through the icy evening air. Today I can easily cycle half an hour longer and still be home for dinner. That's how I like it!
Pasta with pesto is one of my standard everyday dishes. Thanks to Meal Prep, however, I don't have to reach for the ready-made product, but instead spoon something healthy and home-cooked onto my pasta. Unfortunately, this doesn't help against a full email inbox and my inner pig. - Jan Timmermann, BIKE editor
Tuesday: Sour instead of full
I cycle to work on Tuesdays. 31 kilometres one way, usually at full throttle. Experience shows that my body needs a lot of fuel on this day. Being the planner that I am, I cooked far more pasta than usual yesterday. After yesterday's training session, all I had to do was chop up some fresh vegetables and put them in the tin. A net investment of just under ten minutes. As the morning conference draws to a close and my colleagues put on their coats, I wave goodbye. I'm not going to go to the snack bar today, as I usually do. Instead, I want to have a quick bite to eat, carry on working and add an extra loop to my walk home for the training effect. As I pour the prepared dressing into the salad, I realise that perhaps I'd rather be chatting to my work colleagues than sitting alone in the kitchen. To make matters worse, I had meant well with the vinegar, but now I can't do anything about it.
As my colleagues trickle back into the office and I'm still eating, I get the feeling that meal prep might not be a suitable concept for a 1.90 metre tall glutton. The journey there cost me a good 1,000 calories, and I'll burn just as many on my standard return journey. Even the biggest Tupperware in our household doesn't have enough room for the required amount of pasta salad. When the time comes, I get on my bike with a slight feeling of hunger despite my 1.3-kilo lunch. My legs are heavy from the morning commuter duel and I've lost my appetite. No extra miles for me today.
Cooking is just one of the many moving time puzzle pieces of everyday life and is also more than just food preparation. You have to want to sacrifice social, creative time in the kitchen or in the pub for cycling training. Meal prep can only be a successful concept if it can be reconciled with personal needs. If you're not aiming for a calorie deficit, as a tall cyclist you really have to cook a lot. - Jan Timmermann, BIKE editor
Wednesday: training or pleasure?
The anticipation is great because the sun is finally making an appearance. Enni has flown out and I want to use the day in the home office to try out another eating strategy. The pre-cooked meal allows me to fit a training session into my lunch break. I'm in the saddle at twelve o'clock on the dot. I can allow myself 50 minutes of interval training plus warm-up and cool-down today. As I turn back into the driveway, not only my calves are aching, but also my stomach. It's just before one o'clock and my biorhythm is giving me a ravenous appetite. I slide the oven vegetables from the fridge onto a baking tray and then into the oven. When I get out of the shower, it's crispy and warm. Time wasted: less than five minutes. But the clock still gets in the way of mindful enjoyment. So I eat the lovingly cooked vegetables at my desk in front of the screen rather than at the dining table.
Just pre-cooking is not enough with meal prep. It's also better to organise a good schedule for when to eat what. Rationalising away flexibility and spontaneity has both advantages and disadvantages. Eating on a schedule can be challenging for full-time worker bees. - Jan Timmermann, BIKE editor
Thursday: Break according to plan
Thursday is a break day. At least for me. But I still benefit from my meal prep because I don't have to worry about dinner after work and can treat my bike to some love in the basement. When the two-hour wrenching session is over, I put on some rice and heat up the pre-cooked chilli in the microwave. I conjure up a tin of prepared herb quark from the fridge to serve as a topping. Ten minutes later, we are sitting at the table chewing and enjoying the protein-rich meal without any stress.
Meal prep can help people to optimise their shopping and cooking behaviour in terms of time. But maybe in the end it's just a fancy anglicism for something that many athletes with a high training volume do reflexively anyway? Personally, I prefer to give less structured thought to food preparation and listen to my gut feeling. But I wouldn't normally think of posting photos of my food either. - Jan Timmermann, BIKE editor
Friday: The rest of the shooting festival
Sweat is dripping from my every pore. Beneath me, my rhythmically cranking feet are reflected in a pool of bodily fluids. I've decided to add a spinning session to my evening run at the gym. By the time I've cleaned up the mess, showered and got home, my stomach is growling like a Canadian grizzly. Today I don't have a ready-made meal to fall back on, but I'm still unconcerned. I shovel several heaps of the week's leftovers, including yesterday's rice, onto a bed of salad leaves. Add the remaining dips and dressing, some prepared roasted chickpeas for crunch and voila! A super quick and delicious bowl fills my rebellious belly. Speaking of which: experts recommend keeping food in the fridge for a maximum of four days. Ambitious meal preppers are therefore better off buying a large, energy-efficient freezer. For me, however, the timing of freezing and defrosting seemed like an additional and therefore unsuitable variable in the complex system of eating and training. After all, it now appears that I wasn't so wrong with the quantity calculation. Mind you, we had pre-cooked for four people instead of two - 6.9 kilos of food in total.
For me, planning a prepped meal in the evening has proved to be a good idea. That way I'm less stressed by hunger after a training session. Although the time saved during the lunch break is advertised on every corner, it can only be used for bike training to a limited extent. What's more, both quality and quantity are important. - Jan Timmermann, BIKE editor
The bill: this is how much time you can save with Meal Prep
I was able to save a total of 2:20 hours of cooking time during the week. Then there's the time spent shopping. It's difficult to calculate the amount of time saved on thinking about my daily meal choices. The time saved is spread over five days. If you plan cleverly, you can create a window in which you can fit in an additional extended gym session, for example. However, I spent 2:45 hours in the kitchen on Sundays. There would have been time for training here too. So from a sporting point of view, the efficiency of meal prepping is not necessarily impressive. The added value lies more in home-cooked, healthy food. With a little practice, the stress factor can also be reduced during the week.
- Pasta with pea and herb pesto: approx. 20 min saving
- Colourful pasta salad: approx. 15 min saving
- Seasonal oven vegetables with yoghurt dip: approx. 40 min. saving
- Chilli sin carne with three kinds of beans: approx. 35 min. saving
- Large leftover bowl: approx. 30 min saving
Conclusion on the Meal Prep self-experiment
If you're an athlete who values a varied diet, you have to invest in meal prepping. Great: by taking a close look at my meal plan, I was able to eat fresh and delicious food even on busy days without having to worry too much about it. As a full-time professional or for a week-long training camp at home, the pre-cooking concept seems well suited to me. However, it is too inconvenient for everyday work. I prefer to stick to my tried and tested strategy, buy in bulk, cook in bulk and be flexible. Self-optimisation has many fields of play and doesn't have to start in the kitchen.
Jan Timmermann
Editor
