The Ultimate Guide to Meal Prepping for Athletes

Meal prepping for athletes is not always easy, especially when you’re busy and constantly on the go. To help with this I have compiled some of my best meal prep advice into this ultimate guide to athlete meal prep. This includes an introduction to what meal prep is, common meal prep mistakes, and four tangible tips for anyone looking to start a meal planning routine or add to their current one.

If you haven’t already, make sure to check out my full carb loading guide for endurance athletes! It is filled with great information on how to enhance your performance with carb loading.

What is meal prepping?

Meal prep is the act of preparing meals and/or ingredients in advance to use throughout the week. It is a strategy used by many people including athletes, busy moms and families, working professionals, and more. Meal prep is not a one size fits all approach and will look different for everybody.

Some examples of meal prep include:

• Making complete meals ahead of time to be eaten later
• Preparing large batches of singular ingredients to combine together
• Doubling or tripling a meal to have extra for later
• Pre-cutting and pre-washing ingredients
• Poritioning out meals ahead of time

Advantages of meal prepping for athletes

While meal prepping isn’t essential, it helps many athletes reach their performance nutrition goals. Being an athlete means an increased need for calories, carbs, and protein throughout the day. You are also juggling a busy schedule between training sessions, traveling to races, preparing for race day, and living your life. If you have food options on-hand and ready-to-go, this makes hitting your nutrition goals more accessible!

Here are a few benefits of meal prepping for athletes:

• Cuts down on prep/cleanup time. I know for me, cleanup is one of the worst parts about cooking. It can be so time-consuming to clean all of the dishes and wipe everything down after. If you are doing this every day for multiple meals, that time adds up! When you meal prep, you make larger batches of the meals at once and this saves on the number of times you have to prep and cleanup. A win-win situation.
• Makes food convenient and accessible. There is no worse feeling than coming back from a hard workout and having nothing on hand to eat after. You feel tired, exhausted, and hungry (or hangry as I like to say). Meal prepping your food can prevent this feeling. It sets you up for success with easy and convenient meal options.
• Plan and control your performance nutrition. Performance nutrition goals are specific to you and your training. But they can be hard to hit if you don’t have some sort of flexible plan in place. Meal prepping encourages you to plan your meals out ahead of time. It helps you consider questions such as, “Am I getting enough protein in this meal?” or “Are my carbs high enough for this day?“.
• Takes the guesswork out of meals. I don’t know about you, but I feel groggy and irritable when I am hungry. Sometimes my brain is foggy and I just am not sure what to eat! If you feel this way too, then meal prep could be beneficial for you. It helps to take some of the guesswork and thought out of creating meals. When you have certain ingredients made and ready, putting meals together becomes super easy.

Looking for more performance nutrition advice? Check out my digital downloads for athletes including tips for pre, intra, and post workout.

Common Meal Prep Mistakes

I will be the first one to let you know that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to meal prep! However, there may be some ways that you can make sure your meal prep fits your needs as a busy athlete.

Here are a few common meal prep mistakes:

• Too repetitive. No one wants to eat the same exact meal over and over again. It can be tiring and boring after a couple of times. Try to include some variety in your meal prep so you are more likely to not get sick of it.
• Overly complicated. If something is too complicated you are less likely to do it. What I like to say is make it stupid simple. You should be able to prepare your meal prep even on days when you are busy or not feeling your best.
• Not customizing to your needs. Many athletes make prepared meals that are too generic and don’t take the time to tailor it to their schedule or performance needs. Ex. If you know you are going to be on-the-go frequently, you don’t want to make only microwavable meals.
• Trying to do it all in one day. The whole “meal prep everything on Sunday” thing just doesn’t work for everyone. It can take hours to prep food for the whole week and not everything stays fresh in the fridge. Instead, break your meal prep up into more manageable segments.

How many meals should an athlete eat a day?

As a sports dietitian, this is a question I get asked all of the time. How many meals should I be eating in a day if I’m an athlete? Well the answer is this- it’ll be different for everyone!

There is no magic number of meals that you should be eating to hit your goals. It will differ depending on your training sessions, macronutrient goals, work load, life schedule, and more.

The number of meals per day isn’t as important as making sure you are adequately fueling your body. If can accomplish this with 3 meals a day, then great. If you need 3 meals and 3 snacks, that’s okay too. I typically encourage athletes to do 3 meals with at least 2 snacks in between. This will help you spread out your carbohydrate counts, which can be higher for endurance athletes (especially while carb loading).

Remember that the key to performance nutrition success is having a meal strategy that is sustainable and accessible for you. It shouldn’t be complicated or overwhelming! To learn more about a how to use a flexible eating style as an athlete, check out my post here.

Now that you know a bit more about meal prepping and the benefits it can have for athletes, here are four tangible tips for athlete meal prep!

Meal Prepping for Athletes: Four Tangible Tips

1. Make it once and eat it twice (at least)

A meal prep hack that I learned a while ago is when you’re already taking the time out of your day to cook a meal, simply double or triple the batch. This is good for a few reasons:

1. Athletes often have demanding training schedules and you might not know when you will have the energy to cook next. 
2. It saves on prep and clean-up time because you only have to do the hard work once.

Now I’m not talking about a huge Sunday meal prep where you spend hours in the kitchen making five servings of the same food. A more practical example is making a double batch of food at dinner and then eating it for lunch or post-training the next day. 

Some examples of this are,

• Make extra ground beef at dinner during taco night, then use it in a stroganoff recipe the next day
• Cook up a double or triple batch of your favorite soup for dinner, then have it for lunch the next few days
• Prep a larger batch of brown rice or Jasmine rice to use throughout the week

BONUS HACK:

Buy a rotisserie chicken and use it in different recipes during the week such as wraps, soups, salads, you name it. This will save you extra time on both cooking and prep!

2. Choose recipes with overlapping ingredients

One of the biggest issues I see with meal prep hacks online is that the ingredient lists for recipes are just way too long. Then you’re left with a random sauce or spice after making one recipe (which can also drive up our already expensive grocery bills).

My advice? I typically tell my endurance athletes to choose recipes or meals with overlapping ingredients when making their grocery lists. If you’re making a chicken stir-fry for one night, then choose chicken wraps for lunch the next day. 

This will also help you stay focused and feel prepared to go on your grocery shopping trip.

Looking for extra help with your grocery list? Check out my article on Five Foods to Choose From Center Aisles of the Supermarket.

3. Pre-portion basic ingredients into individual containers

There’s nothing worse than getting back from a long run or bike and having nothing portioned out or prepped to eat.

Pre-portioning and preparing at least your basic ingredients will help you out a ton, even if you aren’t one to do an all-out meal prep session. Easy things to make and pre-portion are:

1. Trail mix, nuts, dried fruits, cubed cheese, and other balanced snacks into separate zip lock bags (I like Stasher bag for a reusable option)
2. Protein sources including chicken, fish, steak, etc. into 4 or 6 oz portions
3. Pre-cut, wash, and measure your fruit and vegetables 

4. Try one-pot or sheet pan meals

Using one-pot and sheet pan meals during your meal prep and throughout the week can be a huge help for busy athletes. It cuts down on both clean-up and preparation time since you are making it all in the same pot or pan. 

Sheet pan and one-pot meals are made exactly how they sound. Toss all of your ingredients (I recommend at least one carb, protein, and veg source) into the pot or sheet pan and then place on the stove or into the oven. Quick and simple aka- no excuses!

Now it’s your turn. 

Athlete Meal Prep: The Takeaway

Level up your performance nutrition by trying out one or two of these meal planning tips for athletes to help keep you well-fueled and performing your best on race day.

If you are looking for additional support with nutrition coaching and meal planning ideas as an athlete, reach out to my team, and let’s chat. 

Do you have a favorite meal planning hack? Comment down below!