Daily Nutrition

[FunSize]

If you're looking to read something about food for fueling your fitness I think chris carmichael's Food for Fitness is a good book. I've read most of it, but since I'm not training don't really abide by it. It talks a lot about how your body uses foods for its activities. It takes into consideration endurance atheletes training schedules and how they are usually periodized/specialized. He then uses that for his theory of food for fuel. Its a pretty easy read and half of it is recipes!

From reading this forum, a lot of women will say that what you can tolerate before a ride and during a ride is personal.

I don't ride long enough to need solid food yet. When I would do day long ultimate tournaments I would have bits of bananas, oranges, and bagels throughout the day.


Breakfast: I personally could live off of eggs and toast, its my favorite meal. So much that I'm considering getting only egg whites because I'm starting to think all the cholesterol will catch up with me. Otherwise a filling grainy cereal with milk. Sometimes pb and toast.

Lunch: sandwiches. Chili leftovers. Or often a small burrito if I have to eat while I work.

Dinner: classic meat(usually chicken), vegetable, and starch(whole grain or potato). I try to stick to equal 3rds or as many vegetables I can fit on my plate. I also like making chili. Its like... $10 to make a huge pot.

Snacks: carrots, bananas, almonds, popcorn, pb on toast, yogurt.

[Crankin]

I hate eating the same things and my body needs variety. For dinners, I use recipes from Cooking Light. I hardly use any of the recipes I used even 5 years ago or things that my mom made (although she was a pretty health oriented cook). I also hate left overs. So, I reduce the recipes for 4 to 2 servings, or if applicable, I will bring left overs for lunch. I just can't eat the same thing for dinner. I try to eat meatless two dinners a week and also have fish once. Other than that, it's a mixture of chicken, pork, ground turkey, occasional flank steak, big salads. I make lots of ethnic stuff, too. I love to cook, and it feels like therapy to me, even after a long day.
For breakfast, I vary between egg white omelets, usually with a side of turkey bacon and fruit, plain Greek yogurt, mixed with craisins, almonds, and blueberries, sometimes with a piece of ww toast. Other days I'll have regular eggs and turkey bacon and fruit. Sometimes I eat Canadian bacon. On the weekends, DH usually makes waffles one day. I have tried to avoid bagels, as it seems like even the whole wheat ones put the pounds on, but I do enjoy bagels, light cream cheese and lox every so often. Cereal does nothing for me and oatmeal makes my stomach very unhappy, although I like the taste of it.
For lunch, I make salads with chicken, tuna, or low salt ham, or a thin sandwich with the same. I always eat fruit with my lunch. Snacks are usually cheese, a mix of walnuts and dried cranberries, a piece of whole wheat bread with hummus. I usually need to eat every 3-4 hours, so I have to keep my snacks small.
If I am riding or doing other longer types of exercise, I eat a very big breakfast. I go out to eat a lot, at least twice a week, so I have to really be careful with what I eat at home and when out. My body seems to be exquisitely sensitive to salt right now, in that I will gain 2 pounds just from eating good sushi with a teeny bit of low sodium soy sauce. I also have 2 small squares of dark chocolate 4-5 times a week, after dinner, although I am trying to cut that back to 3 times a week.

[Owlie]

I like to switch things up, but I like having leftovers so I don't have to cook every day. Cooking Light, like Crankin said, has some good stuff. I just don't hold with their liberal use of cooking spray and I have to rather increase the spices because my tastebuds are silly.

I change the way I season the chicken and I try to buy different veggies every week, within the bounds of what DBF will eat.