I had the pleasure of speaking with a vegan identifying dietitian who is also a endurance runner!
I discovered Kayla Slater MS, RDN in another blogging group and noticed that she posted about meal prep on her Instagram stories.
Knowing that she helps other plant based runners, I had to have her on the Podcast to chat her meal prep wisdom for busy vegan runners!
You can read about the 3 key meal prep steps Kayla mentioned in episode below…
Or, listen to our whole conversation on one of these platforms!:
Disclaimer: This article and podcast episode is just providing information. It is not providing personal medical or dietary advice. Talk to your own doctor about your health or diet questions. See our Disclaimers for more details.
3 Key Meal Prep Steps for Vegan Runners
1. Plan
It sounds so obvious, but if you needed a reminder: here it is!
Planning helps to set the foundation.
It’s important to know your nutrition needs, including how many servings of protein, carbohydrates and fats you’ll need for training. Consulting a Registered Dietitian can help!
Kayla suggests keeping the planning phase simple.
For example, many folks have a similar breakfast, this reduces the ‘thinking’ you might need for other meals.
Other ways Kayla suggests you consider to help simplify the planning process include:
- Think of theme days! For example- ‘Taco Tuesday’ is a catchy one to remember (and who doesn’t love plant based tacos?)
- Consider seasonality. What food is in season? What meals can you prep around that?
- Translate your ideas to a grocery list. Breakdown the meals into ingredients you need.
- Some apps create grocery lists for you! Some folks prefer this convince even though it might be more expensive, but others may not.
2. Schedule in the Time to Do It!
It’s easy to have intentions to do the things, harder to do sometimes!
Kayla suggests setting a day to do the grocery shopping and meal prepping – while keeping in mind this can change.
For example, perhaps you intend to do grocery shopping and meal prepping a few days of lunches on one day…
Only to find that you are exhausted shopping!
Perhaps you decide to split up the shopping and meal prep.
3. Do the Food Prep!
The final step Kayla offered is actually meal prepping!
Here’s some tips she mentioned:
- Think about what you can cook in bulk, but consider how you will use the leftovers as well! For example, if you don’t like reheated steamed rice, perhaps you consider using it in a different dish, like stir-fry.
- Recruit help if you can! For example, a significant other might be willing to help with prep and clean up.
- Start small, especially if meal prep seems overwhelming. Perhaps you start with one easy meal that you can prep and build on from there.
Why Meal Plan as a Competitive Runner?
Kayla offered a few potential benefits of meal prepping as a busy runner!
- Perhaps the most obvious: it could save you time or stress of having to come up with a meal on the spot in the middle of a busy day.
- It could help you meet your nutrition needs when well planned.
- It could potentially help you snack on more nutrient dense items (again, when well planned with nutrition in mind!). This is because you would ideally have healthy, nutritionally appropriate foods ready to go!
A big thank you to Kayla Slater for contributing her insight in this podcast chat and article! You can stay in touch with her on IG: @PlantBasedPreformancerd
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