My last athlete spotlight in which I interviewed my client and NPC Bikini Competitor Erica Dudek the tables were turned and she asked me how I pack my food for competitions. Well it was more than I could share in the less than 20 minutes we had allotted so I promised I would follow up with a blog in which I detail some of the things I do that make travel easier with food.
Peak Week Menu Plan Before Traveling
I will start with the obvious, you need to have mapped out your Peak Week MENU to the letter, That means shopping for everything you will need on Friday or Saturday and preparing all of your meats/proteins on Sunday. Believe me you’ll be glad you did as it takes a ton of worry out of each day. As you prepare all of your proteins go ahead and take the extra time to weigh out your portions and put them in freezer bags. I label mine Mon. 1 for Monday Meal 1 and so on.
I obviously leave Monday and Tuesdays foods in the fridge and freeze all of the other pre labeled proteins. On Tuesday night I pull Wednesdays proteins out and into the fridge. Wednesday I pull whatever I need for the following day OF TRAVEL THAT I WILL EAT and put it in the fridge THEN I PACK THE REMAINING FROZEN PROTEINS (FRIDAY-SATURDAY) INTO A BABY BOTTLE COOLER WITH ONE EXTRA ICE PACK FOR TRAVEL AND PUT BACK IN THE FREEZER-THIS BAG WILL GO IN MY CARRY ON. I always put a sticky note on the front of the fridge as a reminder to pack my proteins the next day.
Final Prep For Traveling
I do not prepare carbs on peak week Sunday as they are typically fast and easy. I only prepare ONE days worth of Carbs, the day of actual travel. I usually carb up with sweet potato, white potato or rice. On the day before travel I will cook and pre-portion my carbs for that day and then marry them with their respective proteins for that day into an ISOLATOR container labeled meal 1, 2, 3… etc…. I will put all of the food in my ISOLATOR Fitness Bag to be ready for travel. Friday and Saturdays carbs are usually in the form of a pre-wrapped whole potato, uncle Bens microwave rice packets, oats, rice cakes and or honey and I simply stow them all away into checked bag.. Anything liquid gets double bagged and if it’s not easily replaced I put it in my carry on.
Day of Travel
So the day of travel is up upon us. We have put all irreplacable food items that we won’t be needing into our carry on and all of the replacable foods have been properly packed into our checked bag. I pull my food for TRAVEL DAY out of the refrigerator easily as it is in the ISO bag. This day I usually have 6-7. Sometimes people set alarms for food, I don’t as its not always convenient to eat… but everything I need is in my ISOLATOR BAG.
As far as water goes, tracking it is easy, I take a shaker cup and pour all of my water into the cup before drinking. I know I’ll have 1/2 more cups of water than I did the day before up until Friday and my starting point on Monday is One Gallon, so I text myself each time i drink a full water “water 1”, “water 2”, etc. I know some of what I do is EXTRA but I am crazy OCD over the top girl and I like being able to go back and see my text thread of what I have done because like PREGNANCY BRAIN, PREP BRAIN IS REAL ya’ll!
If you’ve found this article helpful leave me a comment and or share it with your friends who may need fresh ideas about PEAK WEEK TRAVEL!!! Please subscribe and share! Thanks to all of you!!
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