More time for training thanks to pre-cooking? Meal Prep in a self-experiment

Plopp, klonk! The bottle cap flies onto the sideboard with a familiar sound. We have big plans for this Sunday afternoon and I can handle it better with a cold drink. It hisses, sizzles and bubbles on the hob. We stir, puree and season. The windows of our small flat are heavily steamed up. I feel like I'm watching one of those early evening shows. Except that they come to an end after three adverts. When all the pots have finally cooled down, I'm glad for our impressive collection of Tupperware, which I've often complained about in the past. Exhausted, I fall onto the couch. We spent a whole 2:45 hours at the cooker - gross, including washing up and uncorking a second non-alcoholic.

Meal Prep: Pre-cooked meals from Monday to Friday

From Monday to Friday, I will now eat what I cooked at the weekend so that I can hopefully be healthier, fitter and yet more relaxed afterwards. I realised the day before that you don't just get extra time on the bike for free. I spent almost three hours looking through recipes and doing the bulk shopping. Meal prep is a science in itself. I set myself rules for my self-experience: firstly, I will only prepare one meal a day.

Muesli and cheese bread seem to me to need little optimisation. Secondly, I want to eat something different every day. Meal prep basically allows for different approaches. Of course, I could cook goulash for a whole legion on Sundays in grandma's old enamel pot and still eat it on Fridays. However, a prepping plan for athletes should be balanced and varied. Also, according to rule three, only vegetarian dishes are allowed. Fourthly, I live in a partnership and don't want to leave the dinner table when my wife Enni switches off the hob. It's just as well that we don't have children to feed as well.

Prepared for everything

Which cyclist doesn't like pasta? In Germany, the annual per capita consumption is around ten kilograms. In the lunch break, the home-made pesto tastes great with it and I'm quickly back at my computer. However, Meal Prep doesn't help against dwindling daylight and a full email inbox. I have to tear myself away so that not only my employer benefits from my Sunday cooking marathon. The training session can last half an hour longer today. That's how I like it! After the shower, the remaining pasta is prepared into a salad with just a few simple steps and the dressing tossed in. Perhaps the principle could also be applied to other areas of life? Work prep for a lighter workload during the week or partnership prep for a gym session instead of an evening in front of the telly, for example? "You're not actually part of the target group," Enni snaps me out of my thoughts. Maybe she's right. So far, I haven't felt the need to save time preparing my food. I like to cook. But never according to a recipe. I close the full fridge with a frown.

If you want to use Meal Prep in training, you need a good schedule. Just pre-cooking is not enough.

Sour instead of full

I cycle to work on Tuesdays - 31 kilometres one way. Experience shows that my body needs a lot of fuel. Including my basal metabolic rate, that's around 5000 calories. That's why I have two Tupperware tins in my rucksack. Even the biggest one in our household wasn't enough for 1.2 kilograms of pasta salad. As my colleagues put on their coats after the morning conference, I wave them off. To be honest, I would have loved to go out for lunch with them. However, training is my priority this week and I want to keep the break short so that I can squeeze in an extra loop on the way back. Unfortunately, I meant a little too much with the vinegar, but now I can't do anything about it. As my colleagues trickle back into the office chatting and I'm still eating, my doubts creep up on me. If you're a 1.90 metre tall athlete and don't want to be in a deficit, you need to bulk up at Meal Prep. When the time comes, I get on my bike with a slight feeling of hunger. My motivation is gone. No extra miles for me today.

Training or pleasure?

Pt twelve o'clock on the dot, I'm in the saddle the next day. I can allow myself 50 minutes of interval training today. Back in the driveway to the office, not only my calves are aching, but also my stomach. My biorhythm gives me a ravenous appetite. I move the oven vegetables from the fridge onto a tray and then into the oven. By the time I've moved, it's crispy and warm. 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. Perhaps meal prep is ultimately just a fashionable anglicism for something that many cyclists who train a lot do intuitively anyway? In any case, you not only need a plan of what to eat, but also when.

I now understand why there is proper meal prep planning software online.

Thursday is a break day for me. I still benefit from 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 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 pre-cooked herb quark from the fridge. Less than ten minutes later, we are sitting at the table chewing and enjoying the protein-rich meal without any stress. In a nutshell, the meal prep plan could also be optimised in terms of nutrients.

The rest of the shooting festival

It's Friday and sweat is dripping from my every pore. Beneath me, my rhythmically cranking shoes 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 and get home, my stomach is growling like an angry 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 dips and rice, onto a bed of salad leaves. Now it turns out that I wasn't all that wrong in calculating the quantities. Mind you, we had pre-cooked for four people instead of two - 6.9 kilos in total. "Why don't you summarise?" urges Enni, looking up from her bowl. I fumble around because I haven't told her that experts recommend keeping cooked food for a maximum of four days.

However, the timing of freezing and defrosting seemed like another unnecessary piece in the complex puzzle of training and eating according to a system. The intense scrutiny of the menu provided us with delicious, reasonably fresh food every day. For the sake of variety and calorie calculation, however, cyclists have to invest a lot. As a full-time professional or for a week-long training camp at home, the pre-cooking principle seems well suited to me. In everyday working life, I prefer to stick to my tried and tested strategy, buy in bulk, cook fresh and flexibly. Self-optimisation has many fields of play and doesn't have to start in the kitchen.

Meal Prep recipes: 4 dishes

• Mediterranean pasta salad
• Chilli sin Carne
• Herb and pea pesto
• Colourful oven vegetables