We’re two sisters, both professional triathletes, and a food-writer friend who have joined forces to start a blog about how athletes really eat. Laurel snaps a fantastic photo. Melissa is a seasoned food and outdoors writer. And Bec cooks a fierce healthy meal. Laurel and Melissa met on a plane to Italy years ago and then ended up working at the same magazine in NYC. The three of us have been trading food ideas ever since.
The most common question folks ask Bec and Laurel is: Are you twins? Yes, we are. The second most commonly asked question is: What do you eat to stay so fit? To answer this common query, the three of us have joined forces to start Athlete Food. We’ll share original and adapted recipes for the food we eat daily - the many meals and snacks that power us through up to eight hours of training a day. We’ll report on what we eat when we travel for races and our constantly evolving menu of pre- and post-workout snacks, from the ideal (apple and almond butter) to the guilty pleasure (chocolate-covered potato chips). We’ll also interview other athletes about what they eat.
We do not follow a particular diet or style of eating. We just cook what we’ve found will help us run, bike, and swim faster. We cook vegan or gluten-free when we’re in the mood for something lighter. But we’re always looking for new red meat recipes, to keep our iron levels up. We strive to make every ingredient count. We constantly ask ourselves how we can pack even more nutrition into a smoothie, salad, or bowl of pasta—and still make it flavorful and satisfying. And all three of us have an enormous sweet tooth. So expect plenty of indulgences.
Between training and work and family, we, like most people, don’t always have much time left in the day to cook. So we design our recipes to fit into busy lifestyles. But no matter how tired we are we always try to remember how much faster we move when we eat right. And that’s where Athlete Food comes in.
--Laurel, Bec, and Melissa