Let him cook

Output depends on input

A lot has been said about fueling during activity lately with the high-carb craze. That’s great, but what about the other 90+% of the fuel you take in throughout the day? I’ve been thinking about food frequently as training ramps back up and my appetite ramps right along with it.

“There’s no such thing as overtraining, just undereating.”

“If the furnace is hot enough it’ll burn anything.”

You may have heard these phrases or others like them, they seem to be common in the endurance world. I’m not a nutritionist or dietician or whatever, and I’ll leave it to Vic Johnson to speak to the scientific accuracy of those phrases, but I know when I’m hungry and I know I feel better when I eat. I also know I like eating more when the food is good, which brings me to today’s main topic—cooking.

Growing up with three siblings, my parents assigned each of us a day of the week to be our “dinner night”. That meant we were responsible for thinking through what we wanted to have for dinner, planning it out far enough ahead of time that we could add the ingredients we’d need to a shopping list and our mom would pick them up. Every Thursday night, I’d cook and serve my meal to the family. I learned some good lessons from that system, and now I’m the head chef of the house (Morgan does not like cooking).

Quick note—I should mention, I never actually think about calories on a typical day and I know this might be a sensitive subject for some people. I’ve had a good relationship with food and I think cooking is an important part of that. I’m just putting out the following estimates to give you a very rough idea of how much someone like me might really need to eat each day to break even and stay healthy during heavy training.

Now, bear with me for a minute and imagine this:

• You get a good night sleep for recovery, let’s say 9 hours, and wake up at 7am. You’ve got 2 hours until your daily 9am meeting and you want to get in an hour run before. That doesn’t leave much time to digest a big breakfast, so you snarf a quick banana (100 calories) as you’re getting ready to run.

• The run is short enough that you don’t really feel like you need to take gels, but you still burn about 700 calories during it. You have a protein shake (200 cals) when you get back as you hop on that meeting.

• For lunch you do something easy, like a bowl of Trader Joe’s fried rice with an extra egg (600 cals).

• In the afternoon, you hit a double. Another 1.5 hours with some intervals thrown in. 1100 calories burned, 300 calories consumed via gels. A nice PB&J (400 cals) as soon as you get home.

• Next, you’ve got a 30 minute lift and then sauna (200 cals).

• You’re an athlete in the middle of a training block so your base metabolic rate burns, let’s say, another 2000 calories a day regardless of the exercise you do.

• Now it’s dinner time, and here are the totals so far: 4000 calories burned, 1600 calories consumed. Actually, you’ve had some extra snacks today that I forgot about, let’s say 2000 total calories consumed for nice round numbers. That leaves 2000 calories left to consume between dinner and a post-dinner snack. If you’re anything like me, you have a hard time eating that much in a couple hours before it’s time to get ready for bed. And this isn’t even a long run day.

Part of the solution here is probably to be better about eating throughout the day, having either bigger or more frequent snacks and meals before dinner. However, that’s not always convenient and I’m not always disciplined. So by dinner time I’m usually really hungry, but sometimes run into the issue of nothing really sounding that good. Most weeks, we don’t go out to eat much. Instead, cooking is a fun way for me to make healthy, energy-rich meals that I’m excited to eat.

The main challenge I face when cooking is falling into a routine. It’s so easy to have a handful of go-to meals that you make every week and get bored of. I want to share a few ways that I keep cooking exciting, which makes it easier to stay on top of daily nutrition.

1. Rather than go-to meals, think about the components of those meals and what can be easily swapped. For example, teriyaki chicken bowls is a Caleb staple. Chicken, rice, broccoli, teriyaki sauce. Easy. But you can mix it up by subbing chicken for salmon or tofu; rice for rice noodles or quinoa; broccoli for green beans or pickled cucumbers; and teriyaki sauce for Peri-Peri sauce or sweet chili sauce. Go to a good grocery store when you’re not on a time crunch and just wander the isles with this in mind. Suddenly you have infinite bowl combos with the base of a protein, carb, veggie, and sauce.

2. This is one of my favorite uses of social media. I spend too much time on my phone, as I think most people do. But one of the more productive types of scrolling that I do is of cooking videos. I love finding someone who makes the types of food I like, and then seeing all their creative different takes on it. It has opened my mind to new flavors and international influences. Like last week, I made an awesome creamy mango habanero sauce and marinated some chicken in it. I had never made anything with mango and habanero peppers before and I was looking forward to it, which made eating enough that day much easier.

3. Make extra. Save yourself some effort and make more than you need, so that the next day for lunch you can have high-quality leftovers from dinner instead of a lame packet of ramen noodles (what I had for lunch the day that I’m writing this because I didn’t follow my own advice and I wish I had).

4. Pay attention at restaurants. Take a picture of the description on the menu of something you think looks good, and of the food you order if you like it. Then go home and try to recreate it. Experiment and change things you think could make it better. If you’re not using a recipe, taste what you’re making frequently to make sure it’s on the right track.

5. Use AI (isn’t that the answer to everything?). I actually nerded out a little with this one and made a custom Endurance Fuel Planner you can try out if you want, I think it works with free ChatGPT accounts. I don’t use it super often, but it’s nice for brainstorming meal ideas based on my preferences. Maybe the best thing about this is it’ll make me a shopping list with the ingredients and quantities I’d need to make those meals for four large servings (me and Morgan, for dinner and lunch the next day). Obviously not everything it adds to my shopping list is applicable because I already have the basics, but it does a pretty good job and even groups items together by type of ingredient because it knows they’d likely be located together in the grocery store. See an example conversation at the end of this if you’re curious.

Here are a few pics from some meals I’m proud of in the past couple weeks. Just to be clear, I’m proud of the meals, not the pics. The pics are usually not great.

Mango habanero chicken with yellow rice

Sweet and sour chicken

Garlic roasted chicken and potatoes

Do you have any other tricks for finding cooking inspiration? Or any favorite recipes that I should try? Feel free to share them in the comments, I’d love to hear about it.

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Example AI meal planning convo—

I said:

Help me think of meal ideas

ChatGPT said:

I'd love to help! First, let’s narrow things down a bit so I can tailor the meal ideas to your needs.

1. What’s your training like? (e.g., long-distance running, cycling, triathlon, strength training)

2. Any dietary preferences or restrictions? (e.g., vegetarian, gluten-free, high-protein, low-carb)

3. Do you have any favorite ingredients or foods you’d like to incorporate?

4. How much time do you typically have for cooking? (Quick meals vs. more elaborate ones)

Let me know, and I’ll suggest some meals that fit your goals! 🚴‍♂️🏃‍♀️💪

I said:

I'm training about 15 hours a week right now. I like almost all food, but nothing involving mayo. I like meals that include meat and some of my favorite types of foods are mexican, asian, and italian. I usually want to spend 30-60 minutes cooking dinner

ChatGPT said:

Got it! With 15 hours of training per week, you’ll need meals that are high in protein, carbs for recovery, and packed with nutrients. I’ll focus on Mexican, Asian, and Italian-inspired meals that avoid mayo and can be cooked in 30–60 minutes.

Meal Ideas for Training & Recovery

Mexican-Inspired Meals 🌮

1. Chipotle Chicken Bowls – Grilled chicken, black beans, rice, roasted veggies, avocado, salsa, and a squeeze of lime.

2. Carne Asada Tacos – Marinated flank steak, grilled and served in corn tortillas with fresh pico de gallo and guacamole.

3. Chorizo & Sweet Potato Hash – Sautéed chorizo with diced sweet potatoes, black beans, and topped with a fried egg.

Asian-Inspired Meals 🍜

4. Spicy Korean Beef Bulgogi with Rice – Marinated beef stir-fried and served over jasmine rice with kimchi and steamed veggies.

5. Teriyaki Salmon with Stir-Fried Vegetables – Baked or pan-seared salmon with homemade teriyaki sauce, served over quinoa or brown rice.

6. Thai Chicken Curry – Chicken simmered in coconut milk, red curry paste, bell peppers, and carrots, served with jasmine rice.

Italian-Inspired Meals 🍝

7. Pasta Bolognese – Ground beef or turkey in a rich tomato sauce with whole wheat pasta and parmesan.

8. Garlic Butter Shrimp with Orzo – Sautéed shrimp in garlic butter sauce over orzo with spinach and cherry tomatoes.

9. Chicken Parmesan (Baked, Not Fried) – Breaded chicken breast with marinara and mozzarella, served with whole grain spaghetti.

Would you like me to create a shopping list for a few of these meals? Or modify any based on your preferences? 😊

I said:

Let's get a shopping list for 3, 6, and 8

ChatGPT said:

Here’s your organized shopping list for Chorizo & Sweet Potato Hash, Thai Chicken Curry, and Garlic Butter Shrimp with Orzo, categorized by grocery section for easy shopping.

🛒 Shopping List

Protein & Dairy

✅ Chorizo (8 oz)
✅ Chicken breast (1 lb)
✅ Shrimp (1 lb, peeled & deveined)
✅ Eggs (for hash, optional)
✅ Butter (for garlic butter sauce)
✅ Heavy cream (for orzo, optional)

Produce

✅ Sweet potatoes (2 medium)
✅ Onion (1 large)
✅ Garlic (1 head)
✅ Bell peppers (2, red and green)
✅ Carrots (2)
✅ Spinach (2 cups)
✅ Cherry tomatoes (1 pint)
✅ Lime (1)
✅ Cilantro (small bunch)
✅ Ginger (1 small knob)

Grains & Pantry Staples

✅ Black beans (1 can)
✅ Orzo (1 cup)
✅ Jasmine rice (1 ½ cups)
✅ Coconut milk (1 can)
✅ Red curry paste (1 jar)
✅ Olive oil
✅ Paprika
✅ Red pepper flakes
✅ Salt & black pepper

Let me know if you need any adjustments or substitutions! 😊