Eating and Minimalism
I don’t know about you, but I always end up needing more food than I think I do. As a runner, it has been trained into me to be as minimalistic as possible when I go places and you will often find me walking around carrying the bare minimum.
I routinely get made fun of during long trips with friends or family because I will always have the smallest suitcase. Always.
Last week, I needed to ask for a rubber band to put in my hair for team practice because I had used up my small stash in my car.
This love of minimalism can be a curse when it comes to food because I will often go by the books on what I will need to fuel myself through a workout but if it goes longer than expected, such last Sunday when I rode an extra 20 KM longer than expected, I can run into a dilemma.
However, there is one key way where my minimalism is an advantage to me, other than being able to travel and run lightly, and that is that I crave simple, easy foods for fuel. I don’t often reach for foods with long lists of ingredients because I like to keep things easy. If I could carry nothing with me when I ran or rode and just pick my fuel as I ran, it would be the ideal situation. Unfortunately for me, I live in a part of the world where most of our calendar year is full of snow and ice, so I need to bring my fuel with me.
Companies like Vega, with simple, natural ingredients are the ones that I turn to in order to feed my love for delicious, simple snacks. I was really excited to hear that Vega launched their bar line with new ingredients and flavours – all of them non-GMO, gluten-free, plant-based, and no artificial ingredients.
The first thing I did when I received them in the mail? Dump them in my car’s glove box. Between commuting for work and travelling to train and race, my car is full of small snacks hidden everywhere and it routinely saves me from getting hungry when I am on the go.
I grabbed the Chocolate Mint protein bar to recover following my race last weekend and it felt like eating a dessert. Definitely worth the sprint to the finish line! It has 15 g of plant based protein, 2.5 g BCCAs and 2 g glutamine for muscle recovery and 1 g of omega 3 to fight inflammation. I recovered so well following the race that I did almost 100 KM of multisport workouts the following day!
I also have tried the snack bar that is full of healthy and wholesome ingredients, grabbed out of my glove box on the way to a meeting. I had the cranberry almond but it is also available in Dark Chocolate Mixed Nuts and Sea Salt, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup, Dark Chocolate Cashew Cherry, and Cashew Coconut.
Other bars in the line include:
Vega One Bar – A quick meal replacement bar that contains 12-13g protein, greens, antioxidants, Omega-3s and a vitamin and mineral blend – sort of like a Vega One smoothie, but in bar form. Chocolate Cherry Almond, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Chocolate Coconut Cashew.
Vega Sport Energy Bar – This one provides a boost of carbs with a little bit of fat and protein, great for pre-workout situations when you need to top up your energy stores. Chocolate Coconut Almond, Apple Cherry.
Have you tried the new bars? Which one is your favourite?
What size is your suitcase when you pack?
