I’ve been lucky to get to write a lot of the Eat Like an Elite columns for Bicycling magazine lately, and two women I recently interviewed really stood out to me as having awesome, balanced, healthy and FUN takes on how they eat. Lea Davison and Leah Kirchmann are racing at the top of their sports (MTB and road, respectively) and are more focused on fueling the work they’re doing than they are on counting every calorie. These two interviews are both worth reading for some food philosophy but also some fantastic cooking advice. Lea has some excellent tips on nailing a completely DIY vanilla latte that no coffee lover should be without.
Olympic Mountain Biker Lea Davison
“You need to eat to fuel your ride, versus the idea that you ride to eat. That’s a really damaging thing for kids to hear. We need to eat to have optimal performance and to fuel our rides,” she said. “I ride around in a doughnut kit, and every Little Bellas event has a snack time. And if I’m there, I make sure the girls see me eating.”
Pro Road Racer Leah Kirchmann
Nutrition is a really powerful tool that can help you maintain a healthy and resilient body that will allow you to perform. That’s what I tried to demonstrate by sharing what I’m cooking and what I’m eating [on social media]—it’s just to show that you have to fuel the work that you’re doing to to achieve that high performance. By fueling your training, that’s how you’re going to perform at your best, and there’s a lot more going on than just a number on the scale. Eating properly will create that healthy and resilient body, but also one that keeps you racing. And I think that the key for me, for having a longer career, has been trying to do a good job with with using nutrition to fuel and recover.
