Hello Zone Friends,

I just wanted to share my bout day menu with you. It has helped me feel my best on bout day, and my performance is very satisfactory.

Breakfast:
Fruit salad
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup Strawberries
1/2 cup Pineapple
1/2 cup Blueberries
Slivered Almonds

Snack:
1 Egg scrambled
1 oz Cheese

Lunch:
1/2 Pita Pocket
3oz Turkey
1 oz Cheese
1/2 Avocado mashed seasoned with Lemon Pepper

Snack:
Fruit salad
1/2 Granny Smith Apple
1/2 Banana
Slivered Almonds

Post bout Dinner:
NOT ZONE AT ALL, but it is whar I crave after an hour of kicking butt and raising hell. ;)
A big and juicy Cheese burger
Fries
A Beer or Coke

Julia - it is nice that it works for you but it is not a Zoned menu at all. You do not have enough proteins for breakfast and snacks. Too much carbs as well and many of the unfavourable.

s more than just balancing the amount of fat, protein, and carbs.
Its also about the correct type to maintain consistent hormonal control.

The Post bout dinner is as far removed from Zone as it can be, but it is what I crave after a bout. If I don't fill this craving I want a cheeseburger for breakfast.

Bozena, could you please tell me what you would add, take off, or substitute? I am always open for pointers.

I'm not Bozena, but I share her opinion regarding your menu. It's not just the cheeseburger. Basically you're all over the map with your other meals and snacks. Breakfast has far too much carbohydrate to protein (about 1P/3.5 C), the snack contains no carbohydrate, Lunch contains all unfavorable carbohydrate and not enough Carbohydrate for balance, The next snack contains no protein.

Try looking at the info in tools. There you'll find lots of methods to use to compose balanced Zone meals. I recommend using Zone "At-a-Glance".

Julia (I am not Bozena, either LOL),

I have a few suggestions,

Breakfast: would eliminate the pineapple and balance out the rest of the fruit with the protein in the greek yogurt.
Snack: no egg yolk, use lowfat or ff cheese, add some veggies and healthy fat
Lunch: no pita pocket, have veggies instead
Snack: needs protein, eliminate banana
Dinner: nuff said about that, totally not zone!

Your cravings may be coming from what you are doing, overall. Try cleaning up the rest of your day, and then perhaps the cheeseburger/fries craving won't be calling you!

Hi Julia - I agree with Cranberrycart and Sue! As for cheesburger - have a low fat burger (easy to do at home, lean beef + spices) top it up with low fat cheese slice. I usually like this kind of food with either 1/4 a bagel (grilled) which is unfavourable but small enough to pass for OK for dinner and thickly sliced beef tomato (not sure if you have it in the US, it is a big tomato variety) + "pickled" red onion slices. I pickle my onion for 30min or so in some lemon juice. It is really good that way. No cravings for fries or bun. Sometimes, to have something crunchy with my meal I roast sliced aubergine (egg plant) - just plain (no oil) sprinkled with rock salt and roasted to the point it becomes brownish. Be careful not to overcook as it turns bitter. They come out nice and crispy

Sorry Cranberrycat for misspelling your name in my previous post!

lol not a problem! Love your meal ideas!

I love all the advice. Thank you!

I would love to have a home cooked meal after a bout, but it is not possible seeing that I live 45 mins from the venue. Roller Derby is a very demanding full contact sport, and when I come of the track from bouting for an hour I am ravenous.

For the 1/2 Pita pocket, how do you feel about the low carb kind?

The plan now is to tweak it my menu to you suggestions, and see how it turns out.

Thanks again.

My advice would be to pack a snack and take it with you - you can have it after your game or on your way back home. My dinner usually takes only 30 min to cook from scratch if I chose chicken. Or cook something the previous night and just reheat when you are back home. Good ideas are all sorts of meatballs in tomato based sauce. I often have that kind of thing if I know I will be returning home late. I always cook my meatball/sausage/burger shaped meatballs using either beef or beef mixed with turkey. I put chopped onion, perhaps parsley, spices into meat mixture and then form little balls (or patties or sausage shaped) and fry them on a tiny bit of olive oil. Then I pour over some Italian sause (Arrabiata, Napoletana etc) or or rattatuile. Or sometimes I chop some red onion, mashroom, bell pepper, courgette and frym them with my meatballs and then pour over can of tomatoes. Then let it cook under a cover for 30-40 minutes until the sause thickens. This is delicious on the next day as well and you can reheat it witin 10 minutes or so.