One of our challenges as Jiu-Jitsu students is to maintain a healthy, nutritious diet to fuel our workouts and recover from strenuous training sessions.

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While most of us recognize this truth, putting it into practice is much easier said than done! Why?

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Because the majority of us don’t have a personal chef to shop and prepare healthy meals while we are at work / school during the day and commuting and going to the Gracie Barra school night classes.

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What you need is easy to prepare, nutritious food that doesn’t take a long time to prepare and can be assembled from a few common ingredients.

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Oh, and it needs to taste good too!

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One of my favorite meals after training is a basic omelette (without the cheese) as it is easy to prepare (10 minutes), supplies our body with high quality protein, other nutrients from the vegetables, is not expensive and it is easy to keep the basic ingredients on hand. Sound good?ㅤ

Here is what you need:

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Ingredients

2 to 3 eggs

6 mushrooms – sliced

1 spring or green onion – minced

1/2 small mild green or red capiscum – sliced into thin strips

1 cup fresh or frozen spinach

Cooking oil or butter

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Steps

1 – First slice up all of your vegetables before you turn on the stove.

2 – Lightly coat the bottom of your non-stick pan with cooking oil or butter as you heat the pan on medium heat.

3 – In a separate bowl, beat 2 or 3 eggs with a fork until yolk and white are combined.

4 – Add your vegetables to pan and saute (lightly fry) to “sweat” out some of the water. The mushrooms and spinach will release a lot of water as they start to cook. Should take only 3 to 4 minutes.

5 – Pour in the egg mixture and swirl in the pan to evenly distribute the eggs over the surface of the pan bottom. Add a little salt and pepper to taste.

6 – Watch for the egg to solidify. No need to cook the eggs until browned. Just cook the eggs until the consistency is no longer wet and runny.

7 – Use your spatula to fold the omelette in half, let cook for 1 minute and then pop it on your plate.

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Now wasn’t that easy? How was the taste? Easy cleanup too!

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Once you’ve gotten your basic “omelette bluebelt” you can get creative with your ingredients to avoid monotony. A pinch of fine herbs, onion, curry powder, fresh tomatoes, potatoes, hot chilis are all things I’ve tried with success. Just look for nutritionally dense ingredients (like spinach) and avoid overly fatty ingredients (like cheese).

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The important thing is that you have an easy to prepare healthy meal instead of eating some processed convenience food because you are tired and hungry on the way home from training.

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Bon appetit!

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Credits: Mark Mullen

Gracie Barra Black belt based in Asia