You spend hundreds of euros, dollars, pesos, … on a kit, ticket and travelling to a game. But when your body can’t handle it, all that prep and money is worthless?
An important thing in airsoft that is often forgotten, especially on bigger games, is hydration and nutrition or in other words, food and drinks.
My Food system
During the years I have created and optimized my own system. An important note on this is that this works for me and that doesn’t mean it will work for you. Test it and adapt it to your own needs. While each body needs different things and the environment might be different but this is a good baseline to start from.
I use the knowledge I gathered from going to Berget games in Sweden that last 66h of game time. But we’re on site from Tuesday morning up till Sunday morning.
There are actually 3 different zones that we should talk about, but I will focus on the biggest one and that is during the game. The other 2 are before and after the game.
Before and after the game, we should also have some kind of schedule but we all know that most of the food is made out of fast food on the road. Prepping your body for a game like that is important so you should focus on it. But I know from experience we don’t, so I’ll focus on the game food itself. I’ll include a little bit of pregame food because we’re on site almost 48h before gamestart.
Another important note is that I try to keep it as budget friendly as possible. The things I can do myself to save some money, I will. I tried to find a good balance which changed during the years because of the rise of food prices but be aware that good food isn’t always cheap. Don’t forget that you’re out in the woods, sun, rain and you don’t have a lot of access to keep your stuff cool. Even a cooler doesn’t keep your food cold for a whole event. If you want some fresh things, make sure you eat it in the first days.
Later I will also point out some things that I avoid and why. I will include a link to the blogpost on my website where you can download the documents I show here in this video. I made a full schedule for the last berget and tried to stick to it. It worked pretty well.
The Planning
Before we start with which food I eat and why, The schedule, the planning.
Planning your food is as important as sticking to that planning. Before the game I make bags for each day. I divide the different meals that I’m going to eat. This has 2 big advantages
- I don’t need to think about it on site. There are 100 other things I need to take care of during the game so food is not one of them. This means I can focus on the game and the people in my company.
- I don’t cherry pick the food that I like at that moment. If you do that you will be left with all the crap the last day. I can tell you, having a nice meal for the days that your totally fucked up is amazing.
Food
First off, we need a good base layer that will keep us going on a normal activity scheme. I calculate that I need around 2500 calories of food every day. I say food because I don’t calculate the things I drink. This is for my body type and the activity that I do. I do have extra snacks on the side to add if I feel like it.
Schedule
Keeping your energy level stable the whole event is the most important one. You can eat some more snacks should never replace your base schedule.
I have 4 scheduled meal times to spread the food intake over the day. There is a 6h difference between each meal.
- 7h00
- 13h00
- 19h00
- 01h00
By keeping this schedule it doesn’t matter where you are or what you did in the meantime, you just keep eating food on those time frames or as close as possible to them. Of course you can change it up a bit but try to go back to the timeframes as soon as you can.
I alternate between hot and cold meals. I start with cold, then hot, then cold and end the day with a hot meal.
Meals
I start my day with a muesli and milk breakfast. I buy a big pack and powdered milk and prepare my breakfast at home. I make 7 breakfasts, so I have a spare if I need to eat something fast. One breakfast is 120gr of muesli, that’s about 520 cal.
Usually in my position we sleep during the night time so my breakfast is always my muesli.
Which is usually around 0700h or a bit earlier. After brushing my teeth, it’s the second thing I do. Because I forget to eat when I start doing stuff. So before everyone is doing anything I enjoy my breakfast.
6 hours later, or 1300 in our timeline I’ll go for my hot meal. For a hot meal I usually go for a US army MRE or something similar. It’s a wet meal, not a powdered meal. Just because I like wet meals more than powdered. A US army MRE wet meal is about 500 calories. I heat up my meal with a jetboil if it’s possible, otherwise I use the chemical heater provided in the US MREs.
I do bring some powdered meals, just in case. They are very light and are always in my backpack. You never know when the situation changes and we need to stay longer in the field. So I always bring a meal that I can eat hot or cold by just adding some water.
Another 6 hours later or 1900h on our timeline, I’ll go for my dinner which is a bit of a lighter meal and usually the rest of the US MRE. Which is about 500 calories. Those snacks don’t need any heating and I can eat them on the road while walking or while planning a mission.
For the last meal of the day which is another 6h later or 0100h, I prepare another hot meal or heat up some sausage over a campfire. This is the last thing I do before I go to bed. I bulk up on some more energy. That is usually around 500-700 calories. The wet meal is prepared in the jetboil because I’m usually in the base at that time. The timing of this meal is very dependent on the timing of the mission. But usually between 0100 and 0300.
Between the meals I have muesli bars or candy in my pockets which will be about 500 calories in total. Every moment I have I snack a bit to keep my energy level high but not peaking. More about that later.
Snacks can be all different things
- Candy
- Nuts
- Swedish bread with cheese
- Muesli bar
- Other food offered to me by others
It feels like I’m eating all the time during the game, well basically I am. You need to fuel your body to keep going and recover from the beating you’re giving it. We’re not prepared for things like this and the least we can do is get that energy level where it needs to be to keep us going.
Fluids
That is actually pretty easy. I have 3 different things I drink during the event.
- Water
- Isotonic Drink
- Recovery shake
Water is pretty easy, it’s the thing that you have on you at all times and keep drinking it whenever you have the time. I carry water in a camelback so it’s always easily available when I need it. I usually drink not enough water and have to force myself to drink it. When you feel thirsty, it’s already too late. Being thirsty is actually one of the first symptoms of dehydration. So help your teammates to remind them to drink water. You should drink between 3-5l of water every day, depending on the temperature and activity.
Water is good but when doing heavy activities you don’t replenish all the stuff you sweat out. Ever saw white circles on your gear? That’s the salt residue left after the sweat dried up. So you’re losing salt and other minerals. To counter that I drink about 0,5L to 1L of isotonic with extra minerals. I don’t drink it in one go but I spread it during the day to fill up the energy and minerals during the day. I have that bottle in my belt at all times. It’s a powder solution so easy to make in the field and reuse the same bottle.
The last thing I drink is a recovery shake. Each evening before I go to bed I drink 0,5L of this powder. It’s a heavy drink that recovers the muscles you pushed over the limit during the day. It’s not a miracle thing but it helps me a lot to keep going until the end of the game.
The fluid balance was a very difficult one to make because of the length of the event and the different variables on each event. But by keeping to the same schedule I managed to extend my capabilities to function a lot.
Supplements
One extra thing I take with me is magnesium powder in the form of small bags with powder that you can just swallow. By keeping your magnesium level up, it will reduce the amount of cramps you might encounter from pushing your muscles over the limit. I don’t over do it with max of 2 bags a day.
This is all the food I eat during the event.
Of Course if something happens you need to adapt. Remember if you went over the line and you need to recover, it will take a long time of rest to do that. So make sure you don’t cross that line. Communicate with your team about your status and take rest if you need it.
I do carry high sugar things on me for when I need it but I very well know that I need to rest after I pushed over that limit. Not listening to your body in a situation like this will become very dangerous.
Things to avoid
Coffee,
I know I know, a lot of you like your coffee. But remember that coffee is not good food hydration. It will actually draw fluids away from important body parts like your brain, so if you drink coffee, make sure to hydrate enough. Find the balance in your little relaxing moment and hydration.
Sugar, gells, caffeine
When you eat or drink high sugar concentrated food, it will boost your energy for a little but but you will have a big fall after that little rush you had. Be very aware of that. I start taking more sugary things on the last day to push myself a bit for the last hours because I know I can crash after that.
A lot of those things that are made for sport can have caffeine in it, same with the coffee, avoid it. Those drinks usually have a high concentrate that will make the hydration level even worse.
Most sports food and drinks are not made for what we do. We go on for a very long time and need to recover for the next day, while most sports drinks are to push you for a short time during a workout.
Final thoughts
To end, I want again to tell you that you’re only as good as your body can take you. Don’t let your body ruin the game you have been preparing for for months. Your body is the base to build the rest on, take care of it.
All the food details that I ate during the last Berget you can find on the blog post linked below. I made pictures of all the nutrients for people that want to dive deeper into that. There is also the full excel list of the food and calories I ate.
Good luck with your food prep and if you have any suggestions, let me know. I learn a bit from every conversation and adapt my food list if needed.
