Top 4 Eating Healthy While Traveling Tips

I talked about how to eat healthy (at home).  This is essential if your health is a priority. 

Then I thought - what if you're not at home?!  

Summer's here.  Acccording to Eastern astronomy it starts ~ May 7th. 

If you're traveling more, you still need to eat.  

I don't travel much, but when I do, I still try to eat well. 

Here are my top 4 tips for eating healthy on the road:  

1. Be a food snob

I'm sorry, but not sorry.  It works.  Read the labels and turn up your nose to things you can't pronounce, nasty additives, and too much sugar.  Blegh! 

Can you find a better option?  What other options are available?  Can you wait?  Can you afford an alternative?  

These are the important questions you'll need to ask yourself.  It's never worth starving yourself (worst case scenario, see #4 below), but in many cases, you can hold off until something better comes along.  

Just like in dating!  

2. Find a grocery store  

If I'm on a trip and staying at an Air B&B, I find the closest grocery store. 

I'll usually buy some ingredients that will at least cover breakfast, snacks, and a quick lunch for my stay: butter, eggs, a nice salad mix, dressing, canned soup, cheese, bacon, Lara bars, nuts, fruit, a cucumber, etc.  I'll spend ~ $70, but consider how much eating out costs ... $70 is one restaurant meal these days!

Even better, if I'm driving somewhere to a place that has a kitchen, I pack my own food.  But I understand if you don't. :) 

3.  Enjoy eating out

If cooking is NOT an option, and sometimes it just isn't, then eat out and feel ZERO guilt about it.  

This is your chance to eat healthy - we're still choosing the healthy items on the menu, folks - and not have to clean up afterward! 

Oh, and by "eating healthy," I'm not talking about ordering the salad that leaves you hungrier than when you started.  

My version of restaurant healthy eating is something like steak with a side of potatoes and green beans (Is this the best food combination on earth?  No*, but it's close.) 

Or a salad with tons of healthy fats on top - avocado, cheese, fish, nuts, etc. 

Or maybe we'll do a vegetarian option like a beet salad appetizer and a rice and veggie pilaf for our main course.  

I'm not using the excuse "vacation calories don't count" because - we all know this isn't true.  

And - the bottom line - I want to feel good, so I eat good.  On my vacation, I want to feel extra good because I want to have fun.  Eating shit food makes me feel like shit, so I don't do it.  Unless ... 

4.  Consider the levels

Sometimes the going gets tough.  And you have to make tough decisions.  

Sometimes you have to do the dirty deed.  Like when I went on a school outing with my daughter last weekend.  "Dinner" was a bus stop at Buc-ee's. 🦫

So we have options... I can do the "good girl" option - the clean food package with grapes, cheese cubes, chicken, and celery / carrot sticks.  That will work!  Or I can get beef jerky and some candied walnuts.  My Goddess is it hard for me to turn down cinnamon-scented, candied nuts.  That smell!  🤤 

Or I'm getting a brisket sandwich.  

None are great options, but there are levels to how bad / how dirty you're willing to go.  

It's not about "NO," it's about "KNOW."  

I know if I chose a "dirty deed," this is it.  After this, I'm eating very clean for a few days.  It's all about balance and moderation.  With all things. 

I know if I do the dirty deed, keep it to a minimum.  I'm not doing the sandwich AND the nuts AND a soda.  

I know that if I'm eating a brisket sandwich, I'm going to have heartburn and constipation.  And so it goes...

* best food combo on earth = peanut butter + chocolate.  Hands down.