Introduction
Stressed out about how you’re going to eat healthy when you’re away from home? Don’t be! You don’t have to give up eating healthy when taking a vacation or traveling for work. With a little bit of planning and being flexible with your options, you can stick to your healthy diet no matter where you are in the world and make it easy.
Few Tips To Eat Healthy While Traveling
Here are some quick tips to help make eating healthy a breeze away from home so that you’ll enjoy your travels and not stress out.
The Secret To Fueling Your Day To Beat Hunger
The best way to stay on track with healthy eating is to get ahead of your hunger. Preventing hangry, and irritability as a result of being hungry, can help you avoid making spontaneous poor food choices when traveling.
You’re more likely to give in to unhealthy food options when you’re tired, stressed, and hungry. And being too hungry can mean making poor meal choices leading to overeating.
Having prepared healthy snacks can solve this problem.
Look for convenient snack packs that can be thrown into your backpack and suitcases that don’t need refrigeration. Usually, these snack packs are next to their full-size counterpart so you don’t have to go searching the entire store for travel-size options.
Healthy options include trail nut mixes, protein bars, hummus, roasted edamame, and veggie sticks.
Having snacks on hand can hold you over till you have healthier meal options which leads to the next tip on how to choose a healthy meal.
Maximize Your Nutrition With This Food
Eating lean protein is one of the best ways to eat healthy while traveling. It’s filling, satiating, and wards off hunger for hours at a time.
Even if you want to indulge away from home, prioritizing protein at every meal with vegetables means at least you’ll get your nutrients in.
This will make you more mindful of what you choose to indulge in and how much you indulge in afterward.
Some easy high-protein traveling foods include packing protein powder, beef jerky, boiled eggs, and Greek yogurt options. Make sure to include a blender bottle if you’re bringing protein powder to make easy protein shakes on the go.
To get the most out of your protein, try to eat a minimum of 25 grams per meal or snack so that you’re satiated.
Here’s what twenty-five grams of protein looks like in different forms,
- A palmful of chicken or salmon
- One cup of plain Greek yogurt and a handful of almonds
- Two ounces of beef jerky
- Two low-fat string cheese and 3 slices of turkey
At this point, you probably think this is great if I’m eating by myself but what if I’m eating out at a restaurant for a business meeting or with family? I got you covered.
How To Eat Out With Confidence
Eating out adds to the challenge of healthy eating on the go but there’s no need to stress because this tip will help you stick to your healthy eating plans.
If you know what restaurants you’re planning to visit you can Google their menus and decide ahead of time what to order.
Deciding on what you’re ordering ahead of time makes you less likely to feel tempted to choose unhealthy options and be influenced by the wait staff reciting the day’s delicious-sounding specials.
Most restaurants will always have salad options where you can add a side of lean protein such as grilled chicken or salmon. Control how much salad dressing you add by getting it on the side and now you have a healthy meal.
If salads are unappealing you can make substitutions for their entrees. Skip the fries or pasta for steamed vegetables. Instead of the fried chicken or fish ask for it grilled or steamed and ask for the sauces on the side.
Most restaurant portions tend to be on the larger side. Request half of the order be placed in a to-go box so that you won’t be tempted to finish the entire meal and you’ll have another meal for the next day.
Sometimes even with all the planning, expecting to be able to eat perfectly healthy all the time is unrealistic. That said, my next tip helps you to make better decisions around food on your travels.
Apply Mindfulness To Every Meal
Sometimes traveling means an opportunity to indulge a little and loosen up the food restrictions.
A good rule of thumb to follow is to be mindful of your hunger and fullness levels.
It takes the receptors in your stomach at least 15 to 20 minutes to communicate to your brain that you’re approaching fullness.
So spending a good 20 minutes eating your meal helps you get to the right level of fullness.
Often when we’re starving or looking at a buffet line we eat so quickly that we fill up with too many calories before we get a chance to register how full we are and end up feeling stuffed.
Slowing down and paying attention to your meal is important.
Traveling across different time zones can impact your circadian rhythms affecting your hunger levels and when you’re hungry. When you’re mindful of your hunger and fullness cues you can make better decisions about your food choices and when to eat.
As you know, staying healthy when you’re traveling is more than just about food. It’s also about staying properly hydrated and my last tip helps you do just that.
Stay Hydrated On The Go
We often mistake thirst for hunger leading us to eat when we’re thirsty.
But an important part of staying healthy while traveling is to stay well-hydrated and an easy way to do that is to carry an empty stainless steel water bottle when we’re traveling.
This has multiple benefits.
Staying hydrated with water can help us offset hunger and hold us over until we have healthy food options available.
It also saves us money from buying bottled water, especially at airports where there are water bottle filling stations. Just make sure you empty your water bottle before you pass through TSA security.
You also have a convenient container to carry other beverages such as coffee, tea, and juices.
Staying hydrated is important especially when traveling because the air inside airplane cabins can be very dry leading to dehydration. Having a water bottle helps you stay hydrated to prevent dehydration symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, and lightheadedness.
Being well-hydrated also helps to flush out toxins and boost your immune system so you can stay healthy while traveling.
In Summary
It’s understandable why eating healthy goes off the rails when you travel. A different environment, different schedules, and food options can throw a wrench into your eating plans.
But you can stay on track with a bit of planning and remembering these tips.
Packing snacks, prioritizing protein, staying hydrated, and being mindful of your hunger all help to prevent overeating and making poor food choices away from home that can affect your waistline.
And if you’re eating out simply looking at restaurant menus and deciding what to eat ahead of time can help you make healthy meal choices so there’s no need to stress about that business dinner or a celebration meal with friends and family.
Apply these tips so that you don’t have to stress out about eating healthy the next you travel.
- Healthy Bites on the Move: Strategies for Eating Well While Traveling - July 5, 2023
- 4 Reasons Why Women Should Lift Weights - January 11, 2019
- 5 Side Effects of a Low-Calorie Diet - December 26, 2017
