Is It Possible to Eat Healthy While Traveling?
On a recent flight, I sat next to a girl who has a new way for getting fit in your hotel room. I’ll reveal this really simple and fun way with you in an upcoming article, but wanted to share with you the rest of our conversation (which also included one of the flight attendants) because I know that for most of you this is a common complaint about traveling.
Is it possible to eat healthy while traveling?
Yes, it is! Sure, there will be times when finding a healthy salad will be like trying to find a four-leaf clover, and spotting anything resembling healthy on a plane will get you wondering what planet you’re on. But there really is an improving selection of healthier foods in airports, hotels and restaurants – really! Sometimes you just need to get creative in finding it.
To see if it really is possible to eat healthy while traveling (with the side benefit of holding myself accountable for eating well), I’ll post my meals along with details on location, cost, ease in eating healthy as well as any meals that I thought might be healthy and found them to be the opposite.
Please share your favorite on-the-road healthy meals also. Let’s all help each other eat well, and hopefully encourage more venues to serve more than sandwiches and fried foods.
Clink-clink of my glass (of water!) toasting to your health!
I’ve been on my own quest to eat healthy when traveling. I travel Sunday-Thursday of every week 80% of the year and there are a number of things I think that make it so difficult to manage weight on the road , IMHO. I lost 100 pounds after the birth of my children so I know the calorie counting game pretty well but eating out is the hardest way to manage weight in my experience — and yet you have little choice when traveling…. don’t you?
Some issues I beleive exist for your diet when traveling:
Portion control (Meals are HUGE and only rarely will restaurants let you ‘half size)
Lack of ability to refridgerate/store leftovers and a reluctance for being wasteful (at home i’ll often refridgerate the remainder of even a ‘half portion’ of my favorite dish)
Fear of being hungry later if you don’t eat ‘enough’ (can’t pull the leftovers out of the fridge for a midnight snack)
Noone to split the meal with (I saw a couple of girls who would always split a roasted vegetable panini every day in the cafeteria at one customer site)
Healthy options are limited or unsavory (dry unseasoned chicken breast ICK)
Butter– its the secret to many delicous dishes. But restaurants don’t exactly advertise its prescence in a recipe- -and yet it packs a whopping 100calories per tablespoon.
There’s another question too. What constitutes ‘healthy’ eating? Truthfully if the dietary pyramid plays a role in this it would mean a balance of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, proteins and even some fats in moderation. Can pizza be healthy? Yes (i’m imagining a pizza packed with roasted vegetables mind you rather than one smothered in pepperoni). Is Pizza the best choice for a calorie controlled diet? Perhaps not– unless you control your portions as both cheese and bread products are very high in calories when compared to lean meats and vegetables.
I’m convinced some part of responsible dieting while traveling involves getting fruits and veggies of all colors/types as well as packing and eating responsible high fiber/fruit/protein based snacks such as the Kellog’s high fiber carmel coconut chocolate bars, or the Kind bars they sell at Starbucks, a pack of craisins, or even some Tamari Almonds
And as far as maintaining weight on the road there are other things as well … little tips and the like that might help keep weight off. Most hotels do have excercise rooms but i detest hopping on a tread mill as it makes me feel like a hamster, taking the stairs instead of escalators is one option but if you’re working on an article about maintaining health while traveling I’d love to see more thoughts/ideas on the subject.