09 Jul 10 Tips To Eat Healthy When Traveling
Summer time is vacay time 😎
If you’re committed to a fit lifestyle, it can be challenging to maintain your healthy eating habits while exploring the world.
Fear not, we’ve complied a list of our top 10 tips to help you eat healthy when traveling below.
Since most people will inevitably have some splurge meals and plenty of drinks while on vacay, these suggestions are geared to a nutriton plan that is high protein and veggies, and lower carb/fat to off set higher calorie meals and drinks.
Our Top 10 Tips To Eat Healthy When Traveling
Traveling By Any Method
- Bring Meal Replacements
- Pack protein bars (Quest, One, No Cow, Think Thin), shakes (Quest, Orgain, Muscle Milk for pre-made containers), and ideally greens formulas (Wellness Greens).
- For snacking, nuts or a Kind Bar are great. The fat will make you feel full and prevent cravings.
- If you’re hiking, floating, or doing some other activity (or if you’re eating moderate to higher carbs already) Cliff Bars are the truth! These pack 40 grams of carbs per bar and will conveniently fuel your performance.
- Eat Healthy When Eating Out
- Your Go To: Salads with low fat dressing on the side – Ex: Cobb salad with chicken and low fat ranch
- Other Options: Meat and veggies: Ex 1: Sirloin steak and broccoli, Ex 2: Grilled chicken and a vegetable medley
- Low Calorie Drinks ONLY
- Non Alcoholic: Water, Powerade Zero, water and Mio for flavor
- Alcoholic: Red wine, hard seltzer water (White Claw is the ish!), vodka and water, vodka and club soda with a lime or lime juice, whiskey and diet soda (Ex: Jack and diet coke, Crown Apple and diet 7-Up), etc
- Drink LESS Alcohol
- The average standard alcoholic drink has about 150 calories in it, but varies from 100-300 + calories. There’s no getting around the fact that drinking less alcohol will dramatically reduce the amount of junk calories that you consume on your trip. We suggest having a reasonable daily max and making sure to use low calorie mixers whenever possible.
Traveling By Car
- Plan Ahead
- Think about what you’ll have available to you. You’ll be able to bring a cooler so look into the tips and suggested meals below for that. If you will have a grill, oven, or fridge where you’re going, maximize it! You’ll usually be able to eat healthier when you can bring your own food and drinks versus eating out. Examples of quick, healthy meals you can cook: chicken kabobs, steak or grilled chicken and asparagus, turkey burgers and pre-made greens mixes from the grocery store, possibly adding corn or sweet potatoes if you want more carbs. Cooler space is often limited, so opting for apples (25 g of carbs) or bananas (27 g of carbs) for fruit could be clutch.
Traveling By Plane
- Pack A LOT Of Protein bars, Or Other Meal Replacements
- Pre-made shakes won’t clear TSA, so your only option for shakes and greens powders is separating them into ziplock bags and bringing a shaker bottle for later mixing. See “Bring Meal Replacements” above for our favorites .
Cooler Tips For Boating and Camping
- Get A Good Cooler
- Yeti, Igloo Sportsmen and Engel are the best, but any cooler is fine. Try to keep it in the shade, or cover the top with a towel or seat cover, to prevent sunlight from heating up the cooler and melting your ice. There’s tradeoffs with different cooler sizes, but often, it’s better to have 2 medium sized coolers (Igloo) that are convenient for traveling versus 1 big cooler.
- Pack Your Cooler Properly
- For optimal ice preservation, put freezer packs at the bottom of your cooler (Engel), then ice on top. Next put your food and drinks on top or between your ice.
- Get Leak Proof ZipLock Bags and Tupperware Containers For Your Food
- I suggest Ziplock Double Zipper Bags and Rubbermaid’s Leak Proof Containers. This is important because at some point, your ice will likely melt and the cold water is still better to keep in the cooler versus hot air, unless you can reload your ice. Nothing is worse than when you’re starving and drained from the sun, and go to grab some grub and it’s soggy from the melted ice. Major bummer!
- Bring Healthy Meals
- Examples: Deli turkey lettuce wraps with cheese/tomatoes/low fat mayo or mustard, whole wheat or gluten free bread with deli chicken or roast beef and lettuce/tomato/cheese and maybe a little humus 😉
I hope these tips help you make your next adventure even more enjoyable.
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Thanks for hanging out! ✌
