How to Eat Healthy While Traveling

Over the past month during our moving transition, we have been here, there and everywhere, but not at home with our consistent routine! Most of the time, we have been staying with family, but that still does not guarantee home-cooked meals or knowing what you are eating at all times. When I was a food safety auditor, I was used to traveling a lot and not being home for my meals. As a result of that experience, I was able to form good, healthy eating habits starting then and have continued to implement those now. I will be honest and say that it is a bit trickier to implement those with a one-year old included, but we have been able to make it work! It really is possible to eat healthy while traveling.

Here are some of my main takeaways for how to eat healthy while traveling:

Go to the local grocery store to stock up on healthy food

No matter where you are, you should be able to find a grocery store or at least a small local market to stock up on healthy food options. There is always a place to find fruit and vegetables and other fresh ingredients. If you know that you will not be able to prepare the food that you buy, there are always ways around this. For example, with an apple, you can always eat those whole or buy the slices. But with vegetables, maybe instead of buying an entire celery stalk, you could buy a ready-to-eat vegetable tray and get an assortment of fresh vegetables that you could eat throughout your travels.

Only “eat out” one meal a day

I understand this might not always be practical if you are traveling for work and need to go to work lunches and dinners, but when you can control this, you should follow this rule. If you have the option of when and how you eat, you should make it so that you are eating either whole food or food that you prepared yourself. (Not to mention that you will end up saving a lot of money this way, especially if you are traveling as a family!) As mentioned above, going to the local grocery store or market will make this a really easy challenge and if you are staying in a hotel, it is pretty common now that they include fridges or you can book your hotel based on the “kitchen” accommodations.

Also, when referring to eating one meal out a day, this should not be wasted on airplane or fast food. Eat out somewhere where you can (1) enjoy the food and (2) indulge in more specific, healthier options if you prefer.

Always have fresh water on hand

This can be as simple as carrying a water bottle with you that you can fill up at the hotel, in the airport, or wherever you are traveling. If not, I suggest buying larger water bottles at the local grocery store so that you can save money instead of buying smaller water bottles each time you stop at a gas station or somewhere to buy water. This will not only help keep you on track with staying healthy (instead of impulse buying an unhealthy drink), but it will also help to keep you hydrated during your travels.

Keep healthy snacks with you

It is one thing to buy healthy snacks (e.g., fruit, nuts), it is another thing to make sure that you stick to eating those when you get hungry. It is really easy to get caught up, especially in work occasions, when there are a lot of sweets around and being offered to you, but by having those healthy options on hand, it will help you make better decisions throughout the day. When we go places, I always bring snacks for my daughter. If we are planning on going somewhere in the stroller, I always have Cheerios and some type of dried fruit so that she can enjoy her snack without causing a huge mess. But with that said, if we go somewhere and there are better snack options available, I will let her eat whatever she wants.

Eat foods that make you feel good

Whether you are traveling for fun or for work, my trick is to imagine that you are eating to maintain yourself during a busy work day. You should attempt to avoid empty or bulky calories. Everything you eat is reflected directly by your body’s reaction. For example, if you eat a big, heavy lunch, you are going to be sleepy and/or sluggish afterwards. There is no way of getting around that no matter what you are doing the rest of the day! So, it is best to eat food that will give you the energy you need to sustain yourself for the rest of the day. I get it if you want to eat a dessert every once in a while, or even once per day, but save those for the end of the day.

Only eat when you are hungry

Do not eat food just to eat. Be mindful of when your body is hungry and when it is not and follow your body’s cues. You should be especially careful with overeating if you are doing a lot of snacking.

Try to follow your normal routine

Traveling does not need to follow the “holidays” curse or the equivalent of a time where you “break your diet” or give yourself an excuse to eat bad. We all have days where we do not eat as healthy as we would like to, but traveling does not give you the excuse to eat unhealthy. It is all about being conscious of what you are putting into your body and how to best manage that. Keeping a solid routine can really help you with that. In addition to keeping a healthy diet while traveling, I also always try to keep a routine table set up for my daughter when we are out, so that she has her own place to sit and her own plate to eat off of and can eat well, in comfort.

Personal Example

To give you an idea of how we managed to stay healthy while not being at home this past month, we really did stick to these rules. For me, the most important thing was to create some sort of consistency for my daughter, so each time we got somewhere new or were low on a certain food item that she was into at the moment, I would go back to the store to get her some more. For example, some of her current favorites are black beans, spinach, berries and bananas, so I made sure to always have those on hand.

When buying for her, I would make sure to eat those too because they are healthy, yummy and she is more likely to eat something if I am eating it too. I also really like to make sure that I eat at least one fruit bowl per day, so I make sure to have enough fruit on hand to be able to do that. Luckily, for most of our travels, I was able to enjoy some fresh oranges from my grandparent’s tree!

However, when staying with people, it is realistic to expect them to eat out at least every once in a while and there is no reason that you should not participate as well, so we did. With that being said, there is also no reason that you have to go crazy and over-indulge when eating out. You can still eat healthy and choose good options for yourself and for whoever you are with. To give you some specific examples, a few items that we ate out were pizza, burritos and more burritos!

This was how I made them as healthy as possible, both for my daughter and for me:

Pizza – I ordered veggie pizza for us, which came with bell pepper, black olives, tomatoes and zucchini. I could have just eaten that, but instead, I added some spinach and avocado to the top (and even black beans one night) when eating the take out at home. Not only did it make it taste better, but it made it so that I was getting fuller off of the fibrous fruit (remember: avocado is technically a fruit!) and vegetables instead of the crust and cheese. Remember, it does not need to look pretty, it just needs to taste good and make you feel good afterwards!

Burritos – One thing I have done with my burritos for years is to try to make them like a salad wrapped in a tortilla. I will be the first one to admit that my favorite part of the burrito is the tortilla, but getting a traditional burrito is not very heavy and does not make me feel good afterwards. So instead of the rice, sour cream and cheese, I substitute lettuce and avocado so that I am eating whole beans (either pinto or black – no refried), lettuce, avocado and meat. This really makes a huge difference in how you feel afterwards. In the example below, I had ordered that same burrito and once I got home to eat it, found that there was only meat and whole beans inside. There is no way that I could have eaten a burrito like that! So, since I had avocado and spinach on hand, I added some avocado and cooked spinach and was able to really enjoy that burrito!

Regardless of where you might be at geographically, eating healthy comes down to a choice. If you put in a little effort to be more conscious of how you are eating, you and your body will reap the rewards. And although these tips are meant to help you while traveling, a lot of them are practical to both when you are traveling and when you are at home. Where there is a will, there is a way!