You're here: Home » Articles » Women's Health » Healthy Eating On The Road

Healthy Eating On The Road

With the summer travel season approaching and hopefully diets underway as well, it’s really easy to try and tell yourself that you can’t maintain your diet on the road. While it is hard, it is certainly not an impossible feat. While typical food on the road consists of bags of chips, sodas to stay awake, and fast food, you can manage to eat healthy and still enjoy your trip.

Besides, eating healthy on the load will leave you more alert, feeling good about yourself, and confident that you can stick onto your diet for a while to come. This as opposed to cheating on your diet and eating junk food, which will leave you feeling groggy, tired, and bloated. It will also set you back on your goals of losing weight and keeping it off.

Breakfast on the road

Breakfast on the road may consist of eating a sit-down restaurant, the breakfast bar at a hotel, or perhaps at a gas station. The key to eating healthy breakfast when mobile is to avoid excess sugar and high carbohydrate meals. When restaurant eating, omelets filled with vegetables are always a healthy way to go, filled with variety. Oatmeal is also recommended, or some whole-grain toast with a little serving of jelly.

You may be eating breakfast at a restaurant, a hotel continental breakfast bar, or even the food aisle of a gas station. Avoid excess sugar. High carbohydrate meals may improve your mood for a short time, but lots of sugar can also make you sleepy. That's not good if you are the driver.

Breakfast at a hotel is a little tougher with the limited selection, but you should have a selection of whole grain cereal. Have a bowl with low-fat milk and some fresh fruit. It’s important to avoid the majority of the food here, like muffins and sugary cereals, which compose most of the major hotel chains continental breakfast bars.

If you’re on the run and have to stop at a gas station, consider a protein bar that is low and sugar or perhaps a breakfast burrito. If possible, get a pre-packaged bowl of whole grain cereal with a small pint of milk that is low fat.

When you stop for gas and restroom breaks, find a local grocery store which will have a better selection than the gas station.

Eating lunch and dinner on the road

Hopefully, lunch and dinner should be the time where you stop a restaurant. Try not to spend too much time at fast food restaurants, as it’s extremely hard to find healthy options there.

To start your meal, order a side salad or a soup to eat with your main course. Generally, both of these are healthy and will allow you to start to fill up with something healthy instead of eating more of your calorie-heavy meal. Of course, you always have the option of skipping the main entrée altogether and just opting to eat a soup and salad combo.

If you want have a main course, split it with somebody in your group. As you’re probably aware, restaurants keep increasing the size of the portions – if you want the rack of ribs, split it with someone travelling with you. Not only does it save your stomach, it saves your money.

When ordering a main entrée, choose something that is healthy and low-fat. Opt for the baked chicken, as opposed to the fried chicken. And, make sure you fill up on green vegetables and this should be obvious, but skip the pecan pie and apple cobbler.

Using Multi-Vitamins

We always recommend using daily vitamins to help “fill in the gap” of other vitamins and nutrients that you lack when you don’t eat a well-balanced meal every day. It should be especially important to take vitamins while on the road, as you’re more than likely guaranteed not to get a well-balanced meal. You may have one meal full of Iron and Vitamin C, but that same meal could be lacking Vitamin A and B.

Use vitamins to substitute for the healthy foods and drinks that you can’t consume while on the road.

Comments on this article:

Add Your Comments Here: