Eating and Traveling: Do You Eat and Run? Or Run and Eat?

Let’s face it — few of us get three home-cooked meals a day anymore.

We’re always on the go. People travel for business and pleasure, and travel short distances and long distances. Parents spend hours carting their children to and from school and after-school activities. As a result, we tend to buy and eat more snacks and meals away from home, which can make healthy eating and diabetes control challenging.

You’ve probably been faced with the challenges of eating on the go: in the car, at the airport, on a plane. As you reinvent your lifestyle, it’s important to have some strategies ready.

This Healthy Eating article offers some tips for eating on the run.

• For once-in-a-while experiences, such as plane, train, and car trips
• For everyday, on-the-run hurdles, like business lunches and the Friday-night pizza challenge

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Planes and Trains. Airports and airlines (and trains, for that matter) are not known for offering a wide variety of healthy food choices. A beverage and a bag of peanuts or pretzels will only carry you so far, so when you fly, plan to carry your own food.

• Pack Glucerna SR™ products. They’re lightweight and small enough to fit easily into a briefcase or carry-on bag.
• Bring a piece or two of fresh fruit and a small bag of sliced raw vegetables or mixed nuts.
• Find a deli in the airport for a tossed vegetable salad and some fresh fruit to round out your nutrition plan.
• If meal service is included on your flight, or the airline has a “food for purchase” option, call ahead and request a vegetarian meal or fruit plate.

Hydration is also particularly important when you’re traveling by air. For more information on fluids and how much you might need, check out the Week 10 Healthy Eating article.

Automobiles. You may be playing with fire when you rely on finding a good place to eat along the way. Some fast-food restaurants are offering healthier food choices than in the past, but do you want to risk not finding one of these places alongside the road? On the other hand, car travel allows you several strategies for healthy eating:

• Put a bag of ice or those freezer packs in a small cooler to carry your Glucerna SR Shakes, along with some fresh fruits and vegetables.
• Plan a picnic with foods you enjoy and that fit into your nutrition plan. Take a break for a meal and take in the view at a scenic stop on the highway.
• Remember to keep cold foods cold, less than 4.5°C, for safety.

Getting Around Town

Even if you’re not packing your bags right now, chances are you spend a fair amount of time on the road every day. Driving to and from work. Running errands. Taking kids to soccer practice, a friend’s house, or the library.

Take a Break, Smell the Roses. When you know that a big part of your day will be spent behind the wheel, think about packing a lunch box with healthy food choices in case your errands take longer than you planned and it’s getting close to mealtime.

Then take a break from your busy schedule to relax and enjoy the foods you packed. Practice mindful eating. If you eat while you’re doing something else, you don’t eat mindfully. You don’t really taste and enjoy your food. You don’t feel satisfied.

And it might be fun to pack a soccer-practice picnic. A healthy meal for the whole family to enjoy together, even on the go.

“Let’s Do Lunch.” Business deals happen over meals or drinks. Food is a significant part of many professional and social gatherings. When you’re faced with a lunchtime meeting, consider it an opportunity to practice your eating-out strategies!

Check with your doctor about drinking alcohol, especially if you’re taking any medications. If you do choose to have alcohol at a gathering like this, choose a beverage without sweet mixers, and sip slowly. Order a glass of water, too. Take a few sips of water for every sip of your cocktail.

Fine-Tuning Fast Food. Planning ahead and carrying food with you can help you manage the challenges of traveling, errands, and meetings. But sometimes those strategies aren’t enough or aren’t practical. If you find yourself turning to fast food or dialing for pizza when your life gets just too busy, remember — you can still make healthy choices!

• Squelch the supersizing. Each fast-food restaurant has its own catchy phrase, but they all mean the same thing — you get a lot of extra food for just a little extra money. The largest meals at some fast-food restaurants contain as many as 1,500 or 1,600 calories — more calories than some of us need for an entire day! So this “bargain” isn’t a good deal when you weigh it against your weight loss goals. For your sake, choose the smallest portion available. Or order a kid’s meal to really help control those portions.
• Limit liquid calories. Sodas, lemonade, and other sugary drinks were once served in 236 ml containers. Today, 1.3-liter containers that give you a whopping 550 calories are commonplace. Opt for water, unsweetened iced tea, or diet soda beverages instead.
• Plan for produce. More and more fast-food restaurants offer salads, and some establishments now offer fruit cups or small bags of raw vegetables in place of the fries. Ask for the reduced-calorie salad dressings and beware of the extras that come with your salad: fried noodles, croutons, bacon, and tortilla chips. They pack a lot of calories.
• Know your nutrition facts. Knowledge gives you the power to make healthy choices in fast-food restaurants.
  • Before heading out the door, take a few minutes to visit Web sites of the fast-food restaurants you frequently visit for their products’ nutrition information.
  • Use the nutrition information listed for each of their food choices to decide what fits best into your nutrition plan.

Pizza Ploys. Pizza is a staple of our busy lives. But many people trying to lose weight figure that pizza doesn’t figure into their plan. And you know how hard it is to watch family or friends chow down on pizza while you pick at a salad.

Contrary to popular belief, pizza and a healthy lifestyle can coexist. You just need some tips to make it fit into your plan.

• Think thin. Don’t do deep-dish pizza: Thin-crust pizzas are better. A thick crust adds extra calories from the added fats and oil used to season and brown the crust. Ordering thin crust ensures that there is no place for all that extra stuff (and the added calories) to hide!
• Hold the cheese, please.
  • When you order pizza, ask for half the cheese to keep the calories in check. When you add other flavorful low-calorie toppings, you probably won’t miss the extra cheese. And you sure won’t miss the calories. Feeling adventurous? Try ordering pizza with no cheese at all!
  • Beware when ordering cheese-only pizza: A standard practice in many pizzerias is to double the cheese on a cheese pizza. Ask for half the cheese when you order.
• Tip-top toppings. You can also subtract pizza calories by choosing the right toppings. We all know pepperoni and sausage are high in calories, but what else is there?
  • Vegetables — even fruit. Any vegetable topping is a great choice and adds flavor without a lot of calories. Peppers, onions, mushrooms, spinach, artichokes, and tomatoes are a few of the delicious options. Some pizzerias even offer fruit, such as pineapple. Olives and avocado are great sources of monounsaturated fats. Just be aware that they are higher in calories than other vegetable toppings.
  • Lean meats. Canadian bacon and lean ham are good lower-calorie alternatives to pepperoni and sausage. But they are high in sodium, so limit how often and how much of these meats you have on your pizza.
• Pair it with produce. When most people eat pizza, they eat nothing else. But even carefully constructed pizza is calorie-dense. A good strategy is to eat a tossed vegetable salad with reduced calorie dressing or some fresh fruit while you wait for the pizza to be delivered. Hold the meats and cheese on that salad. By the time the pizza person arrives with the goods, you’ll feel less hungry and eat less pizza.

Putting It All Into Practice

How do you plan to navigate when you’re on the go? Write down your favorite strategies.

Summary

• Planes, trains, or automobiles: Staying on track while you travel is easier if you’re prepared. Take Glucerna SR products with you. Pack other healthy foods and snacks such as fruits and vegetables or mixed nuts so you don’t get stuck with bad airplane food or try to survive a four-hour flight with only a bag of peanuts.
• Create strategies to help you eat healthy when you’re on the run, even at home. This article offers some helpful tips, including the following:
  • Make time on busy days for relaxation and family fun. Pack healthy snacks or light meals and stash them in the car for a post-soccer-practice picnic.
  • When you’re on the run and find yourself facing a fast-food menu, choose small — not supersized — portions, get as much produce as you can (but watch those salad toppings and dressings!), and know your nutrition facts so you can choose wisely. Most fast-food restaurants make them available on paper and online.
• Pizza, a popular busy-day food, isn’t taboo. But use your strategies to eat wisely.
  • Order thin crust, light on the cheese, and vegetable toppings.
  • Pair the pizza with produce — lots of salad, less pizza.