Travel Tips To Support Your Health

Whether eating at the airport, packing a road trip cooler or dining away from home, it can be challenging to find convenient foods that keep you energized and satisfied.

Although you’re not likely to find a perfect plate of grass-fed steak, baked sweet potato fries, GMO-free ketchup and a side of organic steamed kale, you can still make better choices away from home that are healthy and delicious. Eating more nutritious foods while traveling can help improve your energy, reduce stress and set you up for a restful night’s sleep — all challenges for a person living on-the-go. By following these simple changes in food selections you can boost fat burning and improve your health.
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10 Healthy Travel Tips

1. Stay Hydrated
Stick with water as your main beverage. Not only does water support your body, but it also prevents you from drinking processed beverages high in refined sugars, artificial sweeteners, and other toxic ingredients. Coconut water, mineral water and unsweetened teas are also healthy options. Add lemon or lime wedges, sliced cucumber, fresh mint or flavored stevia for variety.

2. Plan Ahead
Use a computer or phone app to find a grocery store near your destination for a healthier meal or to stock up on food. Look at restaurant menus ahead of time to find foods you enjoy. Have fun creating your meal from the healthier selections. Try combining sides or appetizers to build an appealing plate, such as hummus with roasted sweet potato and a side of salmon.

3. Choose Whole Foods
No matter how you spend your day, strive for natural whole foods over man-made processed products. Whole, single-ingredient foods, such as vegetables, fruits, and nuts are high in nutrients that support health. In contrast, processed foods, such as bread, pasta, tortillas, and chips. The less refined a food is, the more it will benefit your body.

4. Include Veggies
Add vegetables to your meal to increase nutrients with fiber, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and antioxidants. The more veggies on your plate, the less room you’ll have for insulin-spiking refined carbs (bread, breaded foods, fries, white rice, pasta, chips, crackers, croutons, etc.). Boost nutrients with greens instead of grains by choosing salads, lettuce wraps or seaweed rolls. If you can’t resist bread, select sourdough or “sprouted” varieties and make it a half sandwich.

5. Choose Natural Fats
Choose natural fats such as avocados, hummus, butter, olives, olive oil, nuts, and seeds. Fats can reduce appetite and keep you full long after you eat. Avoid anything fried or deep-fried.

6. Learn to “Lemonize”
Add freshly squeezed lemon to water, tea, salads, chicken, fish, and vegetables for extra flavor. Lemons pack in health benefits by supporting weight loss, improving digestion, balancing pH, aiding detoxification, and providing a decent amount of vitamin C and potassium.

7. Pack Sea Salt
Swap the table salt for sea salt. Unrefined sea salt contains 84 minerals and trace elements as nature intended, not just sodium and chloride with aluminum anti-caking agents, bleach and other harmful additives. High-quality sea salt, such as Celtic or Himalayan, has the opposite effect of table salt and supports overall health. Dulse or kelp seaweed flakes are another great alternative with a rich mineral content.

8. Favor Fruit for Dessert
Fruits are rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Fruit is actually one of the best foods you can eat to support your health, lose weight, improve hydration levels, detoxify, boost your immune system, fight pathogens, get rid of Candida, decrease aging, and prevent cancer. 

9. Slow Down & Chew
Slow down and chew your food more. The act of chewing releases flavors that increase satiation and enzymes that increase nutrient absorption. That means more nutrients with less food. Challenge yourself to chew each bite at least 30 times.

10. Eat Mindfully
When you improve how you eat, you’ll naturally improve what you eat. Practice pausing and putting your utensils down in between bites. Engage your senses to savor all of the aromas and flavors of your meal. This will help you stay more present and allows you to fully chew your food before reaching for more. It’s this combination of awareness and small changes that produce the most effective results.

On-The-Go Examples
Airport Breakfast: cheese omelet with spinach, mushrooms, tomato; side of fruit
Road trip cooler: apples, grapes, bananas, plantain chips, nuts and seeds
Grocery grab: rotisserie chicken with cherry tomatoes, guacamole, and an apple
Drive-thru: a lettuce-wrapped burger with tomato, pickles, and onions
Blender: bananas blended with wild blueberry or dragon fruit powder and water or herbal tea

Travel Spotlight

• Mini Blender
• Silicone storage bags
• Re-usable produce bags
• Beverages: coconut water, kombucha
• Herbal Tea: valerian, chamomile, lemon balm, ginger
• Dried fruit: apricots, figs, dates, goji berries, mango, papaya, wild blueberries
• Nuts: cashews, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, Brazil nuts, almond butter packs
• Seeds: pumpkin, watermelon, sunflower, hemp, chia
• Bars: That’s It fruit bars, LaraBar
• Chips: plantain chips, banana chips, pitaya (dragon fruit) chips
• Other snacks: pizza flax crackers, almond flour crackers, seaweed
• Raw honey and raw honey sticks or flavored raw honey sticks
• Powders: wild blueberry, pitaya (dragon fruit), raspberry, celery, Vanilla
• Sea salt, Dulse or kelp seaweed flakes