This week our clients are asking: What strategies do I employ when on the road and on the go? How do I stay on track this month staying with family over the holidays? What about when traveling for work and stuck in hotels with only room service and fast food restaurants. What about on vacation? You must strategize and plan ahead when you know you will lose control of your healthy kitchen safe-haven.

1. Road Trips: Pack your own snacks that won’t spoil. Trader Joe’s just-a-handful of cashews, almonds, or trail mix. Nuts packaged individually are harder to overeat. Add apples, beef jerky, hard-boiled eggs, and carrots for snacking in the car. If you have time to stop, opt for a grocery store deli instead of McDonald’s, KFC, Taco Bell, etc. Use the GPS function on your smart phone to check out local restaurants instead of corporate chain outlets like Olive Garden, Applebee’s, and TGIFriday’s. Restaurants tell a great deal about cities so find the off-the-beaten path gems. If you get stuck at a chain restaurant, your trusty calorie counting app will know the amounts in those nation wide chains.

2. Staying with family and friends: If you know there will be multiple temptations at your friend or relative’s home, simply stop by a grocery store just before you arrive. Stock up on the healthy foods you are used to eating and bring them with you. This way you can’t use the excuse that they didn’t have  healthy options. If it’s a close friend or relative and you are arriving via airplane, just ask them to stock fruit and vegetables and hide ice-cream, cookies, croissants, bagels, and other empty calorie foods. The more you control your environment the less likely you are to binge.

3. Traveling for work: Once I was sent to Ft. Huachuca, Arizona for six-weeks. This is the kind of place where fast food is king. Knowing that eating out three times a day would bring me up to at least 3000 calories a day, I trekked to Safeway and purchased foods I could assemble into healthy breakfasts and lunches without cooking. I went out for dinner to the same two restaurants every night. You can’t go wrong with grilled chicken or fish and tons of veggies and a salad. As I got to know the staff, they were  more than willing to prepare healthy items even if they weren’t featured on the menu. What did I buy at the grocery store? Bananas and raw almond butter for breakfast. Baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, snap peas with hummus and chicken breast or nitrate-free pastrami or smoked turkey for lunch. Raw almonds and apples for snacks. Worried about pesticides? Opt for thick-skinned or rind-based fruits like pineapple, orange, melons, and bananas. So you see? Even getting stuck in the middle of nowhere isn’t an excuse to blow your program!

4. 

   Ubud, Bali. Sublime. Paradise.

   Vacation: Let’s face it food is a significant cultural component. You will never experience Rome without sampling classic pasta alla carbonara or gnocchi alla Romana. You should experience those dishes. Fortunately, Rome is a walker’s paradise and you will work it off strolling the piazza San Pietro and the Spanish steps. Ditto for most international cities. When in more remote areas of the world, tourists are usually more active: swimming in the ocean, hiking waterfalls, exploring ancient ruins, biking, rafting, skiing. Every country also offers healthy and unhealthy food options. Taste and explore both. Ask the locals. The same rules apply all over: grilled and baked are better than fried and butter sauteed. Be mindful. Be proactive. Know you won’t be perfect. Work out where ever you are. All Double Eagle Fitness clients know you don’t need a gym to get a killer workout. Post any additional questions to the comments. To your health!