Sunday, September 15, 2013

Eating healthy while away from home can be tough

Last week I travelled and worked away from home. This trip offered me an opportunity to meet and work with some truly amazing people.

For several days I enjoyed working with enthusiastic people who are passionate about their work. Their positive attitude and their enthusiasm for what they do was contagious and contributed towards successful completion of the project my team was working on.


Working away from home made eating healthy challenging for me. Limited time, not knowing where to buy healthy food, and eating between meetings prompted me to make hasty, unhealthy food decisions.

While healthy eating can be challenging when we are away from home, we can make efforts to make it less unhealthy. Here is what I did.

My hotel offered free breakfast, and the menu listed typical American breakfast food. I asked for apples and tomatoes, and they brought fruits and veggies that I requested. That helped me add some healthy elements to my breakfasts there. Another positive example was that the day after I asked at the front desk, where I could buy apples (my favorite snacks), free apples appeared on the table near the front desk.

Healthy food options were very limited in the area where I was during lunch and dinner times as well, and my choices were not perfect. I ended up with buying food for lunch in three different locations and creating my own menus. 
I was not the only one in my group that experienced the lack of healthy food choices challenge. One of my coworkers had to come back to the hotel and take some medicine to recover from stomach pain caused by unhealthy food she ate.

On the positive note I was happy that there were plenty of places that offered my favored coffee. I was in Seattle.

8 comments:

  1. Eating healthy while traveling is possible if you make it a priority and are mindful of your choices.

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  2. I feel your pain. Traveling usually takes a toll on my body, and the constant rush of activities makes it easier for me to stop at a fast-food place whenever hunger strikes.

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  3. I'm glad I could contribute to your blog...lol. It was very hard to find healthy food to eat in an airport that didn't cost an arm and a leg! Seattle was amazing nonetheless and I met some amazing people while there:)

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  4. When I travel, I try to make better choices, if it’s possible. When it isn’t, I go with what is the least unhealthy. Unless you travel regularly or it’s part of your work, I wouldn’t stress this travel thing too much.

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  5. I travel a lot and it’s hard to eat right in airports and hotels.

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  6. My goodness! I have just found this very same problem! I have been travelling a lot lately and found that the choices of food while on the road are really dreadful. It is all very unhealthy, snack based food. Even at service stations and road side cafes there is little to choose from and none of it healthy.

    Enjoy the journey.

    Mandy

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  7. Eating healthy whilst away from home in my experience has been close to impossible. Close to. I have found that so long as you are dedicated to being a healthier and happier person you can find the will to refrain from slipping back into bad eating habits.

    I think that the next time I plan to go travelling I will make sure to order extra fruit and vegetables with every meal to make up for the bad stuff that I may consume whilst I am there.

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  8. This situation has always been a great challenge for me... mostly because when I am in a new place, especially for vacation I desire to try new things, to taste new food. And very often I gaining weight. Well anyway I'm trying to eat fruits for breakfast every day and in many hotels in Europe they offer it. I red somewhere that is good to start the day with fruit.

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