I just returned from a fabulous vacation with my husband. We always joke that we just go from table to table when we are on vacation because food is such an important part of how we experience the places we are visiting. Whether I’m traveling for work or pleasure, I always like to enjoy the regional cuisine and try local specialties of the places I’m visiting—that meant jamon in Spain and gelato in Italy on my most recent vacation. And I was thinking that since so many listeners will be traveling over the upcoming holidays, it would be helpful to hear some of my strategies for eating healthfully while traveling.

First, I want to make the distinction between different purposes of traveling, because in my mind, your approach should be different depending on the type of travel you are doing. In my mind, I divide this topic into two categories:

Overall though, one important thing to keep in mind is that if you have an eating pattern that really works for you in your day-to-day life, then you know how good you can feel when you eat right. When you have a good eating plan in place, you don’t ever want to deviate from it too much because you don’t want to feel terrible while you’re traveling, especially if you’re on vacation! So my approach is to stick with my core healthy framework and give myself some extra flexibility.

When I’m on vacation, I like to relax my typical style of eating a bit. I don’t go crazy, but I do eat dessert more often, dip into the bread basket, and drink wine with more meals.

I like to sleep later whenever I can, so we typically end up sleeping through breakfast and going straight to lunch, so our calorie allotment in divided between two meals instead of among three meals, which can help to compensate for the little extra, bread, dessert, and wine. We are also a lot more active on vacation; we walk more if we are sightseeing and we swim more if we are just having a relaxing vacation with the kids. Being more active also helps compensate for some of the extra calories we consume.

I want listeners to understand that vacation eating doesn’t mean that all bets are off, it really means loosening up the structure and routine of your daily life to allow for more foods while maintaining your core eating structure.

When traveling for non-vacation purposes, it’s important to have a plan and lots of strategies for eating healthful meals and snacks. Although airport food is improving, you don’t want to find yourself stuck as a captive audience in an airport, or even worse an airplane and having to choose from mostly poor quality processed foods. I have some helpful strategies that will hopefully help you avoid that trap.

Try these strategies for all of your travels to help you eat your best so you can feel your best when you’re away from home.

A lot of listeners are probably thinking that you can make your own brown bag lunches at home to take on the plane, which is totally true if you are organized enough and have enough time to do it for your whole family yourself. I’m not that organized.

Another alternative is to do some research into the best food options for the airports you are using. There are tons of websites and articles online that provide this information.

I always buy a big bottle of water at the airport so I can drink throughout my flight. It’s really important to prevent dehydration, which can happen really easily on planes and I don’t want to have to wait for the beverage cart to get a tiny cup of water. By the way, it’s best to stick with water as your main beverage while flying, and while on the ground, most other beverages are too sugary, which isn’t great for your immune system, and alcohol is very dehydrating. If you get dehydrated, you’ll feel pretty bad by the time you get to your destination and it could set you up for constipation during your trip.

I know that many listeners will be traveling over the holidays. That means you’ll probably be having at least one holiday feast in addition to eating most of your meals at restaurants while you’re away. Planning ahead will be your best bet for eating healthfully and feeling your best on your holidays.

Whether you’re traveling for business or pleasure, try to incorporate the strategies I discussed here so you can stay healthy and feel great when you’re away from home.

Q: What do you eat if you are stuck with only airport food options?

A: I look for simple foods that I can combine to make a satisfying meal. Fresh fruit and nuts are always available. Starbucks oatmeal is what I eat most often because it means I’m at the airport early in the morning and haven’t had a chance to eat breakfast beforehand. You can add nuts, cinnamon and milk so it ends up being similar to what you would make at home and it’s a really satisfying way to kick off your travels. I will also buy a salad if it looks pretty fresh. Sandwiches are not my first choice, but if I do buy one, I try to only eat half of the bread to help control some of the sodium to prevent bloating. Choosing lower sodium foods is a priority for me since they can make you feel pretty awful when combined with a dehydrating plane flight. As I mentioned, I also buy a big bottle of water to drink throughout my flight to help prevent bloating, dehydration, and constipation. Doing some research on healthy dining choices at your airport terminals beforehand will help you make the best choices.

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