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Last updated on July 26th, 2018

How To Rock Eating Healthy On The Road

Staying fit and healthy is completely practical when you’re at home surrounded by all your essentials. Even small tasks like drinking more water are pretty straightforward when you’re stationary. But what about when you’re traveling? How do you make healthy choices when stuck in a car for the insane amount of time? You plan, plan and plan! Eating healthy on the road is do-able but it does take some effort!

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A few weeks ago my family and I traveled to Florida for a week of sunshine and relaxing. Well, mostly sunshine… we do have a toddler and six-month-old after all!

While this sounds amazing, there’s one thing you should know: we drove there. Yup, we drove twenty-eight hours… in a car… with kids. It took two days of driving, but we arrived!

Yes, it was a bit insane. And while I will eventually write a blog post on the tactics we used to not go completely bonkers and to keep a two-year-old entertained, I also wanted to touch on how I stayed healthy on this love car trip.

When my husband first suggested driving to Florida I vetoed it immediately. However, the more I got thinking about two kids, two car seats, a stroller and cloth diapers in an airport, the better driving looked.

Plus, if driving I could bring my Berkey, my Vitmaix and a Kettlebell – yes, I actually brought all of those things!

So, the decided-on driving and of course my mind went into overdrive. I’m a planner through and through so my to-do list got started.

Since I had no intention of relying on fast food chains for food (for myself or my daughter) for two days I definitely had some work to do. The other fun information tidbit is that because we were traveling with kids, we decided to leave at 2pm and drive straight through the night.

This is awesome in theory, but you definitely need a bit of energy juice to stay awake! So below are a few of my best tips for eating healthy on the road. I planned, planned and planned and it still ended up being mildly entertaining?

Water

This seems like the easiest one for most people but I’m a bit of a water snob. I use and adore my Berkey water filter and bottled water just doesn’t compare.

So yes, you can definitely grab a case of water and toss it in the car for your trip. I spent the two days before we left filling up glass jugs of filtered water to keep us hydrated.

This provided entertainment for everyone (and eye twitches from the hubby!) as the rolled around the floor of the van because I suck at packing 😛

Regardless, plan for hydration!  Water is crucial for eating healthy on the road and you can never have enough, so stock up ahead of time.

Vegetables

One thing I cannot resist while driving extended periods is snacking. I always want to be munching! While chips may seem like a good solution, they don’t exactly work for me. Plus, on a two-day journey there was no possible way I was going to go without vegetables! And tomato on a burger from a fast food joint doesn’t count 😛

The issue with this was that traveling from Canada to the US you cannot cross with fresh fruits and veggies. So, three hours into our two-day car journey I forced my hubby to stop at a grocery store, so I could stock up!

I grabbed a bunch of veggies and fruits, cut them in the car and we were set.

Coming back home was a bit easier and I was able to prep all my veggies ahead of time (the two drive is mostly US based).

Having vegetables on hand not only made snacking easy but it also ensured we all hit out veggie intake for the day. Peppers, carrots, apples, berries and cucumber go a long way!

Bars/Snacks

Another tip to eating healthy on the road is to always stock up on snack bars! While I made a few of my homemade energy balls and protein bars for the trip, it’s tricky to make too many as they get gross in a cooler after a while.

Which is why I brought a long a few of my all time favorite bars to snack on for the trip. These are perfect because you don’t need to keep them cool and they’re quick and easy to grab.

Plus, I always make sure that any purchased bar is well balanced to keep us full and not just give us a sugar high! You can find a lot of awesome packaged bars at well.ca– one of my favorite companies.

We also brought along some of the smoothie pouches for my daughter. She actually never had them as an infant and for some reason is obsessed with them right now. 

However, many of them are just fruit and veggies. While that’s amazing, I prefer that there is a stabilizer to control the sugar release. I always look for pouches with chia seeds, flaxseeds, yogurt or nuts. This makes it so there’s no massive sugar release that comes with them.

I also brought along a lot of nuts. Nuts are one of my favorite travel snacks because they’re calorie dense and you can’t eat a zillion of them. Plus, they’re full of healthy vitamins and help promote brain development.

Lastly, I brought with us some roasted chickpeas (again for munching. I made my favorite Salt & Vinegar ones) and avocados. Avocados are the perfect baby food so this way I’d have something to give my 6-month-old quickly too! I literally thought of everything I could to help make eating healthy on the road practical for everyone.

Caffeine Fuel

Part of the fun of this trip was staying awake all night long. I’m not sure about you, but it’s been a long time since I’ve stayed awake straight through till dawn. I’m normally in bed by nine thirty. This was probably the most challenging part for me.

So yes, there was coffee. We brought a two-liter thermos with us! But truth be told, there is only so much coffee I can drink. So, I also used a few other tricks:

• Pre-workout mix
• Matcha green tea
• Coffee protein bars

To be honest, I haven’t taken a pre-workout mix in forever. I workout right after breakfast and thus normally have enough coffee in my system. The pre-workout worked beautifully because I wasn’t used to it and got me right jacked up!

I also made use of some matcha green tea. Not only does matcha have some insanely awesome health benefits but it’s also a great stimulant! I brought along a thermos of boiling water and whisked some up as needed.

And lastly, to help stay awake I also ate some coffee protein bars! Mainly, these were just yummy.

My hubby, on the other hand, went with the traditional stay-awake diet of red bull. Donuts, coffee, and pop.

While this is probably the route most people take it’s far from the healthiest. That many stimulants on your system aren’t great and with every sugar high is a sugar crash. If you’re looking to take a healthier approach to your trip and really rock eating healthy on the road, stay away from excessive sugar. It’s easy but it’s not healthy.

The truth is, I tried to pack as much as humanly possible into my car (one of the perks of driving). I brought a zillion snacks, as much fresh produce as possible and lots of water. This made it, so we actually didn’t have to buy anything and only stopped for rest stops/breastfeeding!

Don’t forget to pin these tips on eating healthy on the road!

All in all, this helped keep our immune system high during our travels and our tummies satisfied. It made it so there were no stomach pains from too much-processed food and it saved us money. It’s not easy to drive for two straight days and not rely on chips, donuts and pop but eating healthy on the road it's definitely do-able.

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