Traveling can be a lot of fun, you get to relax and enjoy a great time with your loved ones while going off to some exotic location. However, eating healthy can be a difficult task especially, if you want to enjoy some of the exotic food along the way. While that’s understandable, eating meals that are unplanned can prevent you from sticking to a healthy diet and increase your chances to eat junk food or simply overeating.

In order to avoid that, we’ll look at the 9 best ways you can stay healthy while traveling.

Get a good night’s rest

One of the first things to get in order when you’re traveling is having a good sleeping habit. People are often so eager to see the sights and to stay out late enjoying the nights that they end up getting only 5 hours of sleep or less. Traveling can be hard on your body, especially when you’re traveling long distances or adapting to different time zones. It’s easy to have added stress walking a lot, carrying luggage and figuring fights from here to there. This can be taxing on your body and having sleep is more important than usual. When you have the opportunity, try to get a decent amount of rest, even the first day. The sights you plan to visit will still be there when you wake up. With better night’s rest, you will feel relaxed and reenergized, leaving you in a happier state to fully take on tomorrow’s adventures.

It starts where you stop

If you’re on a road trip and you stop at a gas station or Mc Donald’s you’re limiting your healthy food choices and most likely will be eating junk food. However, planning and stopping at restaurants or grocery stores will give you a larger variety of healthier eating choices and will help you stick to a healthy eating diet.

Eat less, more often

eatingEating big meals in a single sitting gives you loads of energy.  No matter if they’re healthy or not, you risk the chance of gaining fat, feeling tired and sluggish. This sends your brain the message that you’re eating a lot now and you’ll be eating very little later. With that signal, your brain will burn fewer calories. However, if you’re eating smaller amounts of healthy foods frequently throughout the day, then your brain will understand that the food supply is plentiful and won’t need to store the energy, therefore will burn calories quickly and more regularly. This is a great way to staying healthy, fuller and staying energized throughout the day.

Eat plenty of proteins

Stay away from those harmful sugary snacks and drinks by eating the right amount of protein (ones that have the essential amino acids) your body needs. This helps stabilize your blood sugar, giving you lots of energy, while enhancing your concentration, and keeping you fuller for a longer period of time.

This includes delicious lean meat such as lamb, chicken, and pork. You’ll be able to enjoy your food and keep yourself healthy in the process.

Bring snacks

Often when we’re traveling, it can be difficult to access food at regular intervals. Or worst, skipping meals altogether making your metabolism slow down to prevent you from starving. This causes your cells and body to crave food, exposing you to overeat on unhealthy foods. For example, you may have skipped lunch only to eat a huge dinner with a big piece of cake. If you stuck to eating throughout the day, you could have avoided overeating, as well as those other calorie bombs.

If you’re traveling on a plane, bus or car make sure to take healthy snacks in a backpack. You can munch on almonds, fresh dried fruit, berries and yogurt and many other great choices that will keep you energized and satisfied.

Drink a lot of water

People often mistake the sensation of thirst into thinking they need food when your body is actually asking for water. Misdiagnosing the difference between thirst and hunger can play a huge part in eating a lot of unnecessary calories.  Whenever you feel hungry try drinking one or two glasses of water and wait 10 minutes. If this satisfies you, you were just thirsty. Otherwise, if you’re still experiencing your stomach grumbling you’re probably hungry. Drinking water before eating will make you feel fuller and will help prevent you from overeating.

There are many health benefits of drinking water apart from keeping you hydrated. It moisturizes your skin, keeping it fresh, soft and smooth. Flushes out all those nasty toxins help avoid headaches, muscle cramps, fatigue and eliminates cravings for junk food.

Pack your own meals

Visit the grocery store before leaving for your trip. You don’t want to be stressing out trying to find a quick healthy meal while being on the road. Making packable meals like wraps or sandwiches and packing them in a cooler bag before you leave can save you a headache when you’re on your trip.

Try to only eat your calories

Drinking fruit juice, soda and energy drinks should be totally avoided. They have a number of different health concerns such as a massive amount of sugar which causes dehydration, artificial sweeteners, lack of necessary nutrients to make you feel satiated. If you love OJ, eat an orange instead. It’s a healthier choice and is high in filling fiber as well as giving the citrus kick you love.

Choose the restaurant when you can

There is no doubt you will be eating out when traveling. In these instances, choose healthy options. Ignore the temptation of fried foods and go for roasted, grilled or poached options are best. Choose steamed vegetables over fried veggies. Don’t fill up on chips or bread and if you must add some potato pick the baked potato over chips. Always ask for sauces on the side, including salad dressing. Very often dressings tend to make even a healthy salad turn into an unhealthy option and skip dessert.

Be mindful of the amount of alcohol you consume, if you really want to stay healthy while traveling. The most important factor to consider is to go in with a game plan and try to stick to it as much as possible to avoid failure.

As you can see, being prepared is the key to success, you’ll see just how easy, simple and even cheap it can be to eat healthy while enjoying your travels.

Good luck!