Healthy Eating on the Go

Nutrition

Nov 2

While life has slowed down tremendously due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, one of the biggest struggles that people still face is a crazy, hectic schedule. We live in the fast lane. Balancing life, work, family, and school can be tough and when you consider what it takes in the mist of it all to still make healthy food choices… it’s a real challenge.

Quick and convenient foods end up taking the place of healthy, nourishing food when we’re on the move all the time. These less than ideal food choices put us on the hamster wheel of experiencing low energy, weight gain, and potential health problems. So we are not only tired from taking on the day, but we’re tired because we aren’t fueling our bodies what it needs to thrive.

Yet… what if I told you it didn’t have to be this way though? You don’t have to be a slave to your schedule and resort to fast food or processed foods on a regular basis. It is possible to eat healthy foods, even with a jam-packed schedule. It just requires a little bit of pre-planning to ensure success. You’ll feel better, have more energy, and your waistline will thank you too.

Below are a few tips that you can use to help you eat healthier while you’re on the go. I’ve also included a list of healthy snack ideas to get you started, so keep reading.

Eating Healthy When You’re Not Home

There are plenty of circumstances that will take you away from home, and make it more challenging to eat healthy food. Take the time to plan ahead and you can relax knowing that you won’t be derailing your healthy living efforts by consuming empty calories.

Daily Errands and Kids Activities.
If you’re anything like me, you spend a lot of time in your car each day running errands. I travel a lot due to my job so I am always on the move. For my parents out there, you have the added hustle and bustle of shuttling kids back and forth between activities. If we don’t plan ahead, it is easy to fall into the trap of swinging through the closest drive through when you (or your family) are hungry. I’ll be honest, my guilty pleasure is Chickfila because I like having the ability to order from the app and pull up to the curbside pick up.
Waiting until the point you are starving to make food choices will almost always lead to bad decisions. You shouldn’t grocery shop or decide what you want to eat while you’re hungry. Instead, plan ahead, so you don’t have to rely on your willpower alone to keep you on track. Pack easy to carry healthy snacks, and keep them in either your purse or your vehicle. This way you always have healthy choices right at your fingertips.
Road Trips.
Just because you are on vacation, doesn’t mean you should take a hiatus from your health goals. Encourage a healthy lifestyle on road trips by packing healthy foods to eat in the car. You can pack a cooler to keep handy so you have easy access to snacks while on the road. If you are planning on stopping at rest areas along the way, pack a nutritious picnic lunch to eat before you head back out on the next leg of your trip. This is a tip that I’ve honestly been putting in practice since I was a child. My family would often drive from South Carolina to New York and my parents would pack sandwiches and snacks for us so that we’d have food to eat along the way. I didn’t really understand it then, but I see how smart that was now. One, you have control over what you’re eating and not pushed to pull over to the first fast food spot you see along the way. Two, you save sooo much money. Now as an adult, I also load up on healthy snacks before I hit the road to make sure I have what I need in case I get hungry.
Airports
Navigating airports can be tricky because you can’t pack liquids in your carry-on bag, but there are still plenty of options for what you can bring. You can pack wrapped whole food snack bars or even pieces of fruit in your personal items bag. With a little creative planning, you can keep your nutrition on track, and save yourself a bundle of money you would have otherwise spent on pricey (and often unhealthy) airport food and snacks.

Find Foods That Are Easy to Pack

When you know you’re going to be on the go, pack foods that you can grab easily and eat on the go. These can be meals or simple snacks. The following items are all easy to prepare, and convenient to take on the go. Feel free to experiment, and find out which snacks work best with your lifestyle. Mix and match options to see what works for you.

Sliced or whole apples with nut butter or sun butter
Clementine or mandarin oranges
Grapes
Nuts and raisins
Pumpkin seeds (pepitas) and/or sunflower seeds
Whole Food Snack Bars
Sandwiches or wraps
String cheese or cheese cubes
Cut-up rotisserie chicken (keep cool with an ice pack)
Hard boiled eggs

My favorite on the go snack bag is a basic trail mix of raisins and cashews. It’s just the right amount of sweet and salty for me.

Use Technology to Your Advantage

Almost everyone has a smartphone or tablet with them at any given time. You can use this readily available technology to your advantage. Keep your food choices healthy when you are on the go by utilizing apps that make healthy living simple.

Use apps like “Yummly” to find recipes for when you’re planning your meals for the week. Yummly will actually help you build a grocery list so you know what to buy on your next trip to the store.

“Fast Choice” will help you find healthy food options at over 600 restaurants. The app shows you the least and most healthy items on the menu.

“Healthy Out” is another option to help keep your nutrition on track when eating out. You can search by tags like meals under 500 calories, paleo, heart healthy, and more. Download the app for iOS or Android to find restaurant meals that fit your needs.

These are just three apps that you can use to help you make healthier food choices throughout the day but there are so many more! Take the time to do your research to find one that best fits your needs.

Make Meal Preparation Simple

Just because you have had a busy day doesn’t mean you have to resort to fast food or processed foods for dinner. With a little forethought, you can make sure that you have a healthy meal ready to go when you walk in the door.

With the advent of Pinterest, you now have thousands of healthy crockpot meal ideas available for free. Do a quick search and see what recipes may interest you and your family. You can also purchase a Crockpot Recipes Cookbook like I did, to keep a few recipes close by that you can throw together really quickly.

If you prep everything the night before, or even earlier in the morning, you can come home to a delicious home-cooked meal that is ready to serve. I recently invested in a Crockpot Pressure Cooker and it has been a GAME CHANGER! Meals that used to take forever to cook, I can now make in a few minutes while also still having the option to slow cook meals when I want to.

Another option is to batch cook and plan for leftovers. When you do have time to cook, simply double the recipe and set the extras aside to use later in the week on a particularly busy day. It takes very little extra effort to double the recipe, and you will reap the benefits of time savings later in the week.

**You can also prepare and freeze meals to thaw out at a later date. Just make sure to write down when you prepared the meal to keep track of when it’s no longer any good. **

Make Healthy Eating Strategies Work for You

Even with a busy schedule, you can still make sure that you are eating healthy, nutritious meals. By putting in a little bit planning, you can ensure that you and your family enjoy healthy foods that support your lifestyle and your goals. Download my free meal planner using the link below to get a template you can use for planning your meals each week!

As always, I’m available for 1:1 coaching if you need a little extra accountability and support! Book your FREE initial consultation here so that we can talk about your goals and how to set you up for success.

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