(If this is your first visit to my blog, you’ll find posts about practical, non-diet weight management. Throughout July I’m participating in a Blogathon with a dozen or so other great bloggers. This post is a continuation of Food Lovers’ tips based on my family’s recent travels.)
To get to our next stop, Brisbane, Australia, we flew from Kansas City to Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand, then on to Brisbane. That was 24 hours of travel and four airports. I had packed a baggie of nuts and dried cranberries but we never needed them.
We ate at a deli-style restaurant near our hotel before we went to Kansas City International. It was a good bet that we’d have more options and spend less money. We ordered salads and sandwiches but decided to skip the tempting cookies knowing there would be lots of opportunities for treats ahead.
We arrived at LAX with six hours and one more meal before our next flight. We walked from the domestic to the international terminals then around the terminal and through all the shops until we felt hungry. We would be doing a lot of sitting once we boarded our plane so there was no point to sitting at the gate.
Our flight wasn’t until 10pm and we knew that we would be served “dinner” a couple of hours after take-off. Planning ahead, we decide that a small veggie pizza was the perfect light meal a couple of hours before our overnight flight. Besides, when traveling, we try to get our vegetables in wherever we can.
Once on our Air New Zealand flight, we settled in to watch a movie. Each passenger has their own console and we thought it was funny that between the four of us, we chose four completely different movies. No wonder it’s so hard to decide what to get from the movie store at home!
“Dinner” was served at midnight which was actually 6 pm at our destination. Although I wouldn’t usually eat in the middle of the night, this midnight snack helped us begin the process of resetting our internal clocks to our new time zone. Already a little bit hungry and knowing breakfast was at least eight hours away, we ate a surprisingly decent airline meal served with a complimentary glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. Even the tortellini, the vegetarian entrée we requested for Elyse when we made our reservations, was pretty good.
The hot (ok, warm) breakfast was a welcome end to a fitful and uncomfortable night’s sleep. (Sorry; I don’t have any good tips for sleeping sitting up.) Our breakfast hinted at the differences in eating habits of other countries; it would have been unusual to find beans, mushrooms, and tomatoes for breakfast in the U.S.
We arrived in Auckland at 6am for a short layover before our flight to Brisbane which, not unexpectedly, served breakfast again. The muffin and generic fruit came at the perfect time, over three hours since our last “breakfast” but it felt like we were simply eating our way around the world.
Food Lovers’ Travel Tips: Eating while traveling presents two challenges on opposite ends of the spectrum – not enough food or too much. Be sure to check with the airlines to find out what meals (if any) are included so you can adjust what and how much you eat before you take-off. Plan ahead by keeping nonperishable healthy snacks on hand. Nuts, dried fruit, granola or protein bars, whole grain crackers, and single pack tuna all work well for long flights, unexpected layovers or unappealing airline food. Don’t bother carrying chips, candy and other snack foods; they’ll just call your name to be eaten even when you’re not hungry.
Hi Michelle. I surely understand the traveling issue. I was in Portland last week and had a lot of eating choices before me. I had taken a vacation from “white” food during the month of June — processed bread, rice, pasta, snacks, etc. In Portland, staying with my brother, there were lots of opportunities to eat those items. I was able to pass them by with the exception of the last evening when we went to a very famous seafood restaurant and they had some wonderful sour dough bread, and a chocolate dessert to die for. I allowed myself those pleasures. I’m back on my “no white” diet, because I do find I feel better. I know you’re not supposed to “outlaw” any foods, but those had become an addiction. Now, I choose when and what, and that feels much better.
Andrea
Andrea,
I really do believe that all foods can fit into a healthy diet and that “outlawing” certain foods can lead to feelings of deprivation that eventually lead back to overeating. However, it is an entirely different matter when you consciously decide to “take a vacation” from those foods because you feel better when you don’t eat them.
In Am I Hungry? I describe that as the difference between trying to stay “in control” vs. being “in charge.”
It certainly sounds like you are in charge Andrea!
Michelle