Healthy Eating While Traveling
Published: (May, 2014)
Do You Find it Difficult to Eat Healthy When Traveling?
My China Experience
For the past six years my son, Nick, has been living in China. Two weeks ago we flew out to the city of Nanchang to attend his wedding to a beautiful Chinese girl. My husband was determined to get into his favorite suit for the wedding. He embarked on a 10-day water fast and followed a strict 100% raw food diet for 30 days. As a result, he lost 30 lbs. and his beautiful German-made suit - bought when he was 25 - fit him perfectly. An incentive with an expiration date (a wedding in this case) is not ideal, but I was still very happy that he cleansed his body.
During the week we were there, our in-laws took us and the newlyweds to the best restaurants in the city believing that our diets (which we had warned them about) could be put aside for such a special occasion. A Chinese-style dinner table looks like a regular round table, but with all the dishes sitting on a rotating base in the middle.
Upon seeing all of the exquisite dishes I was amazed that I had no desire for culinary creations. I was enjoying socializing with everyone, observing what they were eating and wondering how people can eat that much. And all this time my mind never registered the cooked dishes as palatable.
The same didn't apply to my husband. He was very tempted by everything that he saw, and he had the perfect excuse: we can't offend our in-laws. He sampled every dish, leaving only the Braised Pig Ears and Roasted Duck Tongues untouched for my sake. I expected that after fasting and then eating so much his weight would balloon, but he managed to keep the weight off. He put his "success" down to one thing: chopsticks. He told me that although it looked like he had eaten a lot, the chopsticks prevented him from eating nearly as much as he would have done with a fork. Read more about the benefits of chopsticks in my new Blog article: The Weight Loss Magic Wands.
It's excellent if we can learn from other cultures and teach them what we know in the process. After our visit to China, my husband and I are now using chopsticks and my in-laws are juicing and eating more raw foods!
We have just returned from a long trip to China. I had anticipated in advance that 14 hours (the flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai) would be a very long time to be stuck in one place. The big airplanes that make these long journeys are divided into several sections. In the past I discovered that the best seats are in the very end of each section. So when booking tickets I made sure we got the last seats in the middle section of the plane. This way I was able to stand up and do stretching exercises several times during the trip, without attracting too much attention from other passengers. It worked very well and stopped me from stagnating and stiffening by staying in the same place for an extended period of time.
Our flight was delayed on the way back and we ended up spending 48 hours in airports and airplanes. Eating healthfully while traveling is challenging, but it can be done.
Here are my tips on how to stay committed to your diet while traveling.