You may be wondering how a crockpot can make travel healthier. This time, I’m not talking about while you are actually traveling, but once you get home. For me, day trips are the worst offenders. You get up at 4am, fly out at 6am, work all day, then get home at 9 or 10 or 11pm. At that point, it’s really easy to stop by the nearest fast food joint on the way home from the airport. Or throw a frozen pizza in the oven. There are several very tasty places on my drive from the airport to my house, including Popeyes, Sonic, and Whataburger. Delicious, fast, and very unhealthy.
Enter the slow cooker, or crockpot. Seriously, this is one of the greatest inventions ever. I will prep ingredients the night before, then dump it all in the crockpot and turn it on before I leave the house. Slow cookers with timers work best for this; if yours doesn’t have a timer, I recommend an upgrade. It will cook all day, then be ready when I get home that night. Or, if my husband is working at home that day, he will turn it on. It’s so easy, and SO much better for you. Sometimes when I will be gone for a few days, and my husband will have long working days, I will prep one or two meals in advance for him to make while I’m gone. It keeps him from eating out, which means he is eating better and spending less.
My favorite recipe site is A Year of Slow Cooking–this woman is incredible, and everything we have tried is very tasty. The best ones are Mediterranean chicken, blue cheese and steak roll ups, and General Tso’s chicken.
Readers, what are your favorite tips for eating healthy during travel times?
Depending on weather I am flying or driving I either visit a grocery store at the beginning of the trip or pack breakfast bars, peanut butter crackers, bananas/apples and Fruit Roll Ups (best low calories sweet for after dinner and it packs flat!). And I use an iPhone app to track my calories.
In nice weather I try to walk to restaurants or appointments whenever possible or walk in between around a downtown area or a mall.
Of course, this all sounds great in theory and some trips it works really well. But I do a lot of lunch and dinner meetings and at dinner, especially, people like to eat dessert. It’s difficult to not get dessert when you want your dinner mates to enjoy themselves, so you go with the flow and hopefully plan ahead. And then there are the stressful trips that include little break time and you make bad choices.
But, I go in with a solid plan every time!