How to Stick to a Diet While Traveling

Contributor

By Zach Chouteau
eHow Contributing Writer

Article Rating: (3 Ratings)

Making the right eating choices can be even tougher on the road.

Maintaining your diet while on the road can be a challenge, with junk food, fast food, and other not-so-healthy eatables seeming to lurk at every stop along the way. Here are some tips for sticking to even the strictest of diets during your travels.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

The clearer the rules, the easier it will be to maintain them, so review the resolutions of your diet before taking to the road.
Step 2

Take along a small notepad to keep track of your daily food intake. This helps affirm your dedication to the diet, and it also feels like an accomplishment to scrawl down "garden salad" as opposed to "hot fudge sundae."
Step 3

Start any long travel day with a good, nourishing breakfast. This will prevent hunger pangs from striking when you're in transit without healthy choices to consider-such as stuck on the freeway with only Burger Kings within sight.
Step 4

Keep a slimmer picture of yourself handy, or of a celebrity with the "dream body" you'd like to have, as a reminder of what you're aiming for by dieting. And some people also are strengthened by a written mantra you can repeat to yourself when tempted to go off your diet, like the Lord's Prayer.
Step 5

Make sure to have water with you, and sugar-free gum can be great too. A lot of overeating is simply "nervous eating," done to keep the hands and mind occupied. Surprisingly, just having some water to drink or gum to chew can prevent you from putting other things into your mouth instead-such as a candy bar!
Step 6

Try to form a diet "support group" you can reach out to by phone, if you don't have one already. It can truly be reassuring to have a friend to reach out to when temptation strikes, preferably someone in a similar situation who can relate to the issue.
Step 7

If you're going to be consuming any alcohol during your travels, try to go solely with wine, which is far less fattening than just about any beer or mixed drink.
Step 8

Refuse the key to the mini-bar should your hotel have them in the rooms. These treasure troves of late-night temptation can be a dieter's nightmare, and eating right before bed is unhealthy anyway. So just say "no" when the front desk clerk tries to include a mini-bar key.

Comments

maryellen1001 said

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on 1/27/2009 Awesome tips! Thanks. RRR&C

chava812 said

on 1/12/2009 It helps to know what snacks are allowed on your diet, what you can salvage out of fast food restaurants' cookings, and how to eat out in general on your diet. Lots of water is great for traveling as well as dieting, so buy it in the bottles and drink, drink, drink! You'll be glad you did. Good article!