Friday, July 31, 2009

Eating Healthy On The Road

In 2 days I will be flying to North Carolina to see my son before he gets deployed to Iraq and I will be driving his vehicle back for safe keeping while he's overseas. According to Google maps, it takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 23 hours driving time. So 2 long days or 3 short days. I'll just drive until I want to stop.

Exercise will be no problem. I can do some body weight stuff in the morning before I hit the road. I can stop at a rest area and knock off a few pushups or run a few sprints. That will be the easy part.

The hard part will be eating healthy on the road. The temptation to hit a fast food drive through will be great rather than seek out healthier alternatives which will take more time. Stopping at a convenience store (They don't call them convenience stores for nothing.) and grabbing some M&M's and a package of Little Debbie chocolate donuts will be easy. Finding something that's actually good for me will be a little more difficult.

If you read enough on health you will run across someone talking about the 80-20 rule. that is, eat healthy 80% of the time and you should be okay to indulge the other 20% of the time. However, when traveling, it will be much easier to do 20-80 or 10-90 or 5-95. Many would justify it as it's vacation. "Let yourself go. Enjoy it." I don't know yet.

The fact is I will be on the road for 2-3 days. I will probably skip a few meals. As for the ones I eat, I'm not yet sure what I'll do. I'll weigh the time vs. other factors when I'm faced with it and make my decision at that point. Most likely I will eat a few meals that aren't exactly good for me. And I will most likely enjoy them greatly. As for the others, well that chapter hasn't been written yet.