Where have I been?? A little Family Vacation time before school starts. Yippee!!
My husband and I loaded up the car to head out for a long road trip. We usually stop to get gas and snacks before hitting the road meaning… chips, sunflower seeds, candy, and always a soda for my husband. Not anymore!! Boy have things changed! It takes a few extra minutes of my time to pre pack snacks. We take baby carrots, apples, clementines, almonds, sugar snap peas, and water bottles. I throw them into to little snack size baggies and put it all in a cooler we keep in the car. I can easily pass them out while en route, It works out great. Sometimes I get complaints from my oldest, who was use to getting her chips and candy for the road, but for the most part we have satisfied kiddos!
We arrived at our first destination knowing that we would only be there for a couple of days before continuing on to our final stop. I knew there would be very little options for whole foods, so we picked up a few of our own things and just made it work. We had a great time, but I was getting nervous about the lb’s I would be packing on. Knowing that my goal is to drop quite a few more and how finicky my body is, even on vacay, I have to watch what I eat. We had an extended family photo shoot and headed on our way to our final vacation destination.
We checked in for the night…. but not after eating at the Olive Garden (one of my old favs)! Yikes, we had been on the road forever and were starving, which clouded my judgment for sure. I ordered the eggplant parmesan with alfredo sauce….. what was I thinking, right? I ate a lot of salad and enjoyed half of my dinner before feeling stuffed. I would say about 6 hours later you would’ve found me (if you were up) lying on the bathroom floor for a couple of hour, so sick and miserable. I knew my body would hate me for it, but man I learned my lesson! No more clouded judgments, I hope!
First thing the next morning we headed out the the local grocery store. I purposely planned my vacation near a COSTCO! My favorite place to buy fresh and frozen produce!! We stocked up for the week and were set to go. I pulled out my VITA-MIX and made my favorite replenish smoothie (see recipes) loaded with spinach! YUM, I was feeling better already.
Off to the pool with the kids. We spent the rest of the week enjoying, fresh mangos, peaches, avocados, salads with tomatoes and cucumbers, rice and black beans, anytime dip (see recipes), a lot of smoothies, and my kids favorite refried bean tacos.
We usually end up eating out at least once per day on vacation, it saved us time and money but most importantly pounds and health! This was a new adventure for us and I say it was big success!!
You can EAT HEALTHY ON VACATION, it just takes a little more planning, but WELL WORTH IT!! I loved coming home from vacation still feeling good. OK, so we weren’t perfect, I am pretty sure I had a couple of ice cream sandwiches and shared an Oreo shake with my kids… but it feels good to start merging these two lifestyles and know how simple it is.
*I weighed myself the morning after I got home and I was up a couple of pounds but have since lost them! I am pretty sure it was due to salt and water retention and sitting driving….. all that jive!
Source: WFM Blog – 2