Whether you’re a frequent flyer or only an occasional jet setter, staying goal-aligned with your nutrition during air travel can feel overwhelming with so many other aspects of your trip demanding your attention. Staying on top of your energy needs is a must though, so we’ve compiled a list of snacks you can grab at most major airports and ones you can source before your travel day and bring through TSA to help keep you fueled until you touch down at your final destination.

Camping is one of my favorite ways to vacation/travel, even though it involves more meal planning than other vacations. That extra required planning also means it can be friendlier to your nutrition goals, especially if you take the time to pre-track some meals to ensure you’re hitting your protein and other targets.

For many, one of the biggest barriers when first starting to track your macros is hitting your protein target. It’s easy to think that eating protein is only important for bodybuilders and elite athletes, but it plays a crucial role in all of our bodies, regardless of our age or athletic ability. Hitting your protein target may be hard at first, but it’s not impossible -- and it definitely doesn’t require just eating meat all day, every day. In fact, since making the personal choice to stop eating meat last year, I know that it’s totally possible to eat an adequate amount of protein and even follow a higher-protein diet with little to no animal-based sources. In this week’s post, I’m sharing just how to do that along with a list of plant-based protein sources and some awesome, easy (and macro-friendly!) plant-based recipes. With the surge of popularity of plant-based diets has also come the increase in plant-based marketing. Walking around the grocery store, you’ll find “plant based” whole wheat pasta, donuts, and chips - all foods that are generally free of animal products anyway, and foods that don’t become automatically healthy just because of a plant-based label.

Ideally you are starting with a diet that is already well-rounded and focused on whole foods, then reducing/eliminating meat consumption and replacing animal based proteins with plant-based alternatives. The unfortunate side effect of a plant-based diet being a fad right now is that many people skip this part and move right to just cutting out meat and dairy.

With the surge of popularity of plant-based diets has also come the increase in plant-based marketing. Walking around the grocery store, you’ll find “plant based” whole wheat pasta, donuts, and chips - all foods that are generally free of animal products anyway, and foods that don’t become automatically healthy just because of a plant-based label.

In the throes of the holiday season, it’s easy to push your nutrition goals to the side and tell yourself you’ll gear up to tackle those big goals in the New Year. But in the spirit of flexible nutrition, we find that this is the perfect time to work on building important skills around eating and making food choices as well as improving your relationship with food.

We are in the midst of what is typically the busiest, most travel-prone, food-centric time of the year. So for my frequent flier clients AND the majority of the population at this time, most of our normal “controls” aren’t quite able to happen. Food choices look different, we may not have access to a gym, and we may be enjoying more meals out or savoring more of the foods that only come around this time of year. These higher variable times don’t have to add stress to our lives! One of my favorite parts of coaching is helping clients see that there is no “on or off track,” no matter where they are or how many variables are at work in their lives. 

As we say goodbye to warmer months and head into seasons of shorter days and colder temperatures, it is common for those shifts to translate into some seasonal gloom. We feel the impacts of less perceived time in the day and less sunlight, and we may initially feel a bit less motivated in the way of our normal health habits. During these colder months when we may find ourselves with a less zeal for prioritizing our nutrition, getting those workouts in or staying mindful of our sleep and stress management, we can meet our bodies and brains where they are at and create winter action plans that still support us feeling our best and in flexible ways.