How to Eat Healthy While Traveling for Work

Eating healthy while traveling for work can sound more difficult than it really is.

It can seem like you don’t have control since you aren’t at home, following your normal routine.

When you’re at home, you have access to the grocery store you normally like to shop at. You know exactly which foods are there. You have put in the effort to develop a routine, and stick with it.

Traveling for work disrupts that routine to some extent, but you don’t have to let it completely disrupt your routine. Instead, you can allow it to add a little “spice” to your normal every day routine.

I think you’re going to enjoy seeing it as maintaining control, but with some nice treats sprinkled in. So, I’m going to show you how to eat healthy while traveling for work. I’ll also show you how to be intentional about any alcohol you may drink during work travel.

How to Eat Healthy While Traveling for Work

Work travel is typically broken down first into the travel part, meaning getting to and returning from, your destination, and the time when you are at your destination. Then, while you are at your destination, you have the time you are working and the time that is your own time.

I want to talk to you about how you can still eat healthy during each of these.

How to Eat Healthy While Traveling TO Your Destination

Traveling to your destination will either mean you’re driving, taking a train or bus, or flying. (Perhaps it can also be via a ship, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that’s probably not the case.)

If you’re taking any of these forms of transportation, you can pack your snacks, plus breakfast, lunch or dinner ahead of time. You can even bring your own snacks and a sandwich on a plane (as long as they aren’t liquid, and as long as you’re taking a domestic flight).

Healthy Snacks

For snacks, I recommend making it something that isn’t messy and you can easily eat while driving or traveling via train, bus, or plane.

Nuts, protein bars, fruit, and what I like to call “finger veggies” (veggies you can easily eat with your fingers, like grape tomatoes, baby carrots, and fresh green beans) are hassle-free and leave you feeling good.

• Related: Should You Break Your Habit of Snacking at Night?
• Related: 15 Healthy Snacking Habits to Start Right Now

Healthy Breakfast

For breakfast, you can make a breakfast sandwich, with whole grain bread, egg and cheese, wrapped in something to help keep it warm. You could also bring some fruit and a nut butter to dip the fruit in.

You can also bring a granola or protein bar, but be aware as many granola bars have as much sugar in them as a candy bar.

I like No Cow protein bars, even though I’m no longer vegan. They have about 20 grams of protein, are very low in sugar, and don’t have all the yucky chemicals in them that a lot of protein bars do.

• Related: 35 Fast and Simple Clean Eating Ideas for Breakfast
• Related: Best Morning Foods to Boost Your Workday Energy

Healthy Lunch

For lunch, you could stick with your traditional peanut butter and jelly, or dress it up a bit and do a different nut butter, like almond or cashew butter. I like to then put toppings of a crunchy nut like sliced almonds or sesame seeds, plus dried fruit like cranberries or cherries, on the nut butter. So yummy!

You can also get away with lots of healthy snacks in lieu of an actual sandwich or salad. In a way, this can be easier than trying to eat an actual lunch food.

• Related: 5 Quick and Healthy Work Lunches for the Week
• Related: 9 Healthy Meals on the Go

Healthy Dinner

For a dinner sandwich, pack a lunch box with ice pack and make a sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, turkey, pesto, whatever you like. If you’re flying, you probably don’t want to bring a lunch box, so you could just pack that sandwich with veggies and hummus, in lieu of the meat.

If you are in a pinch a need to stop somewhere for dinner during a long drive, you can usually find someplace like a Chipotle that has a fair amount of healthy options.

Try to avoid waiting until you are so hungry that you’ll eat anything, because at that point, your desire to eat will override your intentions of eating healthy. That’s when those fast food restaurants will be way too tempting to stop at.

• Related: 6 Ways to Make Salad More Exciting
• GET WEEKLY TIPS: Eating Habit and Weight Loss Tips

How to Eat Healthy When You Reach Your Destination

So once you reach your destination, you’ll go to your hotel most likely, then head out to meet your colleagues or a client.

You’ll probably want to make some time that day or evening to find a local grocery store where you can buy some healthy snacks for your hotel room. You can even do this on your way to the hotel, so it saves some time.

Get some snacks that are packable, so you can take them with you each day while you work. You can buy some sandwich or snack baggies if needed too.

Don’t worry about leftover snacks at the end of the trip that you may not have eaten. You’re going to take these with you when you leave, so you can have healthy snacks during your travels back home.

For breakfast, if you have a small kitchenette or fridge in your hotel room, take advantage of it and buy some breakfast foods. (If you like treating yourself to going out to breakfast, pick a day to do this and ask the hotel staff for some healthy recommendations.)

This helps keep you on your normal breakfast routine and allows you to stay in control of at least one meal for the day. My husband, Paul, and I make our own breakfast at our hotel or Airbnb and it helps us to feel like we are starting our day out right. This is especially helpful when we know that we will be dining out later on.

For lunch and dinner, if you get to choose the location, then definitely take advantage of that and choose someplace with healthy options that you like. If someone else is choosing, look at the menu ahead of time and decide what you will get in advance.

Deciding Ahead of Time

Deciding ahead of time means that you are using your pre-frontal cortex, which is the portion of the brain that has your best interests in mind.

When you make decisions “in the moment,” your brain wants to choose the delicious, unhealthy option. It favors high calorie food, which is typically high sugar and high fat.

High calorie foods provide short-term pleasure. There’s nothing wrong with pleasure (wink wink), but the “short-term” part is the downside. Our brains just want more.

That’s when habits start to form.

You of course want to be able to enjoy that unhealthy meal every once in awhile, you just don’t necessarily want to make a habit of it. That’s when the short-term pleasure turns into a long-term “pain,” when it causes undesirable effects on your health.

How to Be Intentional with Alcohol While Traveling

While traveling for work, you may end up having a drink with your colleagues or client. If so, I want to tell you some ways you can make it somewhat healthier, so you don’t have any regrets the next day.

You’re going to use that prefrontal cortex again to decide ahead of time how many drinks you will have. It may be none, one, or two (hopefully not more than two or you probably aren’t going to have a great morning).

You are then going to choose a non-alcoholic drink to have. You’ll choose this ahead of time as well.

So for example, either the day before, or the morning of the evening you’ll be going out for a drink, you can decide something like this…

“I’ll have one glass of red wine, followed by a seltzer with extra lime. If I want, I can have another glass of red wine, and if I do, I’ll follow that with a seltzer with extra lime as well, then just water as needed.”

When you have a set plan that is specific, you are more likely to stick with your general intention of trying to make healthy choices while still enjoying yourself.

When you stick with your intended plan, you’ll notice positive feelings toward yourself, like maybe some pride or a sense of accomplishment.

• Related: Best 5 Tips for a Healthier Happy Hour
• GET WEEKLY TIPS: Eating Habit and Weight Loss Tips

How to Eat Healthy While Traveling Back Home

So when you’re packing your bags and getting ready to travel back home, you’re going to take those leftover healthy snacks with you for your carryon, or to put in the passenger seat of your car.

You’ll also want to think about which meal you will need for your travels back home. Since it is not as simple to pack a breakfast, lunch, or dinner to bring with you, I recommend finding a place to get something healthy-ish beforehand. That way, you aren’t stuck with convenience stores or limited airport options.

Again, you can typically bring a sandwich with you onto a plane, or at the very least some snacks.

Final Notes

To eat healthy while traveling for work, you just need to get a little creative, plan ahead, and stick with as much routine as you can.

You’ll feel like you haven’t disrupted all that you’ve been working on when it comes to healthy habits. You’ll also likely feel accomplished, being that it is a bit more challenging to make healthy choices while traveling.

Once you start practicing some of these tips every time you travel for work, you’ll get really good at it and it’ll start to become habit. You may even start making healthier choices while traveling for pleasure, while still allowing for some fun dining experiences.