Staying on Track during Road Trips

I love celery for a mindless road snack. If you forget to bring some with you you can get a prewashed pack at any grocery store.

I go on 1-2 road trips each year (I do not count day trips within 200 miles as road trips), always fast-paced. So I'm going 4K-6K miles in 7-10 days usually. Here's what I do:

1. Even convenience stores and truck stops usually have fresh fruit available. Buy that when traveling if there is a choice. Also, if you are going through cities, it is not usually difficult to find grocery stores or discount stores (Wal-Mart / Target) that sell fresh fruit by the lb. in produce sections (or deli sometimes if it is pre-cut).
2. If stopping at a fast food establishment, get the low calorie option. Of course, if there is a Subway available, I often get a teriyaki chicken or oven roasted chicken chopped salad (roughly 250 calories with the options taken). If at Arby's, a turkey salad is a low calorie option.
3. Stay hydrated. I know it seems counter intuitive because you may have to stop to urinate more, but seriously.
4. Not sure what you are doing on your road trip, but I enjoy hiking and plan to do a lot of it on my trips. So I burn a lot of calories anyway and don't have as much problem with eating.
5. Use a cooler. For that short of a trip, you could probably get by packing everything in a cooler in advance with some ice. Replenish the ice as needed. I'll even go so far as to dice melons and pack a plastic container of them.
6. Identify what is filling for you and eat more of that. Whether it is protein bars, oatmeal (available at a lot of truck stops and convenience stores), or just plenty of water.

Ultimately, if you have 25-30 hours of driving, this sounds like a 3-5 day trip. Make ahead some stuff that does not need to be cooked/heated and put it in the cooler. Or, if you are going to do this more often, buy yourself a camping stove and take along stuff that can be cooked on that. I have the MSR Dragonfly, but I use it primarily for backcountry camping vs. picnicking at rest stops.

**Speaking of rest stops, download apps for your phone for rest stop locations / amenities and truck stop locations.

I just did a trip last week. We brought a cylinder of oat meal and some dried fruits, and brown sugar to add to it, and used our hotel room microwave to cook it for breakfasts. I packed sandwiches, and fruits and veggies in my cooler for the drive (8 hours). I made little sandwich bags of snacks that I measured out and popped them in there too. We did go to the grocery store a few times instead of restaurants. That is a good idea if it's possible.

When I ate at restaurants, I just tried to make a good choice, and I always ordered water instead of soda to hopefully offset some of the extra calories. I ate a lot of good food, however my trip included a lot of walking, so I burned a lot too. At first, I thought I had gained about 3lbs, but two days later I weighed myself again and it was only about 1 lb. Probably water weight from the extra salt.

rebprest wrote: »

Maybe I can sneak some extra walking in. I'll be staying with a friend, so I don't want to impose too much by hauling in a cooler worth of food. How long does ice in coolers usually last in moderate weather conditions?

Depends on the cooler. A typical cooler probably 1-2 days. I have one that goes 3 days easily. Yeti coolers can keep for even longer.

Long drives (well, actually, some shorter ones as well) used to be a time to break out the large bag of chips and other snacks. I don't know if it was boredom eating or what.

But more recently we've set off with no snacks at all. Instead, we'll plan to stop at a Subway at a certain time, and I just hold out till then.