How To Stick to Your Meal Plan on Vacation

What’s the most important thing in comedy?  I don’t- TIMING.  What’s the most important part of show prep for a bodybuilding competition?  FOOD.

And in case there was any question about the importance of food thing, there was this cryptic text from my trainer (in all caps):

EAT RIGHT.  TIME IS LIMITED.

So it was a bit of a comedy of errors for us to take a family vacation to Disneyland when I am only five (5) weeks away from my next competition.  But I am up for the challenge!

THE PLAN

Planning was essential in a situation like this.  The criteria:

• Must be healthy mix of protein, carbs and fats and vegetables
• Must be portable
• Must be able to stay fresh during a 22 hour drive and 1 week visit

Here’s what I packed:

Protein:

• Turkey and veggie meatballs

  

• Hard boiled eggs
• Egg whites
• Protein powder

Carbs (with some protein too)

• Quest Bars
• Greek yogurt (80 calorie serving)
• Plain rice cakes
• Baggies of brown rice

  

• Baggies of sweet potatoes

Fats

• Peanut butter
• Whole roasted almonds

  

Vegetables/Fruits

• Green beans (steamed)
• Raw spinach
• Cucumbers
• (Also red and green peppers and onions were cooked into turkey meatballs)
• Apples
• Carrots

Misc:

• Reduced-sugar ketchup
• Salt
• I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray
• Packets of Stevia
• Packets of sugar-free vanilla creamer
• Shaker bottle (for protein shakes)
• Insulated bag for my immediate foods

  

• Giant bag (matching patter, ’cause I’m like that) for kid snacks and my dry foods

  

Vacation cheat meals

• Once a day I’ll eat a small portion of restaurant food with my family.  I just need to make good choices and no dessert.

You know, every time someone cheats on her meal plan, a fairy dies.  Let’s keep the fairies alive.

THE REALITY

The following pre-packed foods did not survive:

• Spinach.  It wilted and got STINKY!
• Ditto for the baggies of brown rice and sweet potatoes
• The cooked green beans lasted for as long as the ice did, but once that melted the greens turned yellowish-nasty

Everything else survived.  Yay!  It helped that there is a refrigerator at the hotel.

It’s five days into the vacation, and so far so good.  While my kids ate cotton candy, I had turkey meatballs.  While my kids (and husband) ate ice cream, I had Greek yogurt.  The Quest Bars, almonds and apples helped a lot.

Only one fairy bit the pixie dust during this trip so far.  (My husband bought a giant hot fudge sundae with three flavors of ice cream, whip cream, and two chocolate chip cookies…I ate the cookies.  Sorry, fairies.

Lisa 😉

Lisa Traugott is a Mom’s Choice Award winning writer, fitness blogger, wife and mom of two.  Her book, “She’s Losing It!”  is available at Amazon.com.

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