Tuesday, December 27, 2011

DIET: Surviving Eating While Traveling

When you choose to eat specific foods and avoid others, it's not always possible to follow your own guidelines when away from home. Traveling for a week or more can be a real challenge, especially if you're relying on someone else's cooking  resort, restaurant, family or friends. I have found that if I take some snacks along then I know I can easily miss a meal or two without feeling drained. This way I have some time to locate foods that make me feel good and that my body approves of. 
We recently returned from a trip to the tropics where our main activity was scuba diving. This trip was another Paleo lifestyle challenge/hurdle since we stayed at   an isolate dive resort with the food being part of our package. We have been to     this resort many times, so we do knew pretty much what to expect. 

Breakfast was scrambled eggs, made-to-order omelets, bacon or sausage, an 
assortment of breads (such as pancakes, waffles, French toast, bagels, English 
muffins) cereals, oatmeal, and fruit.

Lunch is consisted of a salad bar, soups, rice and beans with tortillas, some 
sort of protein in a pasta dish, a meat, steamed vegetables, and cookies.

Dinner always has a larger variety including some sort of fish, chicken, pork or 
beef, pasta, rice or potatoes, steamed vegetables, a salad bar, soup, and a 
variety of home made desserts.

There were assorted beverages such as tea, lemonade, water, sodas, juices,     and coffee. 

Since I love meats, salads, veggies and fruits I was hoping I would be able to 
stick pretty close to eating foods that are at least somewhat close to Paleo 
Mermaid friendly!
I was able to make wise choices. Most of my breakfasts consisted of eggs and bacon or sausage, mushrooms, cheese, and other vegetables if I chose an omelet. Lunch and dinner were very similar as I always began filling my plate withsalad greens, cucumbers and tomatoes. I chose a small plate for whatever meat was served, cut it into pieces and topped my salad with it. That worked very well, even when   the meal was spaghetti. If I recall correctly, only one meal fish only was served. That night I just made a larger salad.
Eating the foods I did certainly helped me to feel good all week long. I got a lot of sleep, drank lots of water and felt like I always had tons of energy and lots of stamina. A lot of divers eat a lot of carbs while on dive trips because they say they stay warmer. Personally, I think eating lots of carbs makes me feel sleepy and sluggish even during dive trips!
The diving was awesome. I made 24 great dives during the week including two night diveswhere we studied fluorescent critters. For more information about our dive tripand on the topic of fluorescents, please read our report on our website, ScubaDiverInfo.com.  
Happy hunting, gathering, eating and swimming!

No comments:

Post a Comment