Staying Healthy While Traveling

Jet-setters, this one’s for you! We connected with Jaclyn Rymer, National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach and West Orange community member, for her tips and tricks on healthy travel!

When you step out of your normal day to day routine, and find yourself subject to airport food and full travel days, there is good news, you have options to stay healthy and relaxed! Let’s talk more about how to prioritize your health while traveling.

Pack healthy snacks/meals for the airplane:

When traveling, an excellent way to maximize your dollars, your time, and most of all your health is to BYOF (bring your own food)! When you bring your own food, you know exactly where the ingredients came from and you don’t have to sacrifice quality.

No matter where you go, it’s always a great idea to have snacks on hand. You can call this your, “emergency pack.” Without proper fuel, your blood sugar crashes, and when this happens, you become more irritable and more likely to compromise your decisions to satisfy your hunger, making decisions you otherwise wouldn’t.

Here’s a short list of healthy snacks to bring on your next adventure:

Fresh fruit + nut butter. Bring an apple, a banana, and some nut butter in a jar or grab a single serve packet of peanut butter, for example. This mix of complex carbs and protein will keep you full longer!

Same goes for fresh veggies: chop up some carrots and cucumbers + bring individual packs of hummus. Again, this complex carb and protein combo will provide maximum fullness and energy!

Raw almonds, walnuts, pecans or cashews and seeds like pumpkin and sunflower are great options. You can mix in some dried fruit and create your own trail mix too!

Healthy whole food protein bar – the key here is to look for simple, whole food ingredients and to watch out for added and artificial sugars.

Energy bites. It is easy to make your own power packed protein bites and they are so satisfying!

If you like something crunchy and salty, pack some home popped popcorn, using unrefined coconut oil, organic corn kernels and mineral rich salt!

In addition to snacks, did you know that you can bring full meals through TSA?! When you have a longer flight and need something extra substantial to feel your best, you can actually bring a meal with you through security to eat at your gate while you wait or even on your flight! Some nourishing, easy to bring healthy meals include a Mediterranean wrap with hummus, veggies and chicken breast or a salad filled with your favorite toppings. And truly, the options are many!

Packing your own food during your travels is such an affordable, health conscious way to prepare yourself for happier, healthier, and smoother traveling.

For TSA rules and regulations concerning food and drink, click here.

Stay active on your adventure while also relaxing:

Often it is so rejuvenating to disconnect from the busy ins and outs of life and to reconnect with your loved ones while away, foregoing to-dos all together. This is so essential to our health and to our souls to slow down and take in the beautiful great big world out there!

So how do you take a step back and give your body and mind rest, and also be kind to your body and stay active? Remember, being active doesn’t strictly look like workouts in the gym, but rather any form of movement that you enjoy. The simplest way to maximize your travel with physical activity is when given the option to ride or walk, take the option to walk and explore and take in the city on foot! You’ll see so much more and walk so much more than you even intended to as you soak up the scenery.

For those of you that do really enjoy hitting some weights and keeping your routine, you could choose accommodations that have a gym available to you. Or bring some exercise bands and do some resistance training in your room before the days start!

Keep calm during stressful travel days

Though we plan and prepare for travel days as best as we can, something is bound to go a little off course while traveling, so how do you manage any stress that you find yourself against? A crucial part of being prepared is to give yourself plenty of time at the airport so you aren’t rushing around in fear of missing your flight. And in any stressful moment like your bag being overweight unexpectedly, or you being in the wrong terminal or any number of hiccups, remember to focus on your breathing. It’s the easiest thing you can do to control your stress anywhere and keep going. You can use the 4-7-8 technique: breathe in for four seconds, hold for 7 seconds, breathe out for eight seconds, and do this on repeat.

For a guided breathing video, click here!

And finally, full circle, be sure to have plenty of food on hand. Plan and pack ahead of time. There’s nothing worse than being stuck in long lines or caught with short layovers and not having food!

When you really think about it, staying healthy while you travel really can be simple, it just takes some forethought and preparing ahead. How will your next travel adventure look different?!

About the Author

Jaclyn Rymer

Jaclyn Rymer is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, NBC-HWC. She has two Bachelor of Science Degrees: Hospitality Management and Restaurant and Foodservice Management; she has a background in the culinary industry where she cooked professionally, a passion now turned recreational; and she was an elite athlete and coach for many years. She is a resident of Winter Garden and shares her passion for whole food nutrition, gardening and healthy living with her family and her clients.

She believes that a healthy lifestyle is about balance and is committed to helping her clients achieve simple and sustainable wellness. Jaclyn works with clients to create small changes that have a big impact on health, weight and energy!