BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Low Carb Do You Eat Healthy on Vacation?

If you go on vacation, do you continue to eat healthy items? Or do you figure "heck I'm on vacation" and go for the most UNhealthy items you can possibly find on the menu? Or do you end up somewhere in the middle?

I tend to go for luxury items that happen to be healthy too. I love asparagus. Filet mignon would be a choice. So I won't eat tons of fries - for example - because "I'm on vacation". But I might eat foods I normally would consider too expensive, as a treat ...

It's challenging to eat healthy and travel. We recently took a one week trip and I ate way too much! It seems like when you are paying for a meal, you hate to not eat it all-lol.

I do try to stick to having salads or salmon and order off the low carb menu or whatever the low calorie version of that is. We don't eat fast food on vacations either.

If we drive wherever we go, I always make our breakfast smoothie ahead and take it along. We tend to travel over 3-4 day weekends, etc, rather than longer 2 week trips.

We usually drive when we go places and I try to pack lots of healthy snacks for the trip. It's really hard to find healthy food kids will eat on vacation as most is fried, etc. Kid's menus are mostly burgers, fries or fried chicken nuggets. I definitely don't want my kids to have that.

Yes isn't it scary how awful a "kid's meal" is usually at a restaurant?? Soda, fries and breaded things with hardly any meat in them. It's like restaurants want to encourage kids to become fat. Although to be fair, if restaurants have it on their menu it's because it's what kids want to order. The restaurant would go out of business if it was offering things nobody wanted to eat. So maybe they *could* put a really healthy thing on the menu, but nobody would ever order it. Which is also sad ...

Kids need to eat more vegetables!!

I find the low carb lifestyle so attractive because it's easy to eat in restaurants and on vacation. I'm not a big steak person but it's always there if I can't find anything else. My first choice is always baked fish or seafood and hopefully I can get suitable vegetables. If not I can always rely on the salad. There are occasions when a restaurant doesn't have ideal choices. That's when I get creative and go off the menu. I look for things that are on plan and create my own meal. One time I had chicken broth, a shrimp cocktail and a beautiful salad filled with ingredients I requested. The key is to tell the wait staff you have dietary restrictions instead of saying it's low carb. That way they're more than happy to accommodate you.

I truly learned that Atkins was perfect for me when we went to Vegas and were faced with all the yummy buffets. I ate well, stayed on plan and didn't feel deprived. At that point I was still on induction!

I survive the temptations both at home and on vacation with "bites." If it's something totally off my plan but looking too good to pass up, I take one bite. The first bite always tastes the best anyways. After that you're just shoving in unwanted calories and carbs.

I have to confess that I don't eat that healthy when I go on vacation. I probably should, but I usually cave into temptation.

That brings up a very good point though - temptation CAN be low carb!! Filet mignon is a great luxury for me, and on vacation it's both the ultimate indulgence as well as perfectly low carb! So is asparagus in cream sauce. Wine is low carb So there are all sorts of great, elegant meals you can savor that are low carb and healthy for you

Really the only place you might "run into trouble" is dessert and usually if I eat well I don't have any room for dessert