How to Travel, Low-Carb

Readers, you'll forgive me if I've allowed posts to lapse. This past month has been a whirlwind of travel for family and business. Some things had to make way, and counting points (and updating this blog) was one of them.

Still, I have been able to adhere to a low-carb style of eating, and I continue to lose weight and inches. Here's how I've done it.

Airplanes and airports

My home airport is Logan (in Boston) and I have flown JetBlue, Delta, and Southwest in the last month, into Orlando, Minneapolis and St. Louis. I often eat in the terminal right before the flight, and sometimes after.

Fresh City--farmer's market breakfast burrito minus the burrito--essentially a big plate of scrambled eggs with veggies and bacon.

Fresh City--low-carb smoothie

Wolfgang Puck--Turkey Club Sandwich, out of which I ate the filling. And a few fries.

Surdyk's--Cheese and Salumi plate with nuts, dried fruit and olives. You can also order nuts and olives separately as apps.

Starbucks--nut packs (sold at register), latte with skim milk, bistro plate (they have a very delicious Thai-style lettuce wrap chopped cabbage, peanut sauce, chicken and cucumber spears. Also a little square of dark chocolate!) high protein plate (though those usually have some kind of carby addition, like a scone or some crackers)

On the flight--all of these flights now just offer a basket of chips, cookies, pretzels or nuts. That's a pretty clear choice. I also travel with nut packs and sometimes cheese sticks if it's not too long a flight.

Driving

The best strategy driving, of course, is to pack food to take with you. Veggie sticks or spears (carrots, cucumbers, jicama, cukes), pickles, pork rinds, nuts, seltzer, cheese sticks or squares--these are all easy to pack and eat while you're driving.

Highway Rest Areas--when we stopped at these, I stuck either with skim lattes, or hunted around in the variety stores. Some of these have items like hard boiled eggs, beef jerky, veggies with dip and a variety of high-protein bars. I never really did eat at any of the franchises.

Restaurants

I've found it very easy to eat low-carb at restaurants. Here are some of the meals I've eaten along the way.

Deep-fried hot dog

Steak and eggs

Veggie and cheese omelet

Pate and cornichon sandwich

T-bone steak with sides of asparagus with hollandaise, broiled tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms

Coq au vin

Seared tuna sashimi with seaweed salad and pickled ginger

Charcuterie plate

Bison flank steak

NY strip steak

Seared tuna over greens

Salad with goat cheese, beets and walnuts

Baked flounder over greens, steamed veggies on side (cafeteria food)

Cobb salad

Cookouts

Some of my visiting was with family and the food was lots of cookout-style eating. You know, pasta salads, jello salads and so on. And although there weren't really ever any green salads, there were always lots of fixins for hamburgers--and so this was my basic plate, with variations:

Iceburg lettuce (meant for the burgers), torn up

tomatoes (meant for burgers)

cheeseburger/bbq/sausage/whatever else was on the grill

pickles/olives

coleslaw

I guess you could call that Cookout Chef Salad!

I'll try to be more diligent about posting, especially when I'm in high-stress or unusual situations. Anybody can follow an eating routine when they're at home, in a comfortable and controlled situation--it's when things get weird that our eating gets thrown off.

Do you have your own low-carb/low-sugar travel tips? Leave them in the comments.