Changing the way that you eat can be difficult; this is even more difficult when on vacation or away from home.
Maintaining a Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) diet is possible even in high-carb vacation destinations like "The Most Magical Place On Earth" through strategic planning and mindful eating. The author successfully navigated a week-long trip by packing LCHF-friendly foods such as egg muffins and nuts for travel, and by utilizing hotel kitchenettes to prepare meals. When dining out, the strategy involved modifying restaurant orders, for example, choosing chicken fajitas without tortillas or a burger with mushrooms, swiss cheese, caramelized onions, and bacon. This demonstrates that conscious choices enable adherence to LCHF principles while traveling, even allowing for occasional splurges like a thin-crust pizza after two years.
For spring break I spent the last week at the high carb/high sugar capital of the world:
There was sugar everywhere, as well as many prepared fast food-like meals and snacks. All were fairly high in speed, cost and convenience, but not necessarily the best choices for someone who is trying to eat low carb. Challenge accepted!
At the Airport: Airport travel itself can be difficult. We planned ahead for early morning travel by packing egg muffins made with eggs, bacon, swiss cheese and heavy cream as well as nuts, and cheese wrapped with meat.
For drinks, at the airport we did get milk for the kids, but we also had reusable bottles with water that we used the whole trip, and I stuck with my favorite drink: Americano with 1 inch of heavy cream. Sparkling water on the airplane was also very refreshing.
At the Hotel: As luck would have it, our hotel room was equipped with a refrigerator and stove, so we could buy groceries and prepare our meals.
Every morning we had a pot of terrible coffee with heavy cream (followed by an Americano with 1 inch of cream at a shop) and we would cook bacon in the microwave, scramble eggs (in bacon grease!), and shared some fresh Florida oranges. We also had some full fat plain yogurt that we mixed thawed frozen berries into. This was a delicious and great way to start the day.
Pack it in: We had some great lunches! We bought low carb tortillas and had roast beef, cheese and spinach wrapped in the tortillas with sides of nuts, cheese and pepperoni. The days we bought lunch I had chicken fajitas with no tortillas, covered with cheese, sour cream and guacamole and didn’t eat the black beans you see. I also found place that I could get a chicken salad and put guacamole on it. I drank iced tea the days we bought lunch, and water we carried in the days we packed lunch.
Dinners were always fairly easy and good as well.
The night we cooked in we put some sausages in a pan, they were served with mustard and sauerkraut, a bag of chopped kale salad and berries. This was delicious and easy. The other picture is the meal I had on the way home from the airport which was a burger with mushrooms, swiss cheese, carmelized onions and bacon.
I did celebrate my birthday while there with a bloody mary, spinach sauteed with bacon and onions, and then grouper stuffed with shrimp and covered with gouda served with two vegetables and no potato. I did splurge and share a dessert sampler with my hubby (key lime pie, mocha chocolate flourless cake with salted caramel ice cream, and cream brulee) – all were delicious and worth the splurge!
The last night there we did go out for pizza (the first time I’ve gone out for pizza in 2 years!). As you can see, we got the extra thin crust, so the pizza was 4 meats and mostly cheese with a thin wafer of crust. It was delicious, and I didn’t ever feel like I didn’t get exactly what I wanted!
We made sure we always had snacks around. We would wrap pepperoni around cheese, or just have nuts. It is “the Most Magical Place on Earth,” and the kids did have ice cream shaped like Mickey Mouse, but we as low-carb eating adults planned ahead with our snacks and meals.
Whether you attribute it to Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill or some other great thinker, with this as with everything: if you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail.
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