Ugh, first vacation after drastically changing the way you eat…
We are a week out from our first vacation since changing our way of eating from conventional wisdom, to general low carb, to closer to paleoish.
A lot of things are still new to us, including how do we handle a week away from home with limited control? Our first reaction might be to say well, it’s vacation, we should relax and enjoy it, and be more strict with our eating later. But one of the first things that you realize after going paleo is that a lot of the “good stuff” makes you feel like crap and you don’t even know it because it has been “normal” your whole life. But once you realize it, a vacation is the last time that you want to make yourself feel like garbage again.
When we go on vacation we usually stay at a 2-3 bedroom condo with a full kitchen, so it’s not like we can’t make our own meals. It’s just that when you’re on vacation, who wants to, right? We usually stock the fridge lots of pre-packaged quick-fix stuff so that we can make stuff without actually having to “make stuff”. It’s like one notch above fast food. Maybe.
As strange as it sounds we really seem to enjoy doing things that way – we get stuff that we don’t typically buy at home, like poptarts or sausage biscuits for breakfast and lasagna or chicken fillet sandwiches for dinner, so it’s a little quick junk food splurge for us.
So how do we handle things this vacation? Well, I can tell you what we’re not going to do. We’re NOT going to be going out for any fast food. We’re NOT going to be purchasing and pre-packaged convenience foods. And we simply can NOT afford to eat out at decent restaurants for every meal. So that leaves us with stocking our fridge with fresh groceries and cooking every meal on vacation just like we would at home, right? Well, maybe not.
I’ve decided to prepare a bunch of stuff before vacation and take it with us. It will be like of like the way we used to do things, only now it will be paleoish. For example, I made some healthy cupcakes with coconut flour that are very freezable/transportable and very much on plan. Even though I wouldn’t allow cupcakes for breakfast on a normal day, it seems like a great way to “enjoy” vacation and stay on plan, too. For lunch today I made a delicious chicken/spinach alfredo (yes, that is bacon!), and I thought while I was at it I might as well make double and freeze a batch in a disposable pan for a quick convenience meal on vacation. All of this may mean that we have the inconvenience of taking a cooler full of food on a 2 hour drive to our destination, but we’ll have the convenience of quick fix and on plan meals throughout the week. I win.
