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Three Tips for Healthy Travel This Summer

6/1/2016

Brian and I at a dinner hosted by a Danish family last month in Copenhagen.

The end of May kicks off the summer travel season. Time to explore new lands! Time to relax at the beach! Time to get sick...wait what? Often travel means we throw out the good habits keeping us healthy, deplete our immune systems, and rush from one bucket list item to the next. Then we come home ill having not relaxed.

In the past week, two clients have asked me for help around travel. One asked how to eat healthy while she is traveling. The other one has just returned from a trip and feels completely derailed from all the healthy living tools she's learned over the past couple of months working with me. Over the years, I've learned many lessons around travel, staying healthy, and enjoying an easy reentry.

With these tips, I hope you find a way to have a fun and exciting vacation while taking care of yourself. This way you can enjoy the trip, and you can enjoy your return home!

Maintain Routine. At home, I drink warm lemon water every morning, walk 10,000 steps most days, and do a minimum of five minutes of yoga or Qigong every day. On vacation, I drink warm lemon water every morning, walk 10,000 steps and more every day, and do some Qigong, yoga, or combination thereof daily. Travel can mess with your immune system, upset your digestive system, and disrupt your sleep cycle. When you maintain what you do at home to stay healthy, you are more likely to feel great and enjoy your vacation. As an important aside, travel often slows down our digestion. Warm lemon water every morning will help you stay regular.
Schedule Down Time. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. Feeling encumbered by few vacation days and the desire to see everything, I would sightsee until I would drop. I wasn't resting before the vacation, and I wasn't resting on the vacation. My immune system would throw in the towel, and I would come home with an upper respiratory infection or severe fatigue. The rushing on vacation meant I wasn't actually experiencing or enjoying what I was seeing. Then, re-entry would be incredibly painful because my body would knock me upside the head and force me to lie down. I now know to schedule only one or two big items per day, with plenty of time for leisurely lunches, slow strolls, and meaningful meanderings. If I am traveling for more than a week, I enforce downtime with a laundry day, which leads us to Tip #3.
Pack Light. You may be wondering why packing light is a healthy tip. Packing a suitcase to the hilt and then lugging it from destination to destination is a recipe for stress. Stress interferes with enjoying your trip. Also, in some places, especially southern Europe, wheeling a large suitcase makes you a target of petty thieves, including pickpockets. If you are traveling by train with a big bag, sometimes you have to leave it on luggage racks at the end of each train car. This means it is often out of your sight and a target for theft. When you travel light, you are able to travel faster, safer, and access more places. When you travel heavy, you have to constantly factor in how you are going to move your suitcase from point A to point B. When traveling light, I only pack for one week, and do one day of laundry per week of travel. That laundry day is enforced down time, usually needed at that point in the trip when I've been out and about sightseeing for multiple days. There are easy ways to travel light. Pack only three colors (mine tend to be navy, black and white), pack only clothes in these colors that can be washed together, and pack a scarf that ties all three colors together. From my friend Emily: lay out everything you want to bring and eliminate half. Think back to what you always drag with you but never need. I have never needed heels while traveling during the summer. By the way, the one exception I make for traveling light is when I take a cruise. Then I do bring a big bag because I enjoy participating in the formal nights and various activities. Plus, often the cruise line takes care of moving my bag from airport to ship and ship to airport.

Now it's your turn. What is your best tip for staying healthy during summer travel? I'd love to hear from you in the Comments section below.

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6 Top Tips for Healthy Travel!

4/7/2015

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At the end of this week, I have one of those crazy trips where you are on a plane for six hours each way just to spend a mere 48 hours in a place. It's the kind of trip that can make my immune system go haywire and turn a fun trip into a miserable weekend of being sick on the road. There are a couple of things I do in the days leading up to the trip to strengthen my immune system so that I ensure I am well throughout my travels, and I think you'll find them helpful, too!

Get plenty of sleep. Nothing depletes your immunity like a lack of sleep, so in the nights leading up to travel, I keep a strict bedtime that allows for 7-8 hours of sleep each night. I try to avoid things that can interfere with my sleep cycle. That means I turn off my cell phone and computer by 8:00 p.m., and I avoid consuming anything with caffeine (hello chocolate!) after about 2:00 p.m. During the flight and at my destination, I'll sleep with a sleep mask. It fits comfortably over my eyes and yet blocks out all the light in an airplane or a hotel room (so many little lights from the TV to the alarm clock to the fire alarm). Years ago, I did a workshop with a famous expert on intuition. She talked about the importance of sleep and how she would cover up all the little lights in her hotel room. I can't even imagine how long it took her to track down all the light sources. Um, so yeah, using a sleep mask is much easier.

Exercise regularly.  Even if it is just 15 minutes on my yoga mat or a 20 minute walk, I try to exercise every day leading up to a trip. And then, in the airport, I'll find an empty gate area to do a little yoga or Qigong.  Here is my favorite Qigong move if I only have a couple of minutes, and you don't even need to be traveling to do it. Try it if you are feeling sluggish at your desk.

Eat to feel good. To operate optimally on a trip, eating well the week of the trip is paramount.   Avoid sugar, alcohol, and, for me, soy (all trigger immune responses in my body). Eat green vegetables at least two out of three daily meals. Instead of having a green smoothie every other day, I'll try to drink one per day. I travel with these handy flax seed packets and powdered green juices. I sprinkle the flax on oatmeal or yogurt at breakfast to ensure I am getting enough fiber in my diet. Let's be honest, staying regular on the road is important (eating an apple also can help in this department).   When possible, we reserve a hotel room with a mini-fridge so we can stock it with our favorite foods, including yogurt, hummus and berries. I'll bring my vitamins, which these days include a women's multi-vitamin, fish oil, and glutamine.

Stay hydrated.  One big reason to avoid alcohol the week of a trip is it is so dehydrating, a state only compounded by a pressurized airplane cabin. I bring two empty 1L water bottles to the airport so I can stay hydrated on the flight, especially since some airlines are pretty stingy with the water (United, for example). At my destination, I drink warm lemon water first thing in the morning. Just hit the breakfast buffet, grab a cup of hot water from the coffee station and squeeze the juice from a couple of lemon quarters in it. Drink this first and then have breakfast. It's detoxifying and aids your digestive system.

Do your research.  To stay healthy at my destination, I do a little research ahead of time. As gluten and I are no longer friends, I'll look up restaurants that are good for gluten free eaters and actively avoid cross contamination. I'll find juice bars near my hotel so I can boost my immune system and hydrate with green juice. If I have a layover, I'll use the GateGuru app to find out what food and retail options are available at the airport.

Enjoy the trip...and then once I've eaten and exercised to optimize my immune system, packed to preserve my health, and researched where my next five meals (or so) are coming from, I'll sit back, relax and enjoy the trip!

Now it's your turn. What is your best tip for staying healthy on the road?

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Chicken Found in Purse at Yoga Retreat

2/6/2015

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Originally posted on September 24, 2014

The weekend before last I went to easily one of the best yoga retreats or workshops I’ve attended. Facilitated by Melanie Elkin of Yoga’licious, the focus of the retreat was yoga as a conduit for understanding how our bodies feel when we stay small (“I can’t”, “I’m afraid”) and when we allow ourselves to expand and to shine. It also was about self-care. As in drop the excuses and the busy-ness and take care of yourself. Let’s face it, as women we tend to prioritize self-care right below a dental exam. And when we do allow ourselves that massage we desperately need or go to a yoga retreat because we need to feel connection in order to shine, boy oh boy, do we justify it.

We justify the expense of it and the time we are doing it. You don’t hear men doing this. I don’t remember my husband crunching numbers and scraping money together from various accounts for his much-needed time sailing, time spent for him doing something that feeds his soul. Why ladies do we do this to ourselves?

At previous yoga retreats, I can remember feeling pressure to conform, wear the correct clothes, do the poses perfectly, and eat the right way. This retreat was the antithesis of that, and I hope it becomes a trend in American yoga. Anything went as long as you were giving yourself what you needed. It was cool to be on your mat in the fetal position during one of the physical yoga classes as long as that was what your body was requesting. Everything was deemed perfect, including deciding not to do a pose.

There was a chef provided for the weekend, and he was great. The food was delicious, and it also happened to be vegan/vegetarian. This would have been fine, if that was what my body needed. However, it was a yoga retreat with physical demands held in a beautiful location where the daytime high temperatures happened to be 106 degrees.

What my body needed was chicken. Just under 24 hours into the retreat I knew that I was feeling weak, untethered, and anxious. The only cure was chicken. I voiced this need to my roommate, MC. It turns out another roommate, KC, also needed meat. There was a hitch in our giddy-up: both my car and KC’s car were blocked. Bless MC as she volunteered to be our getaway driver. Now, this did feel a little bit criminal, sneaking out of the yoga retreat and all its wonderful vegetarian food for meat, but we were doing it in the name of self-care. Seriously.

We found a great little market in the town where the retreat center was located, smoking their meats out front, with a deli counter in the back. KC and I were about to have our self-care needs met. However, we didn’t want to flaunt our treasures in front of the other participants, and so that is how I came to walk back into the yoga retreat with half a smoked chicken in my purse.

Oh that chicken! It was so flavorful with crisp skin, good smoke flavor, the right amount of seasoning, and terrific juiciness. I savored bite after bite. After eating about one-third of it, I stashed in the fridge. As I walked away from my chicken, the amount of energy and joy that overcame my body and my mind confirmed the success of following through on an expressed need.

In the name of self-care, I snuck out of a yoga retreat and ate chicken. And the best part is I could do that very act because of exactly what I was learning at the retreat: to listen to my body, to treat self-care as important, and to put my needs first without excuses or justifications.

Do you make excuses or justifications when meeting your needs? When was the last time you did something truly nice for yourself without feeling guilty about it?

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That Time I Drank 5 Gallons of Green Smoothie

2/6/2015

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Originally Posted on September 5, 2014

You might as well know up front that I am not a big believer in detoxes or cleanses. I will certainly get into the why of it in another post. I do believe in eating a clean, whole foods based diet that does not require you to cleanse or to detox. The body naturally detoxes if you leave 12 hours between dinner and breakfast and get 7-8 hours of sleep.

You can imagine then that upon having my annual bloodwork done I was rather surprised to learn that my LDL was a tad on the high side (happily my HDL was on the way high side – winning!). This is another good moment to tell you that having dabbled with vegetarianism, I am an omnivore through and through. I do buy sustainable, hormone-free,
pasture-raised, belly-rubbed animal protein.

Yes, I am getting to the point. So my MD who is also a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (which is why I go to her) said we can fix my high cholesterol with some dietary changes. And I thought yes! Then she recommended a green smoothie breakfast and I thought NO. I love warm foods in the morning. Eggs and I are morning best friends, but, of course, they are likely the culprit in this LDL issue. Consuming lots of fruits of vegetables without anything else tends to leave me untethered and increase my anxiety levels, which I keep in check with diet. And it felt like a cleanse. I was skeptical.

I tried it anyway because I wanted to know how my body would respond, and I gave myself an out. If my anxiety levels rose, if I had fatigue, if I dreamed about eating a bucket of fried chicken by 10:00 a.m., then I would revisit this delightful experiment, create something better, and move on.

Here’s what happened: I had more energy, my skin looked the best it had in over 30 years (see: before adolescence), and I slept through the night. After being prescribed to do this for 10 days, I’ve decided I will continue doing it until my body tells me something else would be optimal in the morning.

Here is the recipe that worked for me. I have a Vitamix blender, which to be honest helps, as I am sure this would have burned out the motor on my old blender.

Molly's Green Breakfast Smoothie

Makes 40+ ounces, serves 1

This breakfast smoothie is meant to keep you satiated for hours and give you lots of energy. Don't let the amount of smoothie scare you; rather, consider it likely has the same amount of calories normally consumed at breakfast in a much more nutritious form. If possible, use local/organic vegetables.

Wash all fruits and veggies. Load the blender with the following ingredients in the order that they appear.

12 ounces coconut water

1 huge handful of spinach (about 2 cups)

1 inch piece of peeled ginger

1/2 apple, coarsely chopped (or low glycemic fruit like 1 cup of berries)

1/2 mango or 1 medium banana (or other high glycemic fruit)

2 stalks of celery, coarsely chopped

1 medium cucumber, coarsely chopped

Blend until smooth. May take a few minutes depending on the strength of your blender. Drink and enjoy!

And yes, if you just looked at your blender and thought that’s a lot of smoothie, yes, yes it is. Remember, you want something nutritionally awesome that is going to keep you satisfied for hours, fuel you through a workout, and not leaving you craving something you don’t even like in the first place.

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Travel Tips for Eating Gluten Free

1/30/2015

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Scallop with artichoke sauce at Kokken in Bilbao. They prepared a whole tasting menu gluten free for me.

Me overlooking the Plaza Mayor in charming Segovia, Spain.

Originally posted on October 27, 2014

“Soy alergica al gluten.”

This is a phrase I repeated over and over again during a recent trip to Spain. It was my first trip to Europe since going gluten-free in April 2013. I was worried about cross-contamination. Even more so, I was worried about my lack of Spanish language skills and my inability to ask the necessary questions required to make me feel safe eating in any dining establishment. A call to a friend in Barcelona for guidance was helpful. Apparently gluten intolerance and celiac have been in the Spanish news because of the rising number of cases in children. In the end, a couple of different strategies kept me safe and can help you, too!

When you have a food allergy or food intolerance, it is no time to be spontaneous. Nothing ruins a trip faster than an allergic reaction. Planning ahead is key. Figure out where you are going. Look up restaurant reviews on travel sites like TripAdvisor. Read and ask questions on traveler forums like the ones found on Rick Steves’ Europe. Someone else with your same challenge has already been to where you are about to go. Learn from them.

Once you have researched restaurants, you will probably have a good feel for the dominate local dishes. Look up recipes online and in books. Where is gluten present? With what dishes will you have to be extra vigilant? It turns out that much of Spanish cuisine does not use flour, not even as a thickener for sauces. Also, when reading dishes, pay attention to preparation methods. While flour is not used as a thickener, bread is in dishes like Romesco sauce and Gazpacho’s thicker Andalusian cousin, Salmorejo.

Travel with an idea of what restaurants you want to visit. If your food challenges are severe, email the restaurant ahead of time to see if they can accommodate you. No sense wasting your precious and limited vacation time going to restaurants where you cannot actually eat. And at the restaurant, every table usually will receive a basket of bread. So before the party gets started, ask where the bread is sliced. Oftentimes in Spain this is done in the bar area rather than in the kitchen.

Then once you have done all this legwork, be open to synchronicity. The traditional breakfast in Spain is a pastry or small sandwich with jamon and a café con leche. I stuck with a Spanish tortilla which is often found at breakfast in cafes and bars. Made of just four ingredients – eggs, potatoes, olive oil, and salt – I knew it was a safe way to start my day. In San Sebastian, we used TripAdvisor reviews to find a bar that people raved about for breakfast, especially the many varieties of tortillas served. Located in the basement of the city’s wonderful public market, La Bretxa, Bar Azkena it turns out has another claim to fame: it specializes in gluten free pintxos. Pintxos are small snacks and you can make a meal out of three or four of them. So not only did we make Bar Azkena our breakfast place the three days we were in San Sebastian, we also dropped by for lunch. In fact, the bar takes its gluten free pedigree so seriously it has gluten free bread available for patrons with gluten intolerance or celiac disease.

To recap, to have a safe trip overseas, plan ahead:

Read restaurant reviews online.
Join travel forums and ask about how to eat safely at your destination(s).
Research local cuisines and traditional preparation methods.
Learn enough of the local language that you can clearly communicate your health concerns and understand responses.
Email restaurants beforehand and inquire about their ability to meet your needs.

Happy travels!

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Three Tips for Healthy Travel This Summer

6 Top Tips for Healthy Travel!

Chicken Found in Purse at Yoga Retreat

That Time I Drank 5 Gallons of Green Smoothie

Travel Tips for Eating Gluten Free

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Three Tips for Healthy Travel This Summer

6 Top Tips for Healthy Travel!

Chicken Found in Purse at Yoga Retreat

That Time I Drank 5 Gallons of Green Smoothie

Travel Tips for Eating Gluten Free

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