3 Ways To Beat Mindless Munching When You're On The Go
Follow these expert tips to keep travel stress from derailing your diet. (Getty Images)
Traveling during the holiday season ranks at the top of the stress scale — delayed flights, long road trips, and endless airport layovers not only pummel your nerves, they make you want to go to town on a big bag of chips, or a juicy fast-food burger, or some ice cream. Or, all three — at once.
Fortunately, these easy strategies will stop you from mindlessly munching:
1. Head Off Hunger
“Skipping meals sets you up for intense cravings,” says Susan Kraus, RD, a nutritionist at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. Unless you’re the rare woman who is completely in tune with her hunger, you need to establish an eating schedule. “This is where preplanning comes in,” says Katie Rickel, PhD, a clinical psychologist and weight-loss expert who works at a weight-management facility in Durham, North Carolina. “You’re not left in the moment to judge how much to eat.” Plus, skipping meals can lead to dangerous thoughts like, “I didn’t have breakfast, so I can have this giant piece of cake.” It’s better to eat a consistent number of calories by the clock than to eat with abandon whenever the mood strikes.
Related: How to Stay Healthy While Traveling
2. Identify Triggers
Keep a detailed food log, recording your moods, what stresses you out, and how hungry you feel before eating. Once you’ve identified the things that drive you to raid your candy stash, you can react productively instead of eating sweets. For example, if you’re a nervous flyer, make sure you pack healthy snacks to have on board so that you aren’t temped to fly the flight attendant down for a pack of cookies with you hit a few air bumps.
3. Drink Something
Many sensations can masquerade as hunger—boredom, anxiety, thirst. Yes, the hypothalamus, your brain’s control center for mood- and food-related signals, detects thirst as well as hunger. So gulp a tall glass of water or even sip a hot tea (make it decaf — caffeine can trigger the release of stress hormones) and see if the craving passes.
Reprinted from 20 Pounds Younger by Michele Promaulayko with Laura Tedesco. Copyright (c) 2015 by Rodale Inc. by permission of Rodale Books. Available wherever books are sold.
