Look Strong on the Road
Tips for keeping your nutrition on track while traveling
Pack your bags, it’s vacation season!
We want to preface this by saying.. ENJOY YOUR VACATION! EAT A DANG CROISSANT! But, as someone who enjoys living the LSN lifestyle, we know you need more than just a mimosa at breakfast and a burger and fries for dinner. Or maybe you travel a lot for work and are sick of getting derailed from your diet when your coworkers can run on one Cinnabon all day.
Being semi-prepared can help fill in the gaps where you are feeling a little hangry or catabolic and save you some money. It can also save you some sanity if you are traveling to a place that doesn’t serve up American-sized protein portions… If we only relied on prosciutto and cheese on our last vacation in Italy, I think we would have spent more time in the bagno than climbing mountains!
Can you travel with food and supplements? Is the TSA going to be suspicious of your white powdery substances? Will you be able to find enough protein in that ham and cheese croissant? What if I don’t have a fridge at my hotel? We will give you all of our tips so that you can keep your gains while enjoying your travel.
Keep your nutrition on track:
The most important thing for you to supplement with, and typically the hardest macro to find while traveling, is PROTEIN. Your preparation should be centered around that, as it will likely be very easy to find carb and fat sources readily available.
Always having some protein on hand will make it easy to supplement a meal that might have been lacking, or using a snack or shake at the end of the day to get your total value up.
How to bring food with you:
We have found some really good ways to bring food and protein sources with you on your trip so that you can keep your diet on track. We don’t expect you to lug a YETI cooler onto the plane or carry a fridge on your back, but realistically you can bring enough cooked meat and perishable items for a few days so that you have something on hand while you get settled. This will give you some extra time and will also save you money at the airport, and also hold you over for long flights or layovers.
Protein
Powder
Let’s start with the obvious choice, it is super easy to bring enough protein to last you the whole trip! Just two scoops of protein a day can give you a boost of 40-50 grams. Then you don’t have to feel so bad if your hotel breakfast is just cereal, OJ, and Eggos.
What’s more expensive than a protein shake or bar at a gas station? A protein shake in the airport! Worse yet, a protein shake in an airport in Switzerland! We portion out our protein powder into tiny snack bags and then put them into a big Ziploc bag (you don’t want an accidental protein-explosion in your bag!)
Yes, using plastic baggies may seem wasteful, but you can reuse them multiple times for the same purpose. Once they're empty, you'll come home with a lighter load for the same purpose over and over again.
You can also opt for reusable plastic supplement containers, but for long hauls, we usually need our luggage to be smaller—and we need a lot more protein!
Don’t forget your shaker cup!
Ration out your serving (one or two scoops) into a ziploc bag (the snack size works perfectly), then pack all of them together into a larger freezer ziploc bag. This will prevent blowouts in your bag and keep all your clothes from smelling like chocolate mocha chip.
Meat
Obviously, meat is perishable so that you will need a small insulated lunch bag and some ice packs!
Strips and patties are great options! Our preferred method is to grill a London broil, skirt steak, or chicken and then cut it into strips, or to make burger patties with ground beef. You might need to eat these cold, but there are worse things in life, like being hangry while sitting on a delayed plane with only one 60-calorie airplane pretzel pack."
You can freeze the rations that you won’t need immediately which will serve as an extra ice pack in your bag. In a day or two, they will be thawed and ready to eat.
Boiled Eggs: We have been those people before, opening up a bag of hard-boiled eggs on a plane. It’s better than heating your tilapia in your community kitchen in the office!
Carbs:
Apples: They are hard to smoosh and aren’t messy!
Dried fruit: for the same reason!
Raw carrots/peppers: These are good to munch on if you are on a cut
Skip the rice and potatoes- they aren’t as fun or easy to eat cold
Fats:
Nuts are easy to pack in a Ziploc
Cheese - Gary’s favorite. Pair it with your steak strip, and you’ll feel like you're in Paris enjoying a fancy charcuterie board.
Pro tip: buy the blocks that are pre-sliced so you can grab and eat.
Getting through TSA:
The awkward moment when you've already gotten a pat-down for your booty scrunch shorts or for that extra bulge, which is a muscle, and then they have to bomb-check your protein powder. We've all been there, in meathead jail. But there are ways to avoid these things!
Protein powder:
When we pack our protein powder it does end up looking like bricks of suspicious substances.. Maybe opt for chocolate instead of vanilla when you travel!
Clear plastic baggies and labels are your friends! The TSA can usually tell if you're the type to carry around protein. We’ve found that it tends to do better in a checked bag than a carry-on, but sometimes that’s not an option. Sometimes artificial sweeteners have the same chemical profile as explosive devices, so you might raise some eyebrows. But worst case, they check the powder for explosives quickly and you are on your way!
If you are packing a lot of protein powder, packing in your checked bag is the move. You can always keep a protein shake in a shaker cup ready to go (just needing water) ready to go in your carry-on.
Cooler/Ice Pack
You can’t bring liquids onto a plane, but you can bring frozen liquids! #TSALogic. This means you should have NO problem on the way there if you pack your meathead charcuterie into a small lunch box with a frozen ice pack. Make life much easier for yourself by taking your lunch box from your carry-on when going through the X-ray machine, just in case someone really wants to take a peek at your picnic. From experience, they are going to want to look at the ice pack every time to confirm it’s frozen. This makes it so they don’t have to tear your bag apart in the process.
Make sure on the way home, you either check your melted icepack, refreeze it, or donate it to your hotel. A nice squishy empty lunch box will pack down nicely for the way home.
Groceries
Our first stop is usually the grocery store! We enjoy staying at Airbnb or hotels with fridges because it allows us to save money by preparing breakfast and snacks, such as packed sandwiches for hikes. This also ensures that we have some familiar meals before dining out or treating ourselves to gelato.
If a fridge isn't available, we have some alternative tips.
You can also buy a bigger cooler when you get to your destination, this is really handy if you will be on the go and will be hauling your food around.
Groceries for AirBNB w/ kitchen
This is the move! Sometimes, air BNBs can break the bank, but you have to consider that you can save some money by eating at home. Here are some ideas of what to buy at the store.
Protein:
You don’t want to spend your vacation making boring meal prep chicken. It’s okay to go for convenience! Unless you are doing a fun beach vacation and want to do a BBQ, premade is just fine!
Shredded chicken
Frozen beef patties
Eggs
Greek Yogurt
Lunch meat
Carbs:
Oatmeal
Fresh fruit
Microwaveable rice packs
Bread/wraps for sandwiches
Fats:
Cheese (tasty on eggs!)
Butter (makes better scrambled eggs)
Peanut butter/nut butters
Nuts or Trail Mix
Groceries for hotel w/ fridge
You may not be able to cook any scrambled eggs in the morning, but at least you can keep premade meat and leftovers cool! You will have to get more creative with combo meals like a breakfast consisting of yogurt, protein powder, and granola mixed together.
Groceries for hotel w/o fridge
Aw shucks! At least you have the nuts and protein powder you packed! It’s not the end of the world, just make sure you are a little more conscious when you go out to pick a meal with a little more protein.
As stated above, you could also buy a cooler when you get there. The hotel will most likely have an ice machine that you can keep refilling the cooler with. It’s not optimal, but it’s better than nothing.
Overseas:
Not all cultures eat meals that are so protein-forward. This is why we bring the protein powder! But it is always fun to go to the grocery store and see what options you can find!
It’s always fun to check out what “nutritional items” other countries have! When we went to Europe for example, we found some “high protein milk” that did not need to be refrigerated until after it was opened so we could fill in gaps throughout the day. It stayed semi-cool in the mountain weather on our balcony.
CIAO CIAO!
When training to Look Strong Naked, having a plan for traveling and food is always key. We hope these tips make your vacation even more enjoyable. Please remember to make the most of your travels! When you get home, the gym and weigh out your food will still be here, and you will wish you had eaten that croissant!