7 Tips for Eating Healthy on Vacation

February 16, 2015 | 2 Comments | Holistic Health

Okay, so you’ve survived travel day, and now you’re at your destination! Time to have fun! Definitely not time for curling up in a ball of pain on the couch of your hotel room for 24 hours. So how do you make sure to stick with food that you know works for you? Well it’s a combination of planning ahead (see previous post on this topic), being creative and staying open-minded! In part 2 of my vacation series I sum up 7 Tips for Eating Healthy on Vacation!

Tip #1: Find a Kitchen!

Book an apartment, condo or use AirBnB to make sure you have access to a kitchen. At the very least, get a hotel room with a mini fridge and a microwave. Making your own breakfasts is the best way to guarantee you start your day off with a nutrient-dense, filling breakfast. I find breakfast restaurants are the easiest to get “bombed” at because of how pervasive bread and milk are…toast, pancakes, home fries, yogurt, butter….it’s almost impossible to avoid! I try to eat an epic breakfast, that way if I don’t have a lot of options for lunch, a simple salad and meat will tide me over until dinner.

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Tip #2: Locate Grocery Stores

Do some research ahead of time and locate a grocery store near by. If you don’t do this, then hit up the first store you see. Two summers ago we went to Newfoundland (for our honeymoon!) and thank goodness we stalked up at the first grocery store we saw. We almost skipped it, thinking there would be one closer to where we were staying, but there wasn’t.

Tip #3: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

If you’re in a location that has a Whole Foods or organic grocery, or is known for organic/farm-to-table cooking, that’s awesome! If not, don’t stress. When I’m at home I purchase only pastured/grass-fed meat, organic eggs, organic Dirty Dozen veggies etc. But when I’m away, I seek out real food to the best of my capabilities. I have a few non-negotiables: gluten, dairy and legumes, but I don’t worry excessively about crappy seed oils, non-organic meat and gluten-free grains. I try not to overdo it on seed oils, because I notice it in my joints when I do, but having a few fries on the side of a bun-less burger and salad, isn’t going to kill me!

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Tip #4: Don’t be Picky and Eat a Lot When It’s Safe!

I will eat a bun-less burger once or twice a day when I’m on vacation. Why? It’s easy to find, you can top it with lots of veggies and it’s hard to accidentally sneak in gluten or dairy. You can’t be picky about eating the same things a few times over when you’re on vacation. Take advantage of the food that is safe for you and eat it all! On that note, don’t be afraid to play around with the volume of food you normally have. A typical breakfast for me at home is 2 eggs on veggies, maybe with some avocado or a few slices of bacon. On vacation I try to eat a huge breakfast hash with sweet potatoes and veggies, cooked in lots of fat, with eggs, bacon and a latte. I could go 6 or 7 hours before eating again.

Tip #5: Research Restaurants

Hop on the Google and locate restaurants that say they can accommodate gluten-free diets. Not sure where to start? Try Yelp, Tripadvisor, Chowhound, Message Boards and Facebook Groups. Restaurants that focus on farm-to-table and seasonal menus usually have no problem accommodating. Especially in Canada, where local and seasonal almost always eschews grains and legumes. Real food is made on the spot, so it shouldn’t be hard to swap out butter for olive oil. Most restaurants have their menus posted online, so check it out before booking a reso. Still not sure if it’s a safe option? Give them a call and see how they respond to your requests! If you don’t feel confident in their handling your food sensitivities, don’t go.

Tip #6: Anticipate Language Barriers

I was just in Quebec City, and while it is still in Canada, Quebec City is much more French speaking than Montreal (in my experience!). And although I have an okay level of basic french, I did not want to test drive my translation skills with all of my food sensitivities! Instead, I found an awesome website called Broker Fish which translates some common food allergies into 6 different languages. I’m sure there are others with more foods and more languages – do some digging! I printed off the French translation for gluten and dairy allergies and kept it in my wallet at all times. I also saved a copy to my phone, so I would always have it! Luckily, every restaurant we went to totally understood my gluten and dairy allergies, and was more than happy to accommodate!

Tip #7: Be Smart About Splurges

Enjoying a pure maple syrup lollipop at the Ice Hotel in Quebec City. The temperature that day was -25C with the windchill!

I know how tempting it is when you’re on vacation to dabble in less than ideal foods. Heck, I do it as well! But I strongly recommend limiting how much and how often you dabble. The last thing you want is to get sick, have a digestive nightmare or a disease flare up. Try to stick with the most ideal foods possible for you 90-95% of the time, and be purposeful about the splurges you do enjoy. For example, we were in Quebec for almost 4 days and this is where I splurged:

A small cider every afternoon at the end of a long day
A pure maple syrup lollipop at the Ice Hotel
A few fries off my families plates at lunches
A piece of gluten-free bread at a restaurant (they knew about our dairy allergy, so I trusted that it was dairy free)
A small serving of my own fries, beside my bun-less burger on our last day (because I knew if the large influx of omega-6 fats resulted in achey joints the next day, at least it was just a travel day home!)
A glass of wine or 2 with dinner
A few gluten-free crackers and 100% corn tortilla chips during Superbowl

Note: while I made these splurges purposefully, it was not without side effects. Upon my return home I embarked on an epic anti-inflammatory and gut-healing protocol, focused around eating as much broth and gelatin as possible!

Summary of how I ate on a Recent Trip to Quebec City:

I had a lot of questions about what exactly I did when I was on vacation, so here is a break down of exactly how a professional nutritionist, with a ton of food sensitivities, eats when away!

Friday

5:30am – epic breakfast of bacon, eggs and plantain biscuits

11:00am – snack on the plane of cashew/pecan butter and jerky

2:30pm – lunch at Le Chic Shack in Old Quebec. Enjoyed a bun-less burger topped with bacon, and snagged a few fries from my husband. (These guys were awesome. They state on their menu that they can accommodate gluten-free and vegetarian. They went over and above for us!)

6:00pm – dinner at Lapin Saute in Old Quebec. While I desperately wanted to enjoy some rabbit (since that was the name of the restaurant!) all of the rabbit and rabbit liver recipes used milk or gluten. Again, the staff was incredibly helpful and made sure we were more than accommodated – they even brought us out gluten-free bread! I ended up getting a green salad to start, followed by an incredible pork belly and seared scallops dish.

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Saturday

9:00am – home cooked breakfast in our apartment. I par-boiled sweet potatoes and prepped veggies for all 3 days to save time the rest of the weekend. Created a breakfast hash with cooked sweet potatoes, onion, mushroom and broccoli. Topped with 2 fried eggs and served with bacon. Also enjoyed home brewed coffee with coconut milk that I brought.

1:00pm – maple syrup on a stick! At the Ice Hotel they had a maple sugar shack where they pour thick maple syrup on fresh snow to cool, and you roll it up on a popsicle stick. It’s incredible!

2:00pm – baked salmon, white rice and veggies. Decided to take care of my belly after all the sugar!

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8:00pm – my mom’s 60th Birthday Dinner at Legends in Old Quebec. This was an incredible restaurant, and again, they were beyond accommodating for us! We ordered a charcuterie platter to share, which was replete with organic sausages, locally cured meats and pate. We could eat everything but the butter-laden pate (darn!). I followed this up with a beautifully cooked beef dish, sliced and served on top of lightly sauteed spinach, white pea puree and topped with bone marrow. The original dish called for an aged cheddar mashed potato, but the server suggested mashed rutabaga instead. I told him any alternative was fine! The chef determined that rutabaga did not compliment the meal properly, so created the white pea puree instead. Like I said – they were incredibly accommodating!

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Sunday

8:30am – same brekky as yesterday

2:00pm – hit up Le Project, a bar my brother was interested in visiting, because they are known for having a variety of interesting, local craft brews available. Not a ton of options for us there, so I went with an old standby – bun-less burger with bacon! This time it was served with a salad and a small portion of fries. The staff had never had such a ridiculous request for a burger, sans pain (no bread!), but they were awesome about accommodating us.

6:00pm – pre-superbowl snacks. My brother made a homemade salsa, which my family enjoyed with some tortilla chips, and I had with some gluten-free crackers (chestnut and rice flour based). I ended up having a few small handfuls of corn chips as well – probably not ideal, but alas, I did it anyway! Also had a new cider I found at the SAQ.

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7:00pm – homemade dinner. My mom and I hit up a local farmers market that morning and bought some organic pork sausages and fresh veggies. The market was a little scant – I got the sense that it would be awesome in the summer, because it looked like a lot of vendors weren’t there. Also, there were very few fresh veggies – the only ones available were ones that keep well in a cold cellar! So we boiled up some potatoes, sautéed up some leeks and sliced some hot house tomatoes. It worked great!

Monday

9:00am – due to a massive snowstorm in Toronto, we were anticipating some delays on our flight home. So to fuel up, we made the rest of the hash and threw in leftovers from last night! Sauteed leeks and the remaining sausage jacked it up a notch for sure! Topped with 3 eggs and enjoyed with a coffee.

Snacks – I brought the remaining jerky, 2 packs of nut butter, a bag of dried mango, 2 cans of sardines and 2 cans of tuna on the plane. But I was so full from breakfast, I didn’t eat any. I also think I was paying a little bit for the corn chips last night, because my digestion seemed to have slowed down…regardless. I was good til we got home!

Well there you have it folks. How I tackle vacations to make sure I feel my best and can therefore enjoy it to the fullest!

So tell me, what do you do on vacation? Do you have any tricks? Or are you a little more laid back? Share in the comments below!

Eating Healthy While Travelling Part 1: Preparation

February 5, 2015 | 0 Comments | Holistic Health

Even with my 5+ years of experience living a gluten-free, dairy-free lifestyle (I’ve since added some foods to that list, but that’s what I started with), I occasionally still get what I call “dairy-bombed” or “gluten-bombed”. I really do everything in my power to avoid dairy (my worst allergy) because a tiny exposure results in at least 24 hours of extreme pain, followed by 1-2 weeks of slow gut recovery. And since gluten actively causes leaky gut, I avoid it pretty strictly as well, although I don’t have to be as extreme as some people who can’t share a surface though, so I count myself lucky!

The riskiest endeavours are parties, restaurants (especially with a language barrier) and travelling, with travelling taking the cake for most high-risk activity!

First there’s the airport. A real food deadzone, in which you are guaranteed to spend a minimum of 2 hours in before your flight. Surrounded by crap on crap on crap. Very little options, other than a salad or a piece of fruit if you’re lucky.

Then comes the actual flight itself. I don’t even think the stuff they serve you counts as food. As a kid I didn’t even like it – but back then I usually filled up on Smartfood and Mars bars! Depending on the length of the flight, you can be served multiple “meals” of garbage, moulded into food-like shapes.

Upon arrival to your destination, any number of hours later, you might be faced with a language barrier as well.

Yowza. Talk about risky!

This past weekend my whole family went to Quebec City to celebrate my mom’s 60th birthday, and while it was only a 90 minute flight, the travel portion of the day was a good 5-6 hours. So I decided to share exactly what I did to keep my body healthy on this trip! (spoiler alert: I wasn’t perfect, I did have something go wrong, but I was mostly successful. Heck I’m only human!).

Ok so first and foremost. You have to plan ahead. This is seriously a case of:

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

If you arrive at the airport hungry, because you haven’t eaten yet that day, you’re going to end up filling your body with at best, nutrient-poor, inflammatory foods that hopefully don’t contain one of your food triggers. At worst? A full on dairy-bombing (my worst offender).

Rule Number 1: Fuel Up Before You Leave Home

I cannot stress this enough. Have a HUGE meal before you leave your home. Make sure it’s high fat and at least a moderate amount of protein. This will sustain you for hours! We had to leave our house at 6am on Friday, so I set the alarm for 5am, to make sure we would have enough time to eat. A huge breakfast of bacon, bacon-fried eggs and plantain buns, plus lots of coconut milk in my coffee made sure I wasn’t hungry again for at least 6 hours.

Rule Number 2: Pack Snacks

If I was going on a longer flight, I would have packed more meal-like food in a lunch bag, but since we were just hopping over to the next province, I packed non-perishable snacks such as a few packs of Artisana’s individually portioned nut butters and a bag of my homemade Beef Jerky. Additionally, I threw in an apple and some chopped veggies, as well as a can of sardines if I needed it (although this was a last resort, since I didn’t want to be that person on the flight!).

Rule Number 3: Over Pack Food

It’s winter in Canada right now. There is a very likely chance that your flight may be delayed, or you may end up in another city due to weather conditions, which leaves you stranded and desperate for food. We ate about half of the food in my bag, which I considered a win! I would have been able to sustain us for another 5 or so hours on what I had left!

Rule Number 4: Bring an Empty Water Bottle

You know how the flight attendants give you that teeny glass of water that one time on the flight? Advocate for yourself! Bring an empty bottle and ask them to FILL IT UP! I do it all the time! Staying hydrated is key for reducing your risk of airplane-born illnesses. Why? Flying is incredibly dehydrating. The humidity in the airplane cabin is significantly lower than our ideal range, which causes moisture to seep out of our bodies in a futile effort to establish an equilibrium between the two environments. When our mucous membranes dry out, we lose one of our primary barriers against air-borne pathogens. Add a sick traveller who’s hacking up a storm a few seats behind you and you are seriously at risk!

Rule Number 5: Pack Extra Food In Your Checked Luggage

In my checked luggage I packed a whole lot of other food as well. Extra cans of sardines and tuna (in olive oil of course! Watch out for those nasty other oils like soybean or canola.), more nut butter packets, dates, dried mango, cans of coconut milk and a can opener, to be exact! We rented a condo with a kitchen and were fairly close to a grocery store, so we made a trip when we got settled in, to stock up on real food (more on that in my next post). If I didn’t have this option, I would also pack the following:

Larabars
Coconut Butter
Raw nuts & seeds
Protein Powder
A personal size blender, or shaker cup
Coconut oil and/or olive oil
Sea salt
Inka Plantain Chips (found only at Dollarama here in Ontario!)
Kale Chips
A small cutting board and paring knife (obviously in your checked luggage)

Moral of the story is don’t let yourself become a victim of circumstance. Plan ahead and you’ll be fine!

Okay so it was my intention to sum up everything into one post, but at this rate I’ll be up all night writing this! So this has now become a Preparing for Travel post. Check out my second post: 7 Tips for Eating Healthy on Vacation, where I discuss what to do when you arrive at your destination!

The Power of Meditation

December 4, 2014 | 0 Comments | Holistic Health

A year and a half ago I was coming into the final stretch for wedding planning. With 5 months to go, the pressure was on. I was starting to get stressed and I had promised myself I wouldn’t get stressed over what was supposed to be a fun, happy and exciting day. I had been working on my own, and with my naturopath, for a long time to manage my stress response. I had dialled in my nutrition for the most part, determined which supplements helped me, and modified my fitness routine to make sure I wasn’t over-taxing my body. But it just didn’t seem to be enough. I was still getting inappropriately stressed out. For example, I would be on the subway heading to my parents for dinner and there would be a delay. This was totally out of my control and fairly common for the transit system, not to mention being 10 minutes late for a casual dinner is not a big deal, especially if there is good reason! I mean heck, some people are always 10-15 minutes late! But I could feel myself getting worked up over it and no amount of self-coaching could stop that response. Ugh it was so annoying! I could see what was happening and couldn’t stop it.

It was probably the 3rd or 4th time my naturopath recommended meditation that I started taking it seriously. I was reading more and more reports of CEOs, successful entrepreneurs and mentors of mine who swore by meditation. Not only has it been shown to reduce stress and boost productivity, but it has significant health benefits as well. A reduction in anxiety, blood pressure and pain have all been documented. It can literally improve your health at any and all levels! I know it seems absurd, that 10 minutes of quiet time and deep breathing can change your life, so let’s break it down and learn why.

Have you ever been so scared, stressed, anxious, upset or angry that something changes physically in your body? Maybe you get a nervous stomach before an exam and can’t eat. Maybe you flush red or start to sweat if you’re stressed. In situations when someone is severely frightened, they actually lose control over their bowels and/or bladder. I bet if you really think about it, you can recognize a time when an emotion triggered a physical response in your body. When I was in university I would always get eczema on my knuckles and canker sores in my mouth during exams. It was like clockwork! I also used to get so nervous about certain situations that I wouldn’t be able to eat, or I would have to run to the bathroom – seriously! What’s going on?

Thoughts trigger or our emotions. Emotions trigger a hormonal response. Hormones affect change on every cell in the body.

Therefore the thoughts that you have will impact the health of your body, by way of of the endocrine system. Think being stressed out is safe and just something we have to learn to deal with? Think again. Stress can and will damage your body. Where that damage occurs differs from person to person, but it can cause leaky gut, fatigue, increased rate of infection, elevated blood pressure, weight gain or loss and hormonal imbalances. Everything from fatty liver disease and low libido to low thyroid hormone, osteoporosis and infertility. This is serious. It doesn’t matter how on point your nutrition is, or how perfect your exercise routine is – if your stress is high and poorly managed, you will not be able to optimize your health.

This is where the power of meditation comes in. Many people think meditation is about relaxation, but that’s not exactly the case. Meditation is a tool to increase awareness within ourselves. It is a practice that allows us to quiet the monkey chatter in our brain. You know what I’m talking about! No? Ok, do this right now – try to wipe your brain completely and not think about anything for 1 minute…how long did you last? About 7 seconds? Right – monkey chatter! Over time, the more you meditate, the better you get at quieting that unnecessary brain talk and then the magic happens. Without that brain chatter, you truly get to know yourself – how you’re feeling, what emotions are dominant in that moment, and how you perceive the world. You learn to control your mind’s response to situations. Actually, control isn’t the right word… you are able to acknowledge that your mind is responding a certain way and decide if that’s actually how you want to move forward. It’s incredibly empowering. The more you do it, the better you get at it too!

I started April 1st, 2013 and meditated every single morning for 80 days straight. It made a profound impact on my stress levels during wedding prep. Other than a few blips here and there, it was smooth sailing. And while I did it for very specific outcome (stress-free wedding planning and day), it was one of the missing pieces of my health recovery program. Now if ever I wake up feeling anxious (for example if I overindulged the night before) meditating can totally turn the day around for me. If I start to get worked up about something, I don’t even have to full on meditate anymore. I can acknowledge the thoughts that are flying about my mind and choose to gently push them aside and think clearly and critically about the situation. And when something does happen that is epically stressful, I can handle it without it destroying my life for a few days. Like I said – profound. I meditate almost every work day morning (but I’m not perfect!) and any acute situations where I’m feeling added stress, or needing clarity.

So how do I meditate? Well it took me a while to figure out what worked for me, since it’s a very personal experience. So I thought I would share what I do, to help out someone who may be looking for a way to meditate that’s not all ohming and candles (although that’s awesome for some people!).

Amanda’s Personal Recipe for Meditation

My alarm goes off in the morning.

I wake up, use the bathroom and get a glass of water with lemon and a pinch of sea salt.

I sit down with a meditation CD and set it to 10 or 15 minutes from the end.

I write down 4 words that are going to set the tone for my day. Some examples include:

grateful, focused, happy, calm

strong, confident, encouraging, compassionate

I close my eyes, press play on the music and start reciting my words in my head, in time with my breath:

As I breath in: grateful, focused

Breathe out: happy, calm

After a couple of rounds, I lengthen the phrase:

As I breath in: grateful and focused

Breathe out: happy and calm

I lengthen again when I feel like I can breathe in for even longer:

As I breath in: I’m grateful and focused

Breathe out: I’m happy and calm

I keep lengthening the sentence until I end up at:

As I breath in: I am grateful and I am focused

Breathe out: I am happy and I am calm

By this point my breathing is going at a deep, steady, rhythmic pace that energizes every cell in my body.

When the music finishes, I finish my last repetition, or sometimes repeat it once more if it’s feeling particularly good. Then I open my eyes, get up slowly but surely, and start the day full of positive energy.

Troubleshooting

Falling asleep – meditate sitting up in a firm chair, or cross legged on the ground, instead of lying down

Can’t quiet mind – that’s okay! Acknowledge the thoughts that come in and gently push them away. Some days have more brain chatter than others. There’s no way to “win” at meditation. It’s always a practice.

Can’t remember your mantra – make it really simple (“happy, grateful, happy, grateful”) or count in for 2, out for 2 and slowly increase the number.

Resources:

Deepak Chopra’s Guided Meditation

Meditation and Mindfulness Apps

An Ancestral Approach to Meditation

Meditation Music

10 Minute Guided Meditation to Ease Anxiety, Worry and Urgency

So tell me, do you maintain a meditation practice? If so, what does your routine look like? What benefits have you noticed?

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