Staying Healthy On the Road

Staying Healthy On the Road

Living and traveling full-time sounds like a dream… until you realize how easy it is to stay in vacation mode all the time.

In this episode, we’re talking about the real challenge of staying healthy on the road. Short trips are one thing, but when travel is your everyday life, constant splurging can start to catch up with you. We’ve felt it ourselves. Sluggish days, too many sweets, and where every stop feels like a reason to try the local comfort food.

We share some of the habits that tend to sneak in. Eating out more than we should, finishing oversized restaurant portions, boredom snacking in the RV, and spending long hours sitting while driving.

We also talk about what’s actually working for us right now. Cooking more meals at home, making better choices when we do eat out, shopping for fresh ingredients at local markets, and keeping simple, healthier snacks on hand.

Movement matters too, so we’re finding small ways to stay active. Daily walks, hikes, swimming when we can, and even parking farther away to get extra steps in.

Transcript

We're the Essary family and we're exploring America one destination at a time. Today on TravelEssary, we're going to talk about staying healthy on the road and how hard it actually is. Let's chat. Welcome and thank you for joining us on this episode as we talk about how to stay healthy on the road. Now, let's just get point number one outta the way. I know that you wanna talk about some other things that are going in our lives, but I think that this topic is so big and something that everyone. I don't wanna say struggles with, I don't wanna say will struggle, but they do struggle. Mm-hmm. With it at some point in time in their life. And I think it's something that, although there is a lot of good information out there, there's just particular points that we want to point out, especially in our own lives as we have been doing this for quite some time. And, I can say for myself anyways, I mean, I've lost weight being on the road full time. Mm-hmm. And so number one, point number one is the absolute utmost important part of it all. And number one is simply you can't, you can't. Well then I guess there's no point in this podcast, no. Point number one is it is so hard. It is. It's so incredibly hard. My weight has fluctuated so much since we started traveling. I feel like if it's just a vacation, a short vacation, it's way more forgiving if you splurge, you know? Yes, you're gone for a week. That's a great way of putting it, and you splurge and you're eating out for a week. Okay. For example, we have done a two week vacation where we ate out every single meal. Every single meal for two weeks, we ate out. Yes. And by the end of that two week vacation, like we were tired of looking at food, like we hated food. We didn't want anything to do with food. . But I feel like that's completely different from what we're doing now because now that we're full-time traveling. We can't just splurge all the time, every time we're somewhere new, we can't just splurge. And it's hard. It's really hard to change that mentality of, Hey, I'm not on vacation. This is a permanent thing and I'm gonna be super unhealthy if I keep. Using it as like a vacation excuse. Yeah. Now you were absolutely, you hit , the nail on the head for sure of, you know, a three day weekend going out for Memorial Day weekend or something like that. And, , cooking out whatever you wanna cook out and, , eat those three or four meals while you're, , camping out or doing something is way more forgiving. Mm-hmm. Now she put up the example, and we're gonna go back to this example a lot because. I think it is a good length of vacation , if you haven't had a two week vacation in five years, three to five years, you need to take a two week vacation. You need to reset your mind. . Just so good for you in so many different things. But during that time, if you eat out like we did for two weeks, solid three meals a day, that is not forgiving at all. No. It starts weighing down on you and it will show by the time you get back home. Now, a lot of people are gonna be like, oh, you must have had a good vacation, staying healthy on vacation is extremely difficult. Is it impossible? No, absolutely not. But it can be the most difficult thing. To do on a trip. Yeah, and I really actually don't wanna focus on vacations today because I feel like you can splurge, it's okay, it's vacation. It's a short, little, tiny blip in your day-to-day life, but for full-time travelers or extended vacations, there are people who take an entire summer or an entire winter, right? Three months, four months, and they vacation, then this absolutely applies to them. If you're a seasonal vacationer. But, , it's hard and I wanna talk about some of the challenges we have faced when it comes to being healthy. I like to think that , for the most part in my life, we're middle of the road when it comes to being healthy. Oh yeah, absolutely. There are people who will look at us that are health nuts and they'll be like, no, you're not healthy at all. And then there will be people who have. Zero care in the world about their health, who think we're super healthy. I like to think we're somewhere right in the middle of the road. Well, here's the crazy thing. As much as you've gone to the doctor with babies and everything else, and of course me going to the doctors or you know, even in the military, I've only received one bad report. Mm-hmm. My whole entire life. And that was actually in the military. We'll get into that story way later. But we haven't had a bad report. Mm-hmm. And even since we've been on the road, we haven't had a bad report like. No, we're pretty healthy. Our weight kind of fluctuates a little bit, but we're doing all these extra steps to help us stay healthy on the road. Yeah. Which we're gonna get into that, but first, let's talk about our struggles, because they're so real. Oh. So, oh gosh, Like we talked about eating out. It's hard to say no. Sometimes we financially have to say no because eating out is expensive. It's expensive, but if it wasn't for the financial part, it would be a lot harder to say no. But I'm thankful we have , that barrier that is there for us because , it's not good eating out on your body. It's just not good. I just got through following this family, or , I do follow them on Facebook and Instagram and they just left the Florida Keys. They're full-time travelers and they said they spent almost $3,000 in a month. On food. Yeah, on eating out. Not just groceries. It's like eating out. I could absolutely see that. And that's like our whole monthly budget. That's like , our whole monthly budget right there. But to me that's crazy because I think of a whole month of eating out, , what is that going to do to my body? I'm gonna feel terrible after that. , I'm gonna feel so sluggish and so gross and bloated, and I don't know, just two weeks of eating out straight. When we were on , our Disney vacation that like, ugh, that almost killed me by the end of it. I hated food for a while. And the crazy thing is, it's. Not going out to eat. That's the big issue. It's what you eat when you go out. Yeah. But you want all the, you want all the things. Good things. You want all the good things. I don't wanna go out to eat and eat a salad. You have, yes. You have a massive menu with all these different things. We just got done with one place that had breakfast, a full breakfast menu, and then a. Full lunch menu. Mm-hmm. And it was like, what do we want? Because yes, there were some healthy options on there, but you know, especially for us, our appetite's gonna go from, what's that Southern cooking? What's that home style cooking Well and looking like, and we, we like to explore the regional dishes and stuff too. Yes. And they're very, everything, rarely actually healthy. Because , we want the good comfort food of that region. Oh, you and Alabama, you better get some comfort food. Yes. The same thing with Georgia. You're in Georgia, you better get some comfort food. Yes. And then, and it's very fattening. It is, but it's so delicious. And , here's , the thing that gets most people is once you've tried that cuisine, and if you love it, you're stuck on it for the rest of your trip. Yeah. And that's what you're gonna crave. And it's not always the healthiest option thats on the menu. It's usually not the healthiest, but it's so darn good. Yeah. , We wanna try all the things. We've talked about this on so many podcasts. In fact, our very last podcast was about trying the local brunch cafes. Yes, that was last week's podcast. Because it is super important. We think that's a great way to experience that community, but it is also a good way to put on some extra pounds. It really is, especially if that's something you do several times a week. We try to do it only once or twice per stop. And we're in a stop for about two to three weeks at a time. So it's not too bad for us. We just went to one a few days ago and it was really nice. But imagine eating like that every day for brunch. Couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Now we know of people and, we're not gonna mention any names or where we met them at, but we have met people that they full-time travel. And they go out to eat. They go out to eat all the time. Yeah. I don't wanna say every meal, but, they had it planned out that Monday we were going here. Yeah. Tuesday we go here. And they were not healthy options at all. No. Like fried chicken and tacos. Yes. And it's just, . The struggle is real. Yeah. So one thing that, , I have struggled with, which has never been a problem for me before until we hit the road, but that's sweets. Sweets. I've never been really big on sweetss. Only occasionally would I crave something sweet, but now that we've been on the road, I don't know why, but I wanna try all the sweets. And if you know me like bakeries are my weakness, like I will. I will kill for a bakery, like a good bakery. That's my weakness. Pastries. And then we were in Wildwood, Florida. Mm-hmm. And there's the Russell Stover chocolate factory that we went to. And you guys, they had discounted chocolate. Extreme discounted chocolate. Yeah. 70% off chocolate and you could buy it in bulk. And we walked out of there with eight pounds of chocolate. And within three weeks that chocolate was gone. Yeah. Within a month it was gone. It was less than a month. , And I could feel it, I could feel it in my weight., I, ugh, I felt so icky at the end of those three weeks, and I was like, man, like I'm swearing off sweetss. But then by doing that mentally it made me want more sweets. Yeah, , you're thinking about it. You're trying to like, no,, I'm not gonna do this. And you're like, man, that really sounds good. And plus we're traveling. I need to try , the local things. And sometimes that includes something sweety that includes the sweets, matter of fact. So we just got done with that, ate all that chocolate, that was our main suite in our last location. And this location we found milkshakes. Oh, that are absolutely. Stop now I wanna go get another one. Yeah, we will probably get one tomorrow on our way out because it's gonna be on our way out. But they were absolutely divine. Oh my gosh. The way that they made them not the best milkshake. I don't even like milkshakes and that was so good. I finished my milkshake for the first time, I think, in my life. And I want more. Yeah, like I want more. And the small was a good size. The price it was priced, right? Mm-hmm. And so you run into things like that? Yes. And not just chocolate , or milkshakes, but other sweets, pastries, cake, pies, pastries. You go to, especially a mom and pop restaurants. Well, every time we go to one of those brunch cafes, yes, they sell pumpkin, they sell pies, pie and a coffee. That's kind of what you get. And it's, it's always like a local pie. So we've been to ones, you know, in Texas there's a lot of pecan pie. In Alabama, there was rhubarb pie. Here in Florida there's citrus pies and key lime pies. Yeah. And, and it's just like, well, you have to try that region's pie because it's obviously gonna be better here than it's gonna be anywhere else, because this is where the pie comes from. That's right. This is the origin. The origin's always supposed to be the best. And it's so hard to say no to those sometimes it, it's a struggle. It's been a struggle for me personally. Well, and then what's. A struggle for me beyond the sweets because anyone who knows me, knows I love chocolate is whenever you go to a restaurant, , you want to get , your money's worth. Your money's worth. So you want to order something that's reasonably priced, that has a good quantity of food, and then you want to finish that food. I don't feel like that because whenever you're at home. You're like, oh, , we just put it in a container, put it in the fridge. It's leftovers bad, bing bad. Boom, we're good. And then sometimes when you're on vacation, you can't take leftovers. It's like you're eating lunch and then you have, you know, an event or an activity coming up. You don't get to take any of that food home with you. Yeah. There's been a few times, , on our full-time travel. , We couldn't take our food with us. Right? Like we were four hours down the road to our next stop. Or we had something coming up, like you said, like we couldn't take the leftovers home and put 'em in the fridge. But I am not a, I have to finish person. But you definitely are. Yeah, , I am. And by doing that, you kind of over gorge yourself and. And it's not healthy. It is not healthy. It's not healthy to overeat, , another struggle that I have had is when you are out on your runs mm-hmm. And you're gone for anywhere from, , six to 12 days at a time. I am here working and I will spend sometimes three or four days without. Ever stepping out of the rv. Right. And I'm getting zero exercise like at all. Yeah, no even whatsoever. And there in those times, you're in the truck for 11, 12 hours at a time driving. Yeah, you're not getting any Yeah, I'm not getting out. I'm not walking how I should be walking and , the bad thing, especially for me in the truck is my snacks are within arm wrench of me. And so snacking. Yes. Munchies, well, you, you snack out of boredom. So I find myself on days where we're not physically active, I eat twice as much on those days. Than I do on the days when we're out exploring. So the days where I'm home and I am writing one of my novels, or I'm editing podcast or whatever I'm doing, working here, sitting at this table that we're at right now, I feel like I eat twice as much as I do when we're out, like boredom eating, right. Like habit eating. Like I just absolutely just need something to do other than whatever task I'm doing. And that's been a pretty big struggle for me too. Yeah, I can definitely feel, since we've been traveling, my weight has fluctuated so much. The good thing , is. I can lose it pretty quickly if I put my mind to it, like as quickly as I gain it. But I can gain it pretty quickly too. And those two weeks after we left that stinking chocolate factory,, I think I gained six pounds. It was so bad. We were eating out a ton during that stop too. We were eating out almost every day. I think while we were there every other day it was, yeah. Which is more than we had been. We ate out more at that stop than we have any stop. Well, we also treated those two weeks as a vacation. Because you had a full I didn't do any runs. Yeah. During that whole stop, we didn't have any work. We did a lot of adventuring. Mm-hmm. A lot of eating out. Taking on the whole culture of that area. Yeah. But I think we're gonna have to be cautious doing that. Treating them as vacations. Well, there's not gonna be very many of those, like even the next place we go to, although we have amazing things coming up. Mm-hmm. I still have to make a run. You're still gonna make a run, , now maybe whenever I get back it may seem as a vacation. Oh, I know. As that point. Because everything's gonna happen after I get back, we'll let you know kind of how it plans out if we actually stay true to the tips that we have to help control your health while you're on vacation or on the road. Yeah. Let's move into that. Okay. So those are the things that we struggle with, like real. Everyday struggles munchies out to eat sweets. It's real world problems that we are facing here on the road that I didn't face at home. Well, some of those I did face at home. Like the overeating. Yeah, the overeating and , the eating whenever you're bored. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't do that quite so much when we were home, but let's move on to what we have done to help offset that. You gotta have a balance. , Because if , we were just the problems, we would blow up in a month. And I wanna preface this with, we didn't go extreme. , We didn't change our entire thing, you know? No, we didn't. We didn't try one of those diets. We didn't try. Well, because here's the thing. I know if I do something like that, I'm not gonna follow through. And then you're not accomplishing anything, right? And you actually feel worse about yourself, which yes, will in return, make you overeat. I think it's important to put realistic goals in front of you. And these are realistic things that we have set before us that anyone can do. Yeah. Yeah. And , they're too simple not to do, in my opinion. Yeah. So the first one should be super easy. , Just don't eat out constantly. Just don't do it. So two things with this. Number one, don't eat out costly. Number two, if you go eat out. , If you're at a place that you can't cook your meals mm-hmm. Then at least one of those times you go out to , eat something extremely healthy, get the salad, get the BLT, get. I don't know if a BBL T is considered healthy. Well, its bacon and starch and, but it's fried. Get a healthier option. Mm-hmm. Don't get everything fried. That's usually what I do is get everything fried, try not to eat out all the time. Mm-hmm. Number one, it's good for your wallet. Yes. And it's good for your gut. Yeah. So true. , if you're a full-time traveler, let us know, if you struggle with these things as well, and what you do to offset those struggles. So another thing that we do, other than just not eating out constantly. Is when we go to the grocery store, I try to choose healthier options. Like we try to do things that can be cooked out on the grill sometimes , some meat, and some veggies, and call it a day. We actually just did that last night and , it was great. , I make salads every now and then. You can control what you eat so much easier by going to the grocery store. And you can also control , the portion that you eat, the portion that you eat. Yeah. Which in my case, is massive. Yeah. Because who doesn't love leftovers? I'm not saying a big portion. I'm saying that's , a huge bonus for me is Mm. Is I don't have to feel like even last night, whenever we had , the, what did we have? Philly cheese steaks. Philly cheese steaks. You know, I ate my two sandwiches. They're not big sandwiches. I ate my two sandwiches and I'm like, I'm good. I can save the rest for later. Mm-hmm. 'cause I know that we're at home and I don't feel like I have to eat it all. Yeah. . But it's been really nice hitting up the local farmer's markets and getting local produce here in Florida. We've had some great experiences with their citrus and their oranges and things like that. So I, I've enjoyed getting a lot of the produce from place to place. , We did have a bit of a icky farmer's market experience. Yeah. And if you follow us on Facebook, then you absolutely know what we're talking about. But that wasn't produce. See. If that's what we get for choosing an unhealthy option, we got that pastry, , got that sweet. We should have stuck with the oranges and you know, if you want something sweet , there's healthy, sweet options out there. You don't have to go for donuts or chocolate milkshakes. But I like the milkshakes, which they are amazing, , or if you have the munchies, you can get healthy stuff, , you can get the peanuts, you can get the mangoes and yeah, I love to eat, , strawberries and grapes when I have a sweet tooth and I want something a little bit crunchy, , stick 'em in the fridge or grapes in the freezer and then pop 'em. Oh yeah. So good. So good. Yeah. So that's one of the things that we do, just don't eat out as much. Another thing that we try to incorporate, if not every day, then every , two to three days, is we go on daily walks, daily hikes, swimming daily swims. So these daily walks are above your normal. Walks above your normal adventuring, getting out, going places. Yeah. No, it's pure exercise. Pure exercise at a pace that gets your heart rate higher than what you normally walk at. Mm-hmm. So whenever we go on hikes and we go on, , just general walks, they're not leisure. Especially if they're someone nice leisure, they're not leisure like, oh, you're just kinda like moseying our time down the road , they're at a pace and Jasper has a hard time with it. Yeah. Most of the time he is running and then he gets tired and then he jumps in the stroller and then we go even faster. Yeah. I do prefer when he's in his stroller. Yes. Because we can go way faster now. Here in the next couple years, probably by the time he's four, hopefully he'll be on a bike and he'll be leaving us behind. Mm-hmm. And we'll have to keep up with him and that'll motivate us to do even, , a faster pace. Yeah. , But , just , getting out every day or at least every other day and moving, and this is something I've been incorporating for myself, during the times that Jeremy's on his run and we're doing the work push when we're on the work push. I've been doing it. More than I was in the past. So before I would rarely go on walks 'cause I wanted to get that work done. Like I have so much work to do and in the time that Jeremy's gone and I wanna be able to have fun and explore when he gets back. So I'm pushing myself and pushing myself. But , here recently I've been making sure every other day that I'm going out and I'm walking. I am doing some sort of daily or every other day, like physical activity, just so that I'm getting my blood flowing. I'm not sitting there at my desk and in the RV working for , eight days in a row. Yeah, and the main thing for me, especially when I'm on the road, is. Because I've sat down all day driving is whenever I stop, get out, walk around the place that I've stopped at , I pretty much check out everything, information, all the boards, I'm walking around the building and then, , I try to get , blood flowing into my legs. You just gotta get out. , You gotta do the extra activity, the extra walk. And we went swimming yesterday and we actually did laps back and forth. Mm-hmm. And of course always liked doing laps 'cause it helps work out things without putting too much strain on joints. Yeah. I did so many that my calves started burning. , I'm kind of sore today. Yeah. So it was nice. It was a nice way, it's really nice to, doing the water was. So nice here in Florida. It was beautiful outside. It was wonderful. Partly cloudy. It was, oh man. And the day before when we got our milkshakes, we went on a hike. We went on a hike, and then we went and got our milkshakes. , It's called balance. Yeah. If you're gonna splurge beyond your normal and , go get that. 32 ounce steak or something, then you need to offset it with some type of activity. A 32 ounce steak. I can barely finish an eight ounce steak. And if you can eat that, , more power to you. You just gotta offset it with a little bit of activity to. Kind of balance things out. I feel like we are in no way, shape or form, , actually capable of giving healthy advice. This is just what we do on the road. I'm not gonna say, you guys need to do this, or Y'all should be doing this, or it should look like this because I'm sure like we are the least qualified people in the world to be giving health information and like exercise information. You know what? What's good for one person's body doesn't always work for the other. So I am definitely not gonna be one of those people that's , this is what you have to do to see results, but , these are the things that we do to maintain our health while we're full-time traveling. Yeah. Yes, we're dedicated to these, but we're not as dedicated as some other people that we've seen. Oh my gosh. Windows, some of these older people, oh man, they put us to shame. They would put us to shame. Oh my goodness. They do. They do. They really do. They're walking every morning. Some of them walk morning and then they go walk in the evening. We, we saw 'em like walking, whenever it's like ice cold below, freezing ice on the ground. They're out there doing their little power walks. Yeah. And it's, , 95 degrees in the middle of the day and they're doing their power walks and I'm like, wow. It didn't matter to them. , Unless it was raining outside, which no one's outside at that point. But other than that, yes. , They were staying healthy on the road. , Yeah. , We're not super qualified experts. We're just people who travel full-time and we know what it's like if you don't do these things. Yeah, because there's been times where I didn't do any of these for almost a year and put on 60 plus pounds. When was that? Oh, when you were in, in the military. When you were in Iraq. Yes. Yeah. Which is a crazy story within itself, but yeah. Yeah. So if you don't get out and do at least a little bit of something. It is gonna be very difficult to stay healthy. Another thing that we try to do is , on our exploration days, we do a lot of activities that require a lot of walking, here, soon we're gonna be going to Disney World again. And if you know anything about Disney World, you know that you're walking sometimes like 12 to 14 miles a day. Why you're there. Yes. In order to get from place to place. Mm-hmm. And , you don't realize it. I guess you would realize it a whole lot more now because you have the whole steps and everything. You have smart watches and everything else. But whenever we went, we didn't have any of that stuff. We just walked and then by the time we calculated as best we could, all the way across the board, we walked a good 10 miles. Mm-hmm. In a day, which is something we normally don't do. But walking is, just one of those real easy things that you can do. And I wanna hit on this really quick. When you go to a restaurant or you go to Disney World, or , an activity or something, don't park as close as you possibly can to , the entrance or exit. Oh yeah. Park out always. Yeah. I midways even further out. Even going to Walmart or target shopping, anything like that, don't park right next to the door. That's another thing that I do, , consistently. Especially if I'm the one driving and it's just me and the kids, I park as far away as I can because. I want that little bit of, that little bit of extra walk. It makes me feel good. Yes. Knowing that I added a little something and then whenever I go and I get that pastry from the bakery next door, I don't feel quite so guilty. . So I wanna go back to like, we do a lot of explorations that, you know, require physical activity. And that could be things like going to a state park, which you're gonna be doing a lot of walking. If you're going to a state park, you're going to a zoo, you're walking around, you're doing a lot of things, you're going to a museum, you're walking around. Any sort of activity that. Is something other than just sitting on your rear end, which there are very few things that we do that we go out and do that just require us to sit. We haven't done anything that requires us to sit down for a length of time on an adventure. The main reason for that is 'cause we have a 2-year-old and he's not sitting still for any length of time. That is. Definitely the number one thing. Yes,, we have to keep moving. Or he's gonna start getting cranky. But yeah, so staying healthy on the road, not easy. Not even a little bit easy because there's so many new foods you wanna try. , . And then, you know, the way we travel in our rv, you could easily just sit in your rv, pop up your recliner, and read a book, or watch TV all day. , You could, oh yeah. Never leave the rv. And we have seen people who do that. Oh, absolutely. We have seen people pull in right next to us. And we never see them leave for two weeks. Love like even come out of their rv. Mm-hmm. For two weeks. No. I have actually talked to some full-time travelers when I was at that membership meeting that we went to a couple weeks ago and they. Love the full-time traveling aspect because they just like the different campgrounds, but they don't actually enjoy exploring outside of the campgrounds. They like to go sit in their chairs and fish off the river. They enjoy, you know, putting their RV up and doing. The campground socials and activities, but they really don't like big cities. They don't like getting out and exploring too much. They'll go and eat at the little local mom and pop stops around the rv, but that's about it. Yeah. That's the extent of what they do and I can't even imagine. No. What that would cause me. Yeah. Physically, what that would do physically. Like what that would do to me. So how do you stay healthy on the road if you're a full-time traveler? Or do you just not even think about it? Let us know. We would love to hear from you.