In this Article

• Advance Planning Will Improve Travel Health
• Pack Your Snacks - Traveling Lean
• Travel and Fitness - Look for Ways to Exercise
• Airport Advice for Healthy Eating
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
• Finding Help Along the Way
• Travel Health Index

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

What do you do if you're visiting friends or family? There are ways to negotiate meals -- even holiday meals -- when you're in someone else's home, says Samantha Heller.

It's always a good idea to (gently) remind the hosts of your dietary needs. If possible, offer to prepare a dish yourself so you have control over at least one item on the menu.

If that's not possible, pay close attention to the food choices you make, and watch your portions.

At a holiday dinner, for example, eat veggies or shrimp cocktail for hors d'oeuvres and leave the cheese cubes or mini-quiches alone. Choose white-meat turkey and skip the skin (even if it is the best part!). Sample the stuffing if you want -- the operative word being "sample." And don't necessarily skip the pumpkin pie. Pumpkin is loaded with vitamin A and is good for you; the whipped cream and the crust are not. So eat a sliver of the filling and leave the rest on your plate.

"And if you must self-medicate to deal with all those relatives," Heller says (we all know what she's talking about, don't we?), choose a light beer or a wine spritzer instead of the eggnog or something harder.

Finding Help Along the Way

Fortunately, it's getting easier to eat well on the road, as the restaurant and travel industries respond to consumer concerns.

More and more restaurants, including fast-food chains, are offering healthy choices. Many have web sites you can check before you leave to see where you're likely to find diet-friendly options.

There's even a book -- Healthy Highways: The Travelers' Guide to Healthy Eating -- that can help you make healthy choices no matter where you go. The book, written by David and Nikki Goldbeck, features more than 1,900 health-oriented eateries and natural-food stores in all 50 states, complete with directions from the nearest highway or main road.

So before you hit the road, have a plan, pack some snacks, and don't forget: You can "travel light" -- and still enjoy the journey.

Published February 2006.

SOURCES: WebMD Feature: "Take Your Diet on the Road" by Carol Sorgen. WebMD Live Event: "Working Your Workout Into Your Vacation" with exercise expert Todd Whitthorne.

©2006 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.