To those of you who follow me on my vanacooks Instagram page, you might have realized that I started this experiment well before I got on the plane. My logic was that since your body takes a few hours to digest whatever food you ate, it is best to start your travel diet hours before you actually hop on the plane.

My flight was at 9:30pm from Boston, Logan Airport this past Saturday. My travel diet started the moment I woke up on Saturday. Doing my best to follow the do’s and don’ts of eating while you travel list – and having woken up at 12pm – I had a personalized sweet green salad with baby spinach, bean sprouts, carrots, tomatoes, avocado, red and green bell peppers, and grilled chicken. For the sauce I simply had lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper – my absolute favorite.

Keeping your diet clean is important while you travel but staying hydrated is even more important. Those of you who travel by air regularly may know that traveling at high altitudes makes you dehydrated. To help with this, I drank Evolution Fresh’s (my favorite store-bought juices) Defense-Up juice. This particular flavor consists of orange, pineapple, mango, apple, and acerola which not only keeps you hydrated but also gives you that vitamin C boost. As you might have seen in my previous post about the do’s and don’ts, keeping healthy is very important; vitamin c is essential to keep healthy and strong while you travel.

Throughout the day I continued to stay hydrated by drinking water. On my way to the airport I allowed myself to indulge in another Evolution Fresh juice, but this time I had their Cold-Pressed Coconut Water and Greens flavor. YUM YUM YUM. This juice has coconut, pineapple, cucumber, spinach, mango, romaine, and kale. Enough greens and fruits to keep you hydrated and energized!

By the time I got through security, I had an hour wait before boarding and I got a little hungry. Expecting not to eat anything in the plane, I had to find a way to get some food in my stomach. But this is where I had a dilemma; what to eat in an airport filled with all the wrong things you could possibly eat!?! I found my answer at Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks. I had their greek yoghurt and berries parfait – plain greek yoghurt, blueberries, strawberries, and granola. After the Evolution Fresh juice I had, this was more than enough to keep me full until my 3 hour layover in London Heathrow.

Heathrow was a mess; two-hour wait to pass security – luckily I had time to spare. Once I passed security, I was quite hungry and found myself with a few more hours to spare. I decided to treated myself to a health nut bowl from Giraffe Restaurant that contained pistachios, almonds, strawberries, pears, apples, tangerines, and many other fruits. I also indulged in a Ginger Blast smoothie that had orange juice, apple juice, ginger, and carrot juice. All of it was delicious and filling. I was able to finish my journey and go straight to bed as soon as I got home without having to have another bite of anything.

As a result, I was able to successfully have a normal sleep cycle. I was also able to minimize bloating throughout my trip, which has never happened before. Overall, I was comfortable and had no irregularities due to my trip! Because of such wonderful results, I am going to try my best to follow the simple rules of eating while traveling for my future trips and I hope you do too.