I can admit to having one expensive habit. No, it's not expensive shoes or bags, I spend on health food. I find myself wandering the aisles of Whole Pay Check 3-4 times a week. Let's face it, health food isn't the worst bad spending habit to have. It's only day two of being on the road and already I get a sense that eating well is going to be my biggest challenge. For the last four years food has become a major focus of my day to day living. I'm not sure why, but I'm borderline obsessive. Being meat free, gluten free and dairy free in addition to limiting soy products and artificial sweeteners I'm constantly reading labels and ordering "special" meals when eating out, which I rarely when I'm not traveling. While I can easily get the macros and nutrients I need with this diet at home, I realized it will not work while on the road training and racing for weeks at a time. A few necessary changes were in order. Since I do not actually have an intolerance or allergy to gluten I slowly began introducing gluten back into my diet over the last two months. It's easy to find a big bowl of pasta in most towns, not to mention fairly inexpensive. At home I am able to get a majority of my protein requirements from eating fish daily, sticking mostly with salmon, tuna and mahi mahi. Good quality fish isn't always an option when you're traveling from bike race to bike race and eating on the go and even if it were I'm on a tight food budget. So the biggest and mentally challenging change for me has been eating poultry. Yesterday's agenda included a 10+ hour drive with many gas station stops. Luckily I packed enough hard boiled eggs and homemade granola to hold me over. Today breakfast was at the local Jittery Joe's coffee shop. I ordered a large almond milk latte and starred at the counter top case of sugary, high fat muffins and pastries. Knowing that wouldn't sustain me through the interval workout on my plan today I took my coffee and walked a few blocks to an Earth Fare grocery store. Similar to Whole Foods with a small prepared foods bar, I found scrambled eggs, roasted potatoes and raw spinach that I topped with mandarin oranges and a little olive oil. All of this for just $4.89, not bad for having to walk a few blocks and look a little harder for a healthy option.
