Road Trip and Comfort Food
Having to make an unexpected road trip this weekend really got me thinking about the eating habits while on road trips. To make matters worse the reason for the trip was a somber one. Without having much time to plan we had to just gather things quickly and hit the road. Our first stop of course was Wal-Mart to pick up some food for the road so we could drive pretty much straight through with as few stops as possible.
Since there was no grocery list, we pretty much just went through the isles and grabbed what interested us. For me I grabbed ding dongs, beef jerky, Doritos, and a couple Gatorade bottles. I was disappointed because we couldn’t find the Zingers, but this would have to make do. We started our trip around midnight and it was about a 9 hour trip. We really only stopped once not counting gas stops. The only break we took was in the early hours of the morning for breakfast. Can’t survive on junk food alone!
After we got to our destination we really didn’t eat much junk food. I’m not sure we ate better though. It seems in Rolla, Missouri every restaurant is a buffet. So knowing that calories don’t count while you are out-of-town, I splurged and ate A LOT!!! Then pretty much the following night we had to make our return trip home.
This time we were able to find Zingers and I was very excited. Even though we had eaten dinner, I couldn’t resist breaking into the junk food as we hit the road. Not sure what it is about it, but my body just thinks being in the car for an extended period of time is cause to eat a ton of food that isn’t good for you.
Normally junk food isn’t much of a problem for me since my metabolism is pretty high and I’m pretty active. Unfortunately with road trips you really can’t be active. Also since the trip wasn’t for pleasure, it isn’t like there was much activity there either. So this time the food actually had an impact. I think I gained about 5 lbs. Not really happy about that, but I guess that is just life.