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Road Trip Food: How To Pack Food For A 7-Day Road Trip

October 9, 2020 by Talia Koren Leave a Comment

One of the most exciting parts of our cross country move was planning all of our road trip food! I can’t wait to share how exactly we planned meals for this seven-day trip from NYC to Seattle, where we stayed and my best tips and tricks for eating healthy on a budget on the road.

What's In This Post

  • Planning Our Road Trip
  • How I Plan Meals For Road Trips
  • Our Road Trip Grocery And Food Packing List
  • Where We Stopped Ate On Our Cross Country Road Trip
  • Easy Meals To Make On A Road Trip Without Equipment
  • Meals You Can Cook While On A Road Trip
  • How long does food last in a cooler on a road trip?
  • Essential Equipment For Packing Road Trip Food

Planning Our Road Trip

I’m the planner in my family, so plotting out a road trip across the country was my responsibility. I loved every second of it. My app of choice is called Roadtrippers. I’ve used it for years to plan amazing road trips and I think it’s well worth the cost of $25/year even if you only do one big road trip in a 12 month period. It’s way easier to plan a road trip with this app compared to Google Maps.

Even though we could have done a much longer trip, because this was a moving road trip, we decided to do it in 8 days, following almost the most direct route to Seattle. We aimed to average about 6 hours of driving per day and pretty much no sightseeing.

If you want to do a sightseeing road trip, you shouldn’t do more than 4 hours of driving/day.

We chose this route because not only is it more direct, but it also came super close to Glacier National Park. So we designed the trip around stopping there for two nights to be able to get a taste of the park, instead of just one night.

How we chose where to stay during our cross country trip

We did a mix of Airbnb, camping, hotels and glamping on this trip! The variety was awesome and I’m glad we branched out of Airbnb, to be honest.

Having a hotel one night was perfect after a night of camping and sleeping on the ground. And Airnbns that had access to laundry came in handy in the middle of our trip, since we packed pretty light!

Every Airbnb also had a fridge which helped us with taking food on this trip and preparing meals for the road.

Here are links to all the places we stayed:

  • Airbnb in New Wilmington, PA – $88
  • Fancy Airbnb in Chicago, IL – $130
  • Airbnb in Minneapolis, MN – $103
  • Campsite in Bismarck, ND – $30
  • Hotel in Lewistown, MT – $160
  • Glamping Site in Lakeside, MT (Glacier) – $150 (2 nights)

How I Plan Meals For Road Trips

Meal planning helped us save a lot of money and reduce stress during this trip. I approached it the same way I approach regular weekly planning by focusing on breakfast, lunch and dinner for myself and my partner. It was overwhelming at first, but once I filled in where we’d be and thought about the amenities we had at each place, it was easy.

While this really depends on the type of road trip you want to take, my golden rule is to eat one takeout full meal per day.

When you’re sitting in a car for hours, it’s more fun to snack and it’s really nice to end the day with a big meal, rather than eat takeout multiple times and feel overstuffed and sleepy in the car. This method also saves money, which is important to me (but maybe not important to you!).

That being said, if I were designing a trip around visiting different foodie spots along the way, I would approach meal prepping and takeout very differently. This move was not a foodie trip, but we did make a point to try local beer and coffee everywhere we stopped.

Our trip was one week long, so it was easy to plan with an excel spreadsheet. If you want to try out our regular meal planning template/spreadsheet, you can download it here!

How much food cost on our road trip

My partner and I were pretty focused on saving money with our move happening at the same time. We spent about $1,500 total on the trip, including lodging, food, gas and random/emergency stuff.

This trip was all about driving. The pandemic definitely made things we would have normally done not possible, like local comedy shows, concerts and day tours.

Our Road Trip Grocery And Food Packing List

  • Bananas
  • Apples
  • Grapes
  • Avocados
  • Old fashioned oats*
  • Peanut butter*
  • Tortillas
  • Canned tuna*
  • Pesto*
  • Pre-mixed salad bags
  • Olive oil, salt, pepper and cooking spray*
  • Cinnamon*
  • Cheddar cheese
  • A small milk bottle
  • Brown sugar*
  • Fig Bars
  • Trail Mix
  • Popcorn
  • Beer*

The list above includes some ingredients we purchased before the trip as well as some that we grabbed from our pantry (marked with an *). We spent a total of $50 on groceries before the trip.

We also packed homemade baked banana bread and cookies!

During the trip, we spent about $30 on groceries we needed for cooking, like our two camping meal and a few picnic lunches. For these meals, we just needed fresh veggies and proteins to cook with! We kept things super simple and by the end, I was a little bit sick of tortillas.

Where We Stopped Ate On Our Cross Country Road Trip

The list below includes places we would eat at again, which we, unfortunately, can’t say of every place we stopped at.

Youngstown, OH (coffee): Culture House Coffee

Granger, IN (beer): Bare Hands Brewery

Minneapolis, MN (dinner): Red Cow

Minneapolis, MN (coffee): Zoe’s Cafe

Bismark, ND: Stonehome Brew Pub

Lakeside, MT (dinner): Tamarack Brewing Co

Lakeside, MT (breakfast): Glacier Perks Coffee House

We spent about $200 total on restaurants during this trip! We stuck pretty well to our one takeout meal per day, so we only spent $28/day for two on food. I’m happy with that!

Easy Meals To Make On A Road Trip Without Equipment

Overnight Oats

Here’s our Master Overnight Oats Recipe if you want to try it out!

Fresh Wraps

Here’s an easy no-cook wrap recipe that would be perfect for road trips.

Crunchy Salads

This is more of a hack – pre-made salad kits are so easy to find in grocery stores on the road, and you can customize them however you like.

Meals You Can Cook While On A Road Trip

With the help of our stove and access to grills/a campfire, we were able to cook several meals on our trip.

Grilled Wraps & Paninis

We had a blast eating apple cheddar quesadillas at a rest stop! We happened to have apples and cheddar with us, but you can use really anything. All you need is a portable stove, a small non-stick pan and cooking spray to make it happen.

Loaded Campfire Baked Potato

You really can’t go wrong with a loaded baked potato or sweet potato. All you need is foil, your favorite kind of potato, cheese and any other baked potato fixin’s you like!

Roasted Veggie Wraps

We made these grilled veggie wraps on a grill at our KOA campsite! They tasted so good with just a dash of salt and pepper.

How We Cleaned Our Cooking Equipment On Our Road Trip

So we made a point to stay at places every few days with access to a sink or area to clean our dishes. We brought dish soap, a sponge and paper towels with us to do light cleaning at the campsites as needed. It wasn’t such a big deal! At the end of our road trip, we just loaded up the dishwasher with all our camp cooking equipment for a final wash.

How long does food last in a cooler on a road trip?

I highly recommend the cooler we bought for families or people going on long road trips. It’s not great for solo travel, as it was almost too big for us!

Every other day, we put a new bag of ice in the cooler (purchased at a gas station) and drained it before adding a new bag of ice. By the very end, some of the food definitely smelled a bit inside the cooler – but not in a bad way. We may have not kept up the ice re-stocking toward the end as well as we could have.

All in all, no food spoiled on our trip. Everything made it through the seven days, and whatever we didn’t eat we were able to store in our fridge when we got home.

Essential Equipment For Packing Road Trip Food

Bamboo Travel Utensils  – love these compact utensils for travel meals!

Coleman Cooler – we loved this cooler! It fit all our food

Mini Camp Stove – essential for when you don’t want to/can’t make a campfire

Food Containers – we used these to store food and as bowls!

Stasher Bags – useful for dry snacks for any travel occasion

Small Non-Stick Pan – perfect for cooking on the camp stove

Cast-Iron Pan – ideal for campfire cooking

Cozy Flannel – I wore this every day of the trip! Super handy for the transitioning summer/fall weather.

I hope this inspires you to plan an epic road trip and stay within your budget!

If you want more travel meal ideas, here are some other posts that could help:

10 Best Lunch Boxes for Food on the Go

Make Ahead Camping Meals: 10 Camping Dishes You Can Meal Prep

18 Meal Prep Recipes For When You Have No Microwave or Fridge At Work

 

 

This post contains affiliate links.

Filed Under: Blog, Meal Prep Pro Tips Tagged With: travel

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Workweek Lunch | Talia Koren
Yes, it’s definitely easier said than done but t Yes, it’s definitely easier said than done but this is basically it. 👇🏼
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It seems counterintuitive but the answer to binge eating isn’t more restriction.
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Restriction is generally what fuels binge eating a good amount of time, although not always. This post is meant to address binge eating as a result of restriction, not Binge Eating Disorder. Just to make that clear!
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And I’m sending compassion and virtual hugs to anyone who is currently dealing with binge eating in any form.
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I used to try so hard to avoid chocolate, peanut m&ms (my fave), bread, pasta, cereal and sweets in general by not having them in the house. But guess what I used to think about ALL THE TIME? All the foods I restricted. And when I had an opportunity to eat them, I ate A LOT of them because I thought it was my last chance. Which led to more guilt and more restriction followed by, you guessed it! More binge eating. It’s such a rollercoaster.
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I started making peace with these foods by buying them for the house one at a time until I felt more in control around them. Until I forgot they were even there. Restriction gives food power over us. Permission does the opposite.
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Now I hardly ever binge eat thanks to incorporating all the foods I like into my daily/weekly eating routine AND eating regularly throughout the day, which is why I don’t get ravenous at night. It took time but I feel a lot better.
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Where are you in your journey when it comes to this? What are steps you’re taking/you’ve taken to help make peace with your binge foods?
It feels like a year went by since we put out last It feels like a year went by since we put out last Wednesday’s new meal plan. 😅
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It’s been a crazy and stressful time to be alive yeah? If this week you noticed a change in your appetite caused by stress - that’s NORMAL. Do your best to roll with it and practice self compassion. And maybe cooking can be a good distraction while also giving you an chance to take care of your future self.
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👈🏼Swipe through to see what we have featured this week in the WWL Program for members!
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👍🏼All of these recipes are either new or freshly updated! Lots to try, and if these don’t inspire you, we have HUNDREDS of meal prep recipes to choose from. You can create your own meal plans in our program! Yay flexibility!
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👇🏼We have:
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🍯Honey Dijon Salmon Greens & Orzo Bowls
(Vegan alt: Everything Tofu)
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🥦Teriyaki Turkey Meatballs
(Vegan alt: Chickpea balls)
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🥕Sheet Pan Veggie Soup (vegan)
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🍓Berry Parfaits with Homemade Granola
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🧇Nut Butter & Jelly Waffles!
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❓Which are you excited to try? Share below!
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🙌🏼And if you want to dive in with this plan and our recipes, planning tools and private community, sign up for the WWL Program in my bio link! Can’t wait to see you inside and help you have a little less stress in your life.
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Photos and recipes by me and @pinkleme, our assistant recipe developer, meal plan production by @alyssalash28
This weekend’s prep was super fun and fairly eas This weekend’s prep was super fun and fairly easy! I still had plenty of time this weekend to enjoy the farmer’s market, watch movies with my partner, finish an audiobook and do some deep cleaning.
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👈🏼Swipe left to see the cost breakdown of what I spent on groceries this week. We consistently spend the most on produce each week thanks to having a stocked pantry!
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👇🏼MEALS
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BTW most of these might not end up in the WWL Program - more on that later! But I hope they give you some good inspiration.
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🥑Mission-Inspired Burrito Bowls with avocado, crema and pico de gallo on the side! I made the tastiest carne asada for this recipe in my cast-iron.
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🥦🧀Broccoli cheddar soup!
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🌯Roasted sweet potato and chickpea wraps with avocado, kale and radishes. These are meant to be eaten cold or room temp,
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🫐Homemade Granola Parfaits! These are coming to WWL tomorrow for members - learn more in my bio link. Yes, the granola did get soft but I didn’t mind!
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🍿Snacks: celery, homemade hummus, grapes and homemade popcorn.
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📆All of these meals will be eaten by Thursday! We reheat them in the microwave as needed.
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🤷🏻‍♀️I don’t know the calories because I don’t count!
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😍Feels so good to be back into a regular work/prep routine after the holidays and I’m super motivated by our personal financial goals for 2021 to keep going.
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❓Got questions about this prep? Drop them below!
When I stopped dieting (restricting food to be the When I stopped dieting (restricting food to be the smallest version of me) my world opened up.
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✨It was like all of the sudden I had the time and mental energy to focus on other things like side hustling, dating, planning my move to Colorado, exploring NYC with my friends more and reading more. Oh and learning how to cook with regular butter and flour. 👩🏻‍🍳That’s what I remember about that season of my life. I can’t believe how much time I used to spend in the gym, counting calories and generally avoiding social situations where there would be food  that was outside of my control. And the stress!! All that stress and guilt probably did more harm than what I was eating.
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✨Over the weekend I received more DMs than usual about my food choices and how I “balance” certain things I eat. The truth is I don’t think about it that much anymore. It’s taken years to get here but I can trust my body and thanks to cooking, it’s not a challenge for me to incorporate a variety of health-promoting AND flavorful ingredients.
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✨It’s hard to be fully present when our minds are cluttered with thoughts around food based in guilt and fear (thanks to diet culture). Health is important. But is the focus on it holding us back from actually just living?? We all end up in the same place - I know that’s morbid but it’s true.
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✨Something to think about: does the way you think about food serve you or hold you back? No judgement no matter where you are in your journey.
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✨And if you find the diet mentality helps you or is positive, I’m not here trying to change your mind. My aim is to help folks who may be ready to explore new ways to think about food outside of what’s “good” or “bad.”
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✨This mentality switch doesn’t happen overnight! But I hope this post helps you become more aware of how you think about food. Always come from a place of curiosity when it comes to your relationship with food, not judgement.
Here are mine, what are yours? 👇🏼👇🏼 . Here are mine, what are yours? 👇🏼👇🏼
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🙏🏼I hope if you’re stuck on what to make for the week, this can give you some inspiration.
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🙌🏼These are all easy, versatile and the types of meals I make when I need a break from recipe development - which sometimes requires me (and my assistant developer) to eat food we aren’t necessarily in the mood for. It’s part of the job!
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Stay tuned in stories to watch my meal prep session go down today!! Looking forward to this week already... hoping it’s better than the first week of 2021 🙏🏼
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RECIPES for these meals can be found in the WWL Program for members (except for the freezer preps - they’re not ready yet). Learn more about our weekly flexible meal plans, recipes and grocery lists in my bio link! You can jump in on a free trial before you commit.
Last Saturday I prepped 32 dinners for the freezer Last Saturday I prepped 32 dinners for the freezer and we cracked into a few of them this week! 😅Here’s how the freezer prep stir fry went down.👇🏼
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🥦I froze chopped chicken in soy sauce and honey (a very easy stir fry sauce), along with bell peppers, carrots, broccoli, garlic and ginger.
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😮You’re SUPPOSED to blanch veggies (flash cook them in boiling water) prior to freezing, but I didn’t. And it was fine.
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⏰We took the stir fry bag out of the freezer and put it in the fridge at 12pm and cooked at 6pm that day. So the ingredients were partially frozen. I think that’s why I overcooked my chicken - I thought it was more frozen than it was. This takes practice!
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🍜We cooked noodles on the side (my partner is obsessed with noodles) to go with this meal.
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👩🏻‍🍳Was it the best stir fry I ever had? No, mostly because of my chicken mistake. But it was still WAY better than the stir fries I tried to make when I first learned how to cook. And I’m excited to eat it again in a few weeks since we have another batch waiting for us in the freezer!
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🤷🏻‍♀️Also - we got 3 servings out of this. Not 2 like I was hoping for. But I’m not complaining! My partner enjoyed the leftovers for lunch the next day.
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👉🏼You don’t have to use a plastic bag for these freezer meals. As I explained in my previous post about freezer meals, this was our first go at this and I want to make sure we LIKE this method of cooking before investing money into specific reusable bags and containers for this. I’m all for using less plastic. And saving money. And being practical.
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🙏🏼I hope you find my sharing this experience useful! If you can’t prep full meals on the weekend, this method of freezer prep still helps save time, money and mental energy on busy weeknights.
It doesn’t matter how real I try to keep it here It doesn’t matter how real I try to keep it here on IG, it’s impossible to share everything. So this is a reminder that IG content is never the full picture! And perfect eating does. Not. Exist.
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😤Finding balance is soooo hard. And once you find it, something in life changes and you’re thrown off again. Circumstances change. Priorities change. The weather changes. And we can only control so much.
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🌮For me, balance is very much about meal prepping to reduce the stress of figuring out and dealing with every meal while leaving room for spontaneity.
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🗓If you’ve been here for awhile, you know I leave 1/3 of meals in my personal weekly plan open for random meals, takeout, etc.
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👉🏼Even in the WWL Program (more info in my bio link), our meal plans consist of 14-16 out of 21 planned meals per week (that you can change of course!) because planning every meal is unrealistic, miserable and will eventually lead to food waste.
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🍔I even plan around my cravings! If I’m craving a burger on a Tuesday but still have meals to eat that I prepped, I pencil in a burger date with my partner for later in the week. It helps us avoid food waste AND honor cravings. I’m not restricting by not “allowing” myself to eat a burger the moment I want it - I’m being practical and eating the food available to me first and having a burger later. This is a way I’ve built trust around my body and its cravings.
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💕TL/DR: food choices are personal. They’re different for everyone. You know what’s best for you. And You can never know the full story based on one IG post or one meal your friend/family member orders at a restaurant.
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Hope you have a relaxing weekend 🙌🏼
If you’re a member of the WWL Program this brand If you’re a member of the WWL Program this brand new meal plan is waiting for you in your inbox! 💌
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🌮Every week we share new and updated recipes so you never get bored and don’t have to spend too much time searching for meals that will inspire you (and also work for meal prep). I’m so excited for you to try our new curry taco recipe!!
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👉🏼About the WWL Program:
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🙌🏼It’s not a diet or lifestyle or reset or rigid plan. We provide a little structure but ultimately you choose what’s on your plate. The goal is to save you time, money and mental energy while eating homecooked food. NOT weight loss. 👉🏼We don’t even include calories or macros in the recipes.
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🗓Each meal plan we send covers 15/21 meals for the week. We leave meals open for you to move things around - also planning every meal for every day is miserable and unrealistic. So we don’t recommend it.
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✏️You can make your OWN custom meal plans and change the one we send out with our meal planning tools that work well on mobile, tablet and desktop.
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🍏A grocery list that you can change and email to yourself will automatically generate no matter how you change the meal plans making the process super fast and easy.
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👯‍♀️Lastly, we have an incredible private community for members that’s completely safe for those in eating disorder recovery. We just talk about meal prep and cooking, not dieting/restriction/weight loss etc. it’s pretty amazing!
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🔗Join today in my bio link! We offer a 7 day free trial and discounted long term memberships if you’re not into subscriptions.
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❓Got questions about this plan or the WWL Program? Drop them below!
Who here has been personally victimized by diet ad Who here has been personally victimized by diet ads in the last few weeks? 🙋‍♀️
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I've seen them on my feeds for intermittent fasting, keto, whole30 and more.
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Seeing these ads only adds fuel to the fire of wanting to overhaul everything in the new year, especially the way we eat and move.
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I'm here to tell you right now: there's absolutely nothing you *need* to fix about the way you eat and move right now.
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Overhauling doesn't work anyway. Too many changes at once lands you right back to where ou started in a few weeks or days.
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Instead, let's continue eating "normally" whatever that looks like for you. And if there's anything you want to adjust so you can feel better on the inside (feel more awake, feel more energized, feel more satisfied etc) do it in baby steps. Maybe that means actually eating breakfast in the morning. Maybe it means ending work 15 minutes early to get a satisfying dinner ready to go.
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Be realistic.
Be compassionate with yourself.
Lower the stakes.
Lower your expectations.
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I need to hear this advice too! I'm still struggling to get into a workout routine that feels doable. My sleep schedule is a mess. I have no idea how to relax properly. Luckily with meal prep, the way I eat is very consistent. 
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We already have enough stress on our plates with the new year and getting back into work and school. Eat the way you normally eat because we all have bigger fish to fry in 2021 than trying to arbitrarily shrink our bodies to meet today's insane beauty standards.
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