Traveling....

....is hard. It's hard for several reasons. It's hard on my body, physically. I don't travel well. It's hard on my stomach. And finally, it's hard on my mind. But it's been getting better.

Let me explain a little bit more.

1). Traveling is hard on my body.

My body is stable within pretty narrow conditions. Changing climate, altitude, pressure, temperature, food type or daily activity typically causes any combination of the following: nausea, headaches, sinus pressure, exhaustion, allergies, grouchiness (this counts, right?) aka. mood swings, and decreased appetite.

I am Figure 2.

Often times, when I would return home from college for a break I would get sick almost immediately at home, or if it were a weekend visit, upon my return to school. Even though it was a mere 4-5 hours between college and home, it was still a bit too much for my immune system.

Car trips seem especially hard, although long flights are also difficult. Emmy, my pup, feels the same way. While our other two dogs tend to fall asleep on long car trips, Emmy gets wary/anxious and will stay awake. Although I don't always stay awake, I share her wariness and anxiety.

Freya, unlike me, is particularly happy in cars.

Food on long car trips:

Because of my inability to stabilize my body during long trips, I tend to try not to eat too much before or during the trip. My stomach doesn't do well anyways in the car (unless I'm sleeping), so I try not to make it worse when I'm driving.

Sometimes I will bring crackers or a Quest bar if it's a particularly long trip, but often times Ryan and I will just wait to eat until we arrive at our destination.


2). Traveling is hard on my stomach

I stated this in the last section where by "traveling" I meant the act of traveling (the actual driving/flying etc), but traveling in the generic sense of "staying somewhere else" is also very hard on my stomach. As you know by now, I'm a creature of habit. I like eating similar food, although I have a good repertoire, but traveling often puts a wrench in that.

When you go to someone's house as a guest, you are socially expected to eat whatever they prepare. There is the assumption that they, being the gracious host/hostess, have prepared a meal for you, in a polite gesture back to them, you eat what they serve. This is typical of most cultures -- not just ours.

I have the good fortune of visiting family that makes sure that they have at least some things prepared that I will eat. Because I don't eat any red meat or fish this often means they make some sort of chicken.

Some of the delicious, yet different, food I had this weekend.

Regardless, however, of their consideration, often the food is very different from the food I normally eat. As you may suspect, this tends to leave me feeling quite sick, even though what I consume at the time is delicious.

This is nobody's fault of course, except maybe mine for not trying tons of different food. I like what I like and stick to foods that don't affect my body in negative ways -- but when offered food that I know someone has gone out of their way to prepare for me, it's quite hard to explain that even though it may be in the same food group as food I tend to eat, it will still leave me feeling sick, simply because of how differently it is prepared.

3). Traveling is hard on my mind.

This has to do with the ED side of my mind more than anything else. I don't know how many calories I'm eating. I do know that it's a lot more and that I'm not exercising enough. I don't have the safety of my routine. So my head likes to worry. How many days can I do this before I start gaining weight? How much is polite to eat but not so much that I have to spend the next week making up for it?

These questions are a lot easier now than they used to be. I used to never want to travel for fear I couldn't know exactly what was in my food and how many calories I consumed. It's getting better...slowly. But that doesn't mean its not still a battle. It may always be one. But at least I feel like I'm winning now :-).