Normalizing After Camping

Hello Everyone! In my last post I said I was going to see if I maintained my weight while camping. Camping has interesting stressors for me. I am a vegetarian and I normally eat a high volume of vegetables. However, when I am camping, I crave high calorie, bad-for-you foods. Who doesn’t want a hot dog and s’more over the fire? Pudgie pies taste great! Peanut M&M’s are a family camping tradition. And chips – I like potato chips! Plus I enjoy drinking while camping.

Happily, I maintained my weight while camping! A bit of pre planning helped keep me on the correct path. First off, I packed 1.5 pounds of carrots to eat with some hummus. I also packed some random fruit, including apples, to help keep my fiber intake up. The fresh produce lasted me 2-3 days and it helped keep me full throughout those days. I also brought along a store bought, lettuce salad mix. My daughter and I had that the first night for dinner. It may not have felt like traditional camping, but I preferred being healthy over being nostalgic.

Vegetarian hot dogs are pretty good. I can get a package of five at Aldi. They are large hot dogs and only 100 calories a piece. However, I still brought along 110 calorie a piece buns. I could have foregone the bun, but I love hot dog buns and only eat them every so often, so each hot dog I had was 210 calories. I only packed one package, knowing I would be splitting them with my daughter. It was plenty as a treat during our six day camping trip.

S’mores? I skipped it. I also skipped the peanut M&M’s. (I’m no saint through. I took my Aunt up on an offer of a brownie and her in-the-family-famous crispy rice treat! But only one!) It was easy to skip the S’mores and peanut M&M’s because my father was camping with the group and he couldn’t have any garbage food that week. In solidarity, I skipped the candy bars and such that were being passed around.

I had pudgie pies one day for lunch. If you don’t know what pudgie pies are, they are a sandwich that you make over the fire out of two pieces of bread and whatever filling you want. Normally, people butter the outsides of the bread and stick the bread in the the pudgie pie griddle, with the filling in between the bread. I didn’t use butter. I brought along a non stick spray and sprayed the inside of the pudgie pie griddle and put dry bread and filling inside. They turned out great! I made a black bean and cheese one and a peach fruit one. Yes, I wanted to purchase a can of apple pie filling and use that for the fruit pudgie pie instead of a can of peaches, but the healthier option was the peaches. I knew I was going to be sharing these meals with my daughter and I didn’t want them to be outrageously high in calories.

Chips. I packed one bag of veggie straw chips. They were 140 calories a serving, with 7 servings in the bag. I was able to get the crunchy satisfaction I was looking for with slightly healthier ingredients. I also shared the bag. Only having 7 servings in the bag meant less that was available for me and my daughter.

Some of you may not drink and that is a bonus for you when it comes to calorie counting! However, I like to have a couple of drinks while camping and I usually like to have options. I’m not 100% sure what mood I am going to be in the night(s) I decide to have a couple, so I want a variety of drinks. But for this trip, I decided against packing a plethora of drinks. I knew I would be sharing an open bottle of wine with my cousin, so I brought two bottles of wine. We could drink a couple of drinks two of the nights we were there. And that was it. I made a decision to have a limited supply before I got into a party mood and this enabled me to enjoy what I had and not worry too much about the caloric repercussions.

I kept busy and active throughout the week. I did a lot of walking, a bit of swimming, I actually ran during a timed scavenger hunt (I NEVER run) and played some games. This helped combat the amazingly delicious crispy rice treat!

It was important to me to have some healthy options and to try and stick to some type of portion control. This was more important for my daughter than it was for me. When she thinks of camping, I want her to visualize the camp site, get excited about being outside, enjoy walking the dog(s) around the camp ground, have fun picking up sticks for the fire, look forward to the pool/swimming and any other amenities and games that will be happening during the trip. Yes, she is going to have certain meals or treats associated with camping, but my point is, she should not think only of food when camping comes to mind. I wanted to set a good example for her. At an early age, I want her to associate vacationing as an activity, not a buffet. Think this sounds weird? I live in the Midwest. People talk about food. A lot. I’m trying to break that cycle so that she does not have to make any corrections when it comes to eating as she gets older. I want her to have a healthy relationship with experiences and foods.

I can’t tell you what part of camping was my favorite because I loved so much of it! Swimming, walking, DJ Dance parties, train rides, scavenger hunts, planned activities, (we stayed at a resort camp ground) chilling with family, I don’t really know which was the best part, because my daughter loved all of it so much! But I can guarantee you that poor food choices were not even close to one of my favorite things about this trip, and I am so happy about that!

What do you like doing while camping? I love walking my dogs through the grounds and checking out every one else’s set up. I love doing it! Let me know below! Until next time, have a great one!!