Lucas
It’s 3 o’clock in the morning. The alarm clock is ringing in your phone. You wake up. In 3 hours you should be on a plane heading to your destination. You know this situation, don’t you? Because it’s quite early in the morning, your stomach is not demanding any food. So the question appears – should I skip my breakfast? Yeah, that’s really a headache. Answering the question “what to eat before a flight?” is not so easy. I will share with you my experience based on numerous trials. I will tell you what works for me and what not. But remember, this what works for me is not necessarily good for you.
Morning flights
Since a few years, I’m traveling regularly due to my profession. At least once a month, I need to get up really early, about 3 o’clock to catch the plane at around 6 am. This is tough especially in winter – you get up and it’s dark for the next 5 hours. Summer is better – the sun helps you to wake up and sometimes when the weather is ok it’s even nice 🙂
Now I’m going to tell you what kind of activities are good ideas if you have an early flight. I tried all of the different approaches before I found the answer to the question of “what to eat before a flight?” which fits me best.
Eat your breakfast
eat something up to one hour after you wake up. Tim Ferris, author of 4-hour body book says that it’s crucial to eat 30 grams of proteins shortly after you wake up. If you cancel your breakfast you will be tired and hungry. With high probability, it will be difficult to find anything valuable to eat on a plane or even after landing (besides that it will be for sure expensive). Don’t rely on luck or chance that you will get some good food – it will not happen. Instead of this thing what you are going to eat, buy it in advance, pack it (actually packing is kind of martial arts – if you want to master it, take a quick look at my tutorial on how to pack for a business trip).
Reduce carbohydrates…
Yep, that’s like a megatrend now – all recent books on diet and weight reduction implicate carbohydrates as the root cause of obesity and abnormal metabolism. But there are also surveys which provide arguments that actually carbohydrates play a positive role in energy metabolism, water balance and are a host of other functions in the body.
I think here comes the human factor. Our bodies construction is not the same, therefore for some of us, carbohydrates will work fine, for others – completely no, no.
I’m from the second basket. It’s not a big surprise – I’m diabetic (just on diet and oral medications, no insulin injections) so carbohydrates cause in my case inflation of sugar in my blood. In effect, I feel like, you know…
… and increase proteins
Our body: muscles, organs, tissues are all made from proteins. Proteins found in food are called bodybuilders as they develop, grow and keep all the organism function properly. You can find plenty of studies on the internet showing that eating a high-protein diet has a number of health benefits. Proteins stabilize blood sugar levels (that’s perfect for me – I’m diabetic), improve learning abilities and concentration. And last but not least advantage for proteins – you can find it in many products like meat, youghurts, cheese, sausages, eggs, almonds and many others.
What to eat before a flight?
As I wrote above: eat your breakfast and reduce carbohydrates and increase proteins – right, but what’s behind? What is the answer to the question of what to eat before a flight? Again, I will tell you what I do and you can decide if it fits your organism – as I said, not everything works for each of us.
- Following Tim Ferris advice, I eat ~30 grams of proteins up to 30 minutes after I wake up. I pick my morning menu from eggs (scrambled eggs), chicken ham or white cheese (typical cheese in my side of Europe but difficult or impossible to find in other parts of the world – sorry 😉
- Coffe – in my case, definitely yes. Uncreamed would is great but I’m also good with a cappuccino – it makes my day 🙂
this is what I eat and drink at home. But my strategy is to be on the safe side in case of hunger attacks me unaware. That’s why I always take some handy snacks with me to have some emergency food in a plane. I just want to resist of plane food. That’s why, since a few months I always take:
- Almonds – that’s my discovery. I know it’s like discovering America again but this helps me a lot. It has lot’s of proteins, it cancels hunger, it feeds you with vitamins and does not increase the sugar level in blood. But I always need to be careful with it. Almonds – it’s not a popcorn, it has a lot of fat so I always keep it in mind.
Final word
Three simple things which work for me perfect – proteins just after waking up, coffee and almonds as a handy snack. I think 80% of the value from this post is given in the previous sentence. You can say – hey, that’s it? What can I say? I was trying to be efficient in short form 🙂
I hope, that this what I wrote above will be valuable for you. If so, please share with your travel mates.
Featured image source: pixabay.com