Meal prep on the road means replicating what you eat at home as closely as possible — prepping meals before you go, tracking your macros, and building simple recipes like my rotisserie chicken salad so a week of boat lunches never knocks you off your plan. Two listeners asked nearly the same question this week: how do you eat healthy on the boat, and how do you eat healthy traveling? In this Physical Friday I share my whole system, including the recipe.
Watch now: press play in the player above and follow along.
Get as close to your home routine as possible. That is the entire principle. I prefer driving over flying because I can bring a cooler, my blender, and everything for my morning shake. For a two or three day trip, prep every meal before you leave. Past about five days you will need to buy food, so have a go-to recipe you can make anywhere — that is where my rotisserie chicken salad comes in.
The Carbon app was created by Layne Norton — BioLayne on Instagram, and a past guest on this podcast. It makes tracking your macros simple: scan barcodes, weigh and enter food, and it tells you your daily targets for protein, carbs, fat, and calories. When I am logging everything, my diet stays clean, and the result was losing 12 pounds without trying very hard. My problem is not eating the wrong stuff — it is eating too much of the right stuff, and tracking fixes that.
Macros are your macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates, and fat, plus your total calories for the day. For eight or ten years I followed the Zone, which is 40-30-30 — 40 percent of calories from carbs, 30 from fat, 30 from protein. Very balanced, nothing extreme. You can eat basically anything you want as long as the macros stay in check, and an app makes keeping them in check easy.
Buy one or two hot rotisserie chickens from Publix, Whole Foods, or any grocery store. Pull the meat off the bone while the chicken is still hot — it comes off much easier — and remove the skin. Chop to whatever consistency you like, then mix in avocado oil mayonnaise (I use the Mark Sisson product), celery, walnuts or pecans, and some grapes. Bag it, weigh out your portion each day, and you have a week of lunches.
Weigh everything. If you need six ounces of protein at lunch, weigh out six ounces of chicken salad — the mayo and nuts carry your fat and the grapes add a little carbohydrate. Then choose your wrapper by your carb budget: a low carb wrap, regular tortilla, the bread you like, a lettuce wrap, or just eat it with a fork. Homemade beats store-bought chicken salad because store versions are loaded with mayonnaise and blow up your fat numbers.
I do not mind eating the same thing every day as long as it hits my macros, but variety is easy. Pre-cooked hard boiled eggs from the grocery store, fruit, and nuts make a complete boat day. Meal prep delivery services work well for a lot of people too. The point is having a plan you do not have to think about, so restaurant food and snacks never make the decision for you.
This is the exact recipe from the episode. If I think it is easy to make, you are going to think it is easy to make.
One batch covers a week at Hawks Cay or anywhere else I am fishing. Backup plan: pre-cooked hard boiled eggs, fruit, and nuts. The full walkthrough is in the episode above.
When I drive, I take a cooler, my blender, and everything else that keeps my day normal — I can make my morning shake and stay close to my home routine. One backpack on an airplane cannot do that. The closer you stay to what you do at home, the better you eat, the better you sleep, and the better you perform on the trip. That principle drives everything in this episode, and I lay it out in the player above.
I eat a lot of the right stuff — I just eat too much of it. Unless I am weighing, measuring, and logging, I drift. Tracking macros in the Carbon app fixed that: it set my targets, I logged my food, and 12 pounds came off without much struggle. Layne Norton built the app, and he has been on this podcast. Whether you use Carbon or another tracker, the logging is the magic. More in the episode above.
For a short trip, prep every meal before you leave and you know exactly what you are eating for three days. Driving, you can stretch that to about five days of packed food. After that you are shopping on the road, which is why a dead simple recipe matters — you can make my chicken salad in any hotel or rental kitchen with one grocery stop. I explain the whole system in the episode above.
When I fish Hawks Cay all week, I need a lunch every day, and I genuinely do not mind eating the same thing as long as it hits my macros. Four or five ounces of protein, a carbohydrate, a fat — decided once, executed daily. That removes the decision fatigue that pushes people into gas station food. If you need variety, hard boiled eggs, fruit, and nuts rotate in easily. Press play above for the details.
Eating healthy on the road or on the boat starts with meal prep, and if you cannot get the prep done before you leave, you can do it on the road with one grocery stop. Replicate home as closely as you can and the trip stops being an excuse.
You guys are great about texting me your recipes, episode ideas, and feedback — keep it coming at (305) 930-7346. If you have a better road recipe than my chicken salad, I want it. Press play above for the full episode.
Carbon app · Layne Norton (BioLayne) · macros · the Zone diet (40-30-30) · rotisserie chicken · avocado oil mayonnaise · Mark Sisson · Publix · Whole Foods · Hawks Cay · hard boiled eggs · meal prep services · Physical Friday
Physical Friday is my weekly fitness series for fishing guides, anglers, hunters, and outdoorsmen — the training, nutrition, and mindset to stay in the game for life. Watch and listen to every Physical Friday episode from Tom Rowland.
I'm Tom Rowland, a professional fishing guide based in the Florida Keys, host of the Tom Rowland Podcast, and the longtime host of the Saltwater Experience television show. On the podcast's Physical Friday series I share the training, nutrition, and mindset that keep fishing guides, anglers, hunters, and outdoorsmen strong for life — short, practical episodes you can put to work in your next workout.
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