Traveling Healthy – Toronto (Part 1)

The challenge and fun of traveling healthy continues this summer via Toronto. Today’s post will be the first of a two part series chronicling how I strived to eat healthy and train on this awesome adventure with Morgan in Toronto. Next week in part 2 I will share our adventures finishing up in Toronto, Niagara Falls and finishing up in Erie, PA to visit my brother, Brian, and sister-in-law, Linda.

Morgan and I chose this summer vacation destination for a couple reasons. The last several years we spent on the west coast visiting Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Eugene, San Diego and Mexico so we thought we would change it up by hitting the northeast. This would also allow us to visit Brian and Linda who are also joining us at Niagara Falls so it made for a really nice mix of adventures.

Going into the trip I considered a few things about traveling healthy. From a food perspective, I searched Toronto and found they had several Whole Foods locations and one within four miles of our hotel. That made planning much easier as I knew once we got there we could gather what we needed to fuel us around meals and workouts. I also would have Morgan with me who ALWAYS scores when searching for super healthy and tasty places to eat.

For the first time on a trip I packed nothing to eat…woah. We had an early morning flight from Tampa connecting through Baltimore, an airport I had visited numerous times for work over the last 20 years. I knew we would have a couple healthy options for breakfast. We both had fruit smoothies at Jamba Juice that would hold us over until we landed in Buffalo right before lunch.

After we arrived in Buffalo Morgan found a quaint restaurant, Amy’s Place, that offered plant-based options for breakfast and lunch. I had a huge plate including lentils, french toast, seitan, and home fries.

We ventured to Toronto on a 90 minute car ride, checked-in to the hotel, and went to Whole Foods to pick up initial supplies for the week. I immediately had one of the apples and a kombucha for an afternoon snack.

We got organized in the hotel and then set out for our evening downtown including a Ghost Tour. Before that Morgan did her magic finding a fantastic vegan restaurant, Fresh on Spadina. I dropped Morgan off at the restaurant as I tried to find parking during a lively downtown Sunday evening scene. As I found myself a bit tight on time I called Morgan as I was walking back to the restaurant and she found something for me to try. It was a buffalo wrap with chick’n and we started with an enormous nacho platter. The food was fantastic and I was full. Thank goodness we had the 90 minute ghost tour ahead to walk off dinner.

With the early morning flight, long travel day and night on the town I was in for a good night sleep to recover for Monday. Monday would serve as my off day of training for the week so I was able to get caught up on coaching duties and writing early. I was so full from the meal Sunday evening it allowed me to fast until lunch.

Morgan found another gem for lunch Monday. We dined at Grasshopper Cafe where I had a super healthy breakfast full of roasted sweet potato, roasted potato, avocado, tofu scramble and cherry tomatoes, all drizzled with aioli and served on a bed of genmai rice. We shared a side of mac & cheese. It was a two mile walk round trip so our fitness got off to a good start.

From there we enjoyed a 3 1/2 hour bicycle tour of downtown Toronto. We had a friendly host who provided great education and history. After the bicycle ride we walked over a mile to dinner. Morgan found Hogtown Vegan where we enjoyed sharing another mac & cheese offering and I had a pulled unPork sandwich.

On the walk back to the car Morgan located a vegan bakery, Bunner’s Bake Shop, where we both decided to try their vanilla oat milk ice cream and I threw in a brownie bite on top of mine. It was fantastic and a great way to end the evening.

But before I ended the night I had one last task to do. I made a pact with Elia before we left on vacation to hold me accountable for doing 30 straight days of core exercises so on the hotel floor I went. Much needed after all of the indulging on this vacation day. Thank goodness we got a good amount of walking and cycling in.

I do feel better just thinking about my 10 mile run along Lake Ontario in the morning. We ended our second day of vacation content with a good balance of exercise and eating  fantastic plant-based cuisine.

I look forward to posting part 2 next Monday. There I will recap our final days in Toronto, our visit to Niagara Falls, and time in Erie.

– Add Health to Your Life