jet lag diet

MamaPoRuski shared one last travel tip before leaving for Ukraine to bring her daughter home...

In 1998 we traveled to Hungary and Romania with a team from church to visit orphanages and schools. We received an article by Dan Baum from the Wall Street Journal about a diet to beat jet lag. Here are the basics:

1. Figure out the breakfast time at your destination on the day of arrival. Then starting four days before that hour, feast.


2. On feast days, eat a high protein breakfast and lunch and a high carbohydrate dinner. Protein wakes you up and carbs make you sleepy.


3. The following day fast, or eat as little as possible. Food should be low in carbs and calories and include light soups, salads, and fruit. Fasting depletes the liver's store of carbs.


4. The day before the flight, repeat the feast.


5. On all three days drink any caffeinated beverages between 3-5PM when their effect on your body is neutral.


6. On the day of the flight, fast again. If you travel west, drink caffeine only in the morning. If traveling east, drink them only between 6-11PM.


7. Sleep on the plane only until the breakfast time at your destination and no longer. Then get up and have a high protein breakfast. After breakfast stay awake. Drink water, avoid alcohol.

Now we don't follow steps one through three, but have done steps four through seven for all our international travels and have not had difficulty adjusting to the time change.
We did have trouble sleeping the night before our SDA appointment, but that was nerves!
When I went to Sweden in 1985 and 1987, it took two weeks each time to get over the jet lag! Coming back has never been hard for me, just the going over.
I am so glad we got this, simple but it works!