Healthy Across America Road Trip. Kearney, Nebraska to Omaha, Nebraska

Woke up this morning with an indescribable urge to workout. Good thing there was a fitness room across the hallway with some decent equipment. Excuses for not fitting a workout it when traveling are a thing of the past, so I threw on some sweatpants, ate a piece of my Greens-plus protein bar, and meandered over. Since I only had 30 minutes to spare, I had to be efficient. Here is what I did:

• 10 minutes on the cross trainer (gets all the big muscle groups working the fastest)
• 50 jumping jacks
• 20 lunges with 10lb weight
• 20 squats
• 30 second plank pose
• 50 more jumping jacks
• repeat 3 times followed by some much needed stretching

Sporting my much-needed endorphin-high, I head to the lobby to meet Abra where we would have our free hotel breakfast, and be on our way. I walk in to find her questioning the omelet server about the contents of the large bowl next to him which resembled a yellow, runny paste of some sort, while next to him sat a bowl of actual EGGS! We’ll take those instead please! He made us both a veggie omelet with spinach, onions, and mushrooms while we passed on the well-formed chocolate muffins (cupcakes), fake brown bread, and cinnamon toast crunch. Thank goodness our breakfast was free, as it would give us more leeway later.

Later we headed to a place called Barista’s Daily Grind. Most of you know, I love to start the day with a delicious cup of organic half-caf coffee and the old-man brew over at the Ramada just wasn’t cutting it. We walked in to find a dog (and people)-friendly staff blending up some mean coffee drinks. Being near the University of Nebraska, the atmosphere was contemporary and the staff, very knowledgeable about food! They had some great restaurant ideas for our 6 hour voyage across the state. Who knew all these pet-friendly eating establishments would also be healthy?

Tip of the day: want to find a healthy restaurant in your area..head over to BringFido.com. 😉 They told us about a place called The Grey Plume in Omaha where we would later spend our daily budget.

Okay, it’s later!!! So here we are, 4 hours later in Omaha, Nebraska! Talk about a farm-to-table experience. The impressionable 25 year-old chef of The Grey Plume, Clayton Chapman, is up for Food & Wine’s best new chef award with his enormous following of earth-friendly, real-food-lovers like us.

Their philosophy, “seasonally driven, contemporary cuisine from locally grown produce and livestock. The life-cycle of food, begins even before the seed, and should always end with an emotional connection.” Based on our experience, Abra and I can attest they have achieved their mission. The restaurant itself has been named the greenest restaurant in America by the Green Restaurant Association.

We started with a locally raised Wagyu Shortrib and buttermilk gnocchi, and Potato watercress soup with truffle and rhubarb. Then we split an entree of Majinola Farms Wagyu beef, we choose the “butchers cut” (least expensive) it was so tender we cut it with a butter knife.

Best of all, it went perfectly with a glass of Malbec. Was this considered a splurge? Absolutely, and we felt great about it! Not because of the amount of calories we burned that day, or because anyone starved themselves to prepare for a ritzy dinner, but because this nourishing experience was 4 fold: Real food, real surroundings, great company, and utter succulence.

Food costs? Well, we could have used our lifeline, but we actually weren’t too far off with our estimated overage of $17.55 . (thank God for our free breakfast this morning) So technically we’re not doing too bad and will definitely be able to make up that overage somewhere… Note to all you #itstooexpensivetoeathealthy Twitter people: You’re running out of excuses!