Travel and vacationing don’t have to mean overindulging. They can actually mean improving your health and well-being! RealFoodTraveler.com’s Europe Editor, Irvina Lew, focuses on the United States in this article about a wonderful way to travel, stay, eat well, and enjoy a destination with Hilton Head Health in South Carolina. In the process, guests also learn and put into practice health-minded ways that last far beyond vacation time.

Save this article about Hilton Head Health to Pinterest to keep it handy. Graphic by Real Food Traveler.com. Photos right by H3. Photo left by irvina Lew.

The Hilton Head Health Experience

As a peripatetic traveler, I am always trying to balance the pleasures of food with a life-long journey to eat well. It’s not always easy, because the highlight of many — if not most — journeys is the opportunity to taste typical, authentic regional dishes, most of which are not known for their “healthfulness” ratings. My quest has long been to savor — or at least taste – lots of culinary delights, while trying to feel well and not gain too much weight. What follows are a few of the many informative details that I have learned from Hilton Head Health, one of my favorite wellness retreats. It’s one of the spas where I have developed skills that I use in my normal, at-home — mostly healthful — régime and some that help control the high-sugar, high-calorie exceptions — and temptations —that I encounter eating in restaurants.

I started appreciating spa life in the 1980s, primarily for the opportunity to find fresh, clean foods while traveling at a time when eating out sabotaged my best efforts. I had already been a lifetime member of WeightWatchers, since 1969, but the temptations on the road were staggering. Way back then, unless travelers paid careful attention and made really tough decisions, we mostly confronted fast, fried and over-processed foods in airports and at roadside places.

Healthy meals are part of the package at destination wellness resorts, and often the primary reason people choose to go to one. What’s most important is not what guests eat while there that matters, it’s what they learn that carries over to making healthy choices at home, in restaurants and while traveling. One spa that deals with that reality is H3, as Hilton Head Health is dubbed, where lectures about eating mindfully are part of the program.

This past June 2023, I returned to spend a few days at H3, an all-inclusive wellness getaway with wonderfully healthy food, 50-fitness classes a week and superb facilities and superior educational programs. Its Shipyard Plantation location on Hilton Head Island boasts moss-draped, oak-shaded paths for thermal walks and bike rides. The compact campus features a newly built 30-room hotel across from a palm-bedecked pool and a lovely, stand-alone spa, which offers a full menu of spa services. Nearby, there’s a beach for morning walks on the sand, golf and tennis facilities, plus available marine, and naturalist activities. It feels as much like a vacation resort as a wellness retreat.

An overhead view of Hilton Head Health fitness, pool, and main buildings. Photo courtesy H3.

H3 has evolved over the twenty years that I have been visiting and added more holistic body, mind, spirit programs to its original, single-minded dedication to weight loss. Among the newest options at H3, there’s a recently launched self-care program, ReNew, which helps promote life balance and stress management. My June 2023 ReNew experience started with a private, introductory session with Anne Poirier, Director of Behavioral Health. It focused on well-being and personal fulfillment. Subsequently, I participated in meditation, yoga, and beach walks, to reconnect with nature. The program has its own specialty lectures, which include focus on: Shifting Self-Talk, The Power of Words, Gratitude and Health and Rethinking Drinking.

Anne Poirer teaches mindful eating at H3. Photo by Irvina Lew.

On previous visits, I experienced a Living Well plan which — like the seven-day Jump Start package — is designed to inspire wellness. There’s also a Work Well package which incorporates “work hour” gaps throughout the day, so guests can plan for computer time, Zoom meetings, or conference calls. Guests with serious weight issues often opt for the more structured, small-group, counselor-led, four-week, Lose Well Program, and a fair number return to keep their efforts current.  Other guests are lured to theme weeks focused on Diabetes, Plant-based Eating, Yoga, Golf and for Couples.

Still, being me and primarily food focused, I chose to spend more time listening to nutritional lectures than to participating at yoga or meditation sessions. After all, it was the exceptional nutritional education program that attracted me to H3, originally. The program is staffed with inspiring wellness educators, especially Bob Wright, whose sessions I recall from my first visit in the early 2000s. The classes he teaches might well be part of a curriculum dubbed: Eat Well, Live Well 101. He introduces and explains a series of practical topics, such as Breaking Up with Sugar, Portion Control, and Restaurant Survival Strategies. He also answers questions and supplies take-home hand-outs, which I keep “handy,” though some basics are ingrained: “Always order sauces and dressings on the side!”

Stark health reminders are featured, such as these quotes on a cover page that I saved from 2018:

“Poor diet is now the #1 cause of death and disability in the United States, exceeding smoking by quite a considerable margin.”

 “Poor nutrition is now the single leading cause of poor health in the U. S.”

Bob Wright speaking at Hilton Head Health. Photo by Irvina Lew.

One recurrent leitmotif from Wright’s sessions addresses making food choices, which he identifies in three categories: “unwise, better, best.”  This simple take-home theme adapts into both daily life and to travel.

It’s commonplace for each of us to find ourselves in situations where we can’t always make the “best” choice, even when we want to do so. So, on certain occasions, we make an “unwise” one (according to health standards, if not our taste sensations). Those intermittent choices don’t prevent us from making “better” selections at the next meal, or on the next day. (When I am at my “best dietary behavior,” I prepare for indulgences by being restrictive earlier in the day or week.)

One memorable session that I attended in June was instructed by Registered Dietitian Elizabeth Huggins, MESS.RD.LD. CDCES, whose expertise includes the subject of diabetes. She spoke about Mindful Eating, and suggested the value of creating an ambiance to eat and to focus attention on the food, to its appearance, its aroma, and its textures. The dietician recommends a structure of eating in a timely way and addresses issues from eating slowly to being grateful for the food. She also acknowledged how distractions – like being on the phone or watching television — can take away the feeling of satiety.  In fact, sometimes the food is gone, and you may only remember the first bite or two.  Ms. Huggins remarked: “When the pleasure and satisfaction of an eating experience are minimized or lost altogether it is easy to feel like something is missing. For some these distractions make it harder to recognize when a comfortable level of fullness or satiety is achieved.”

Seeing her leading that session reminded me of an experience, together, in 2018, when I last visited H3. I had the opportunity to go to the supermarket alone with Liz (guests can make appointments for this experience). She pointed out some healthier options within the category of packaged foods, such as breads, cereals, milk, whole grains, nuts, and canned beans. And she introduced me to a valuable shopping application for my phone, FOODUCATE.com which rates items from A to D and recommends healthier alternatives. I took notes of some of the recommended brands at the time, and still buy some of them, including Horizon organic low-fat milk, Amy’s Black Bean burrito and fresh packaged veggies for slaw.

Hungry for more? Listen to Irvina’s podcast about eating well and staying healthy when traveling.

During each of my short stays, I adapt my daily schedule to what I love best: as many aqua-aerobic classes in the pool as possible, beach walks, and a couple of treatments at the Indigo Spa, where I loved the hot-towel Arnica massage! I always take advantage of chef-led, spa cooking classes in the demonstration kitchen because, they’re fun and I invariably learn something new.

Meals are delicious, wholesome, and prepared with real food, many organic and lots of local, regional ingredients. And portion-sized menu items meet the guidelines of the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and American Diabetes Association. (Dishes are designed to maximize each guest’s suggested calorie count, between 1200-1600 daily, and the menu clearly indicates calories for each item and whether it meets Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Vegetarian or Vegan preferences.) The menu emphasizes interesting multi-ethnic dishes. I particularly enjoyed dishes that I never have made at home, for example, a Thai Peanut Slaw prepared with a Thai Peanut Vinaigrette.

In real life, it’s hard to prep and cook such well-structured menus, but at Hilton Head, the create-your-own section on the menu offers build-a-meal options with recognizable “plain” American foods, including salmon, chicken, and filet mignon, items many guests prepare at home. Guests choose protein + sauce + starch + vegetables. For example, I ordered grilled salmon with a balsamic glaze, roasted fingerling potatoes, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, and haricots verts (green beans). At H3, the selection added to about 300 calories. It’s even an ideal way to order clean food in restaurants, while traveling, even if those portions are much larger. Because of portion control, at H3, avocado toast can be satisfying without breaking the calorie bank. (The serving is one poached egg on spinach, with sliced avocado and salsa served on one half piece of whole wheat toast.)

An example of meals served at Hilton Head Health. Photo courtesy H3.

In addition to three scheduled meals, there’s an entire buffet station adjacent to the dining room stocked with purposeful snacks, called Fit Bites, which are recommended twice a day. They are an example of To Go bags that folks could stock at home, in the car and certainly for the airport. Along with whole and cut fruit and veggies in small plastic grab and go containers, there were a variety of portion-controlled packages of healthy store-bought snacks: Oikos yogurt, Musselman’s natural applesauce, hummus, raisins, and dried fruit.

The True Dining Restaurant. Photo by H3.

Many guests drive to Hilton Head, though I’ve also flown via the incredibly welcoming and easy-to-navigate Savannah International Airport. H3 sends a driver to meet guests for the hour transfer to Hilton Head Island. My lodgings in the recently constructed, 30-room Sweetgrass Inn, which opened, in 2021, felt like a junior suite because there was a sitting and a sleeping area, including a mini-refrigerator and coffee maker and a generously sized bathroom with a closet hiding a washer and dryer. On past visits, I’ve always stayed, near the campus, in the neighboring condominium-style accommodations, which are attached units. Mine have always been house-sized, duplex, two bedroom, three bath units with a fully outfitted kitchen and dining area, living room and two porches, including one overlooking a waterway and a golf course.

If you are considering a vacation, consider a healthy one where you come back fitter, instead of fatter. For more information about Hilton Head South, visit their website, here.

-Story and photos where mentioned by Irvina Lew, Real Food Traveler’s Europe Editor

Hungry for more? Make Irvina’s recipe for Salade Nicoise.