(Road Warrior) Eating on the Road - When Traveling, airports, hotels.

Papatoad194

I know when I travel, this is my challenging time. Driving is even worse. Even though I have all my DVDs for exercise routines burned to avi and on my Kindle. Even though I know not to eat at the airport (Besides the outrageous cost of charging trade for your firstborn) ( A man I kind of like. He did grow into a awesome human being, besides the grey hairs, when he was 16) Airport food is crap-tastic IMHO. He's what I do

I carry an empty water bottle on my backpack. Which I can fill once I get past Security. If your worried about germs carry some cleaning or hand wipes. I also carry an apple and some cliff bars or other healthy bars that will get me through the day. If I have to eat, say I am flying all day. I make the best sit down choice I can.

Once at the hotel, I always get a room with a mini frig. I tend to shop at the nearest Grocery store for the good stuff. In my carry-on, I have packed a Light My Fire Meal Kit. This allows me to make healthy meals in my hotel. Weather that be soup, salad or easy boil packets. Its amazing what you can do with unlimited hot water and a coffee pot Not to mention, most fruits and vegetables will be good for a day or two in the room. On long hauls, say a week or two I will get a mini frig or visit the store daily.

Like anything, you cannot take off and hope for the best. Like the wise saying goes. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A little forethought and you will arrive well nourished and not having to adjust for the week and have that uncomfortable silence when you look in the bathroom mirror. Hit me up in PM if you have questions.

segacs

Some good tips here.

I also "road warrior" quite frequently for my job. Some of the things that work for me include:

• Order sparkling water when social occasions demand that you partake in a long evening of drinking with clients or business associates. Those alcohol calories add up. If you go up to the bar and order the round, nobody will know that yours is just water.
• On long trips, stay at a residence-style hotel with a kitchenette in your room. That gives you the option to buy some food at the local grocery store and cook your own meals, instead of having to eat restaurant food all the time.
• Pack some food to take on the plane. If flying internationally, stick to pre-packaged foods and remember that you can't take fruits, vegetables, most meats or dairy products through customs.
• At conferences with buffet meals, choose the protein wherever you can get it. Remove the filling from the sandwiches and eat it alone or on a bed of salad greens. Eat things like yogurt or eggs for breakfast, instead of muffins or pancakes.
• Use the fitness centre at your hotel if there is one. If not, run up and down the stairs a while.
• Go outside for walks at lunchtime. Business trips can be a depressing cycle of airport-hotel-conference room-hotel-airport. Get outside and take a 30-minute walk during the day, between meetings if need be. Some places will have interesting areas to explore. Other times, you'll feel a bit silly walking around the parking lot, but it still beats sitting still all day.

dawnmcneil10

I also like to stay in hotels where continental breakfast is offered. They almost always have greek yogurt and fruit available and you have instant snack on the go as well as single serve peanut butter, jam and cream cheese. These are items that can come in handy throughout the day.
I take a tour of the hotel when I get there, wander to every common section and always use the stairs, doesn't hurt to make multiple trips to the car.

When doing road trips I take a small cooler, pack frozen fruit in mason jars with yogurt, cheese sticks, chopped veggies and frozen bottles of water. All you need to do is check once in a while and add a little ice from time to time.

Airport travel can be tough, I grab lattes for snacks, gives you a hit of protein and easy to find inside the terminals. Most of the coffee shops now offer salads and fresh fruit as well so you don't HAVE to hit fast food you do have options just think outside the box.

Papatoad194

Thanks for sharing. I am a frequent traveler. So I tend to stay where the serve decent free breakfast as well. Awesome insight, Thanks Dawn & Segacs

sssgilber

Thanks for the hint on the Meal Kit. Now I want to take a trip!

TexanInFlorida

I'm also on the road quite a bit. And because I'm in sales I also eat lunch out a lot.

What has helped me more than anything else is pre-planning. If I'm going to a restaurant I make it a point to check the menu (almost every decent restaurant has its menu online) and cross check vs. MFP to see what my options are. If you know what you're ordering prior then it makes the game simpler.

Even the fast food places have some reasonable options if you're having to run through a drive through and keep driving. Breakfast can be tricky but just about every place has a version of the plain grilled chicken sandwich. Order it veggies only and you'll be fine. MFP has in its database what the calories are if you get it without the sauce or just the filet only.

Like the other posters suggested, if you can take food with you, that's a great option. Figure out how many meals you'll be having in advance and try to figure out the ones where you can bring your own food. Then plan out exactly what you want to eat.

segacs

TexanInFlorida wrote: »

Almost every decent restaurant has its menu online.

That's highly dependent on where you live. Maybe true in the United States. Not usually true for those of us outside the US.

Pre-planning and pre-logging works for me at home when I'm the one shopping and preparing my food. It's less useful to me on the road, during business trips, or even eating out in my home city.

That's why I think that it's so useful to develop some basic "winging it" skills, such as the ability to scan through an unfamiliar menu and order smart, the ability to eyeball or guesstimate portion size without the crutch of a food scale, or the ability to approach a conference buffet table and pick the right stuff up.

Using the scale at home and meticulously weighing and measuring is an educational exercise for me. The scale is like training wheels. The better I get at not needing it, the better chance I'll have of keeping the weight off in the long run.