I travel a lot for my job. I miss my family terribly when I am gone, but over the years I have had the opportunities to see some wonderful places in my travels. A key element of business travel is eating. The day usually starts at either the breakfast buffet with an omelet and bacon or a McDonald’s drive through. Then mid day, we either eat out or have sandwiches/pizza ordered in, and ordered in lunch always includes cookies or brownies. Dinner is generally a nice long meal at a restaurant or room service.
Since Sunday, I have been on business travel, staying in a required hotel that did not have refrigerators in the rooms. Adding to my challenge, we had to be in a cold, dark conference room from 8am-6pm daily. We then returned to our hotel to drop our laptops off and then we headed out to group dinners for 50-70 people at designated restaurants until 10pm. No significant time allocated to workouts or personal time that would be enough to run to the grocery to purchase healthy options.
This week, I had to do what I could to make healthy choices among very unhealthy options. For breakfast, I stuck with fruit and soy milk (offered at my hotel). For lunch, they ordered salad for me, along with the other meals. Generally, the salad was not enough. One day, I took turkey off a sandwich and ate it. Unfortunately days 2 and 3 were pasta and pizza. Day two I had a salad, and a very small amount of pasta (5 bites, just enough to fill me up) and on day 3, I had one piece of pizza. Thankfully, on day 4 we went out to lunch to a Mediterranean restaurant, so I had good options. Dinners were very tough: a Brazilian steakhouse, Tex-Mex, and Italian. I was able to resist appetizers on night 1, but nights 2 and 3, I was so hungry that I couldn’t. The positive is that I made good choices for entrees and used good judgement in terms of portion control. I resisted dessert every night. Also, I didn’t drink anything except soy milk (morning), water, 1 Miller lite (I really needed a drink, but I just had 1) and caffeine free tea, all week.
So I will no longer hold the title of ‘Appetizer Queen’ (I usually order a lot of them), I will not select lasagna at Italian restaurants (it looked so good, but I opted for the broiled chicken – not as good), and I will not eat bread or desserts in restaurants at dinner.
The positive result of my travels was that my weight increased less than 1/2lb, going from 145.9 to 146.3, so I have still lost several lbs since the start of the program. So I think that the program helped me to make the most healthy choices available to me while I traveled. Here are some travel suggestions that I have to help you make your future trips more healthy:
- Stay at a suites hotel that has a refrigerator in the room. There are many options and are not usually more expensive than regular hotels. This will allow you to go to the store and buy good breakfast options. Some even have blenders and you could make a smoothie. This would also allow you easier access to healthy snacks.
- Bring small snacks such as cut carrots on the airplane. This will help you resist the in flight Snack Box or airport temptations such as candy.
- Bring some tea bags with you. I like the Tazo Passion tea. That way when you need a treat you can make your own if the caffeine free option if it is not available. You can make the tea and then make it into ice tea if that is what you prefer.
- Carry fruit & nuts. I picked up a banana at the breakfast buffet each day. It really helped me when the candy cravings kicked in mid afternoon. Nuts aren’t on the challenge, but are very filling, so in a pinch they can help ward off cravings.
- Tell people you are eating healthy. I mentioned it to the meeting planner just before the trip, and while she ordered really bad for you meals for lunch, she always made sure there was a salad option.
- Schedule meetings to start at 9am. If you have any choice, push for 9am. That way you can have 30 minutes for a workout in the morning, before you start the day. Otherwise, it may not happen. I carried my running shoes and several workout outfits all the way to Houston for no reason, because we started at 8am every day I just had enough time to get up, get prettied up (which for me takes 45 min-60), address a few emails, and get to my meeting on time, but not enough time (given that I was getting in at 10pm) add in a workout.
I am going to stick on the Healthy Eating Challenge phase 2 for a while. I am going to add almonds and maybe an egg if I need it, but otherwise I am staying off carbs, bread, pasta, processed sugars, candy, etc. I am also going to really try to exercise. I need to add it in and this weekend is a good time. I still haven’t had soda and I am really not going back this time. Not having Diet Coke, is the hardest element of this challenge for me. Really. I see someone drinking one and I want to grab it out of their hands and drink it. At my meeting I was noticing that not one of the people drinking diet coke was actually skinny or trim. Interesting. The people who looked the healthiest to me were drinking water, juice, or tea. I have been sleeping well, because I have been eating better and working a lot. I hope this continues. It is great to be off sleeping aids entirely.
It was wonderful to be home to my family. My daughter’s hug makes my heart melt. I am so blessed to have her as my inspiration for longevity. I look forward to my veggie soup this weekend and getting back on track with the challenge. I see positive changes and I want to keep it up. Maybe I will even take time to cook some of the recipes. I am sure that the soup that I made will get old after a while, so I need to diversify. One step at a time. Until tomorrow, may your will be strong and your heart be happy.
cammosley 
Great entry Carrie Anne- I too am pretty much staying on Phase 2 with a couple exceptions…can you eat lentils? Because the lentil soup is really good, really easy, really filling. If you can add tomatoes and chicken to you edibles, there are tons of healthy crock pot dishes out there. Yeah!!!
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I love lentil soup. Great idea. That will be the next one I take on. I do have a crock pot. I will look into some healthy ideas and post them.