Travel for Work....

In addition to my "new found fear" of this surgery being totally different from my band....I need to add when asking for advice about my travel.

I travel more than 55% of my job. I leave home on a Sunday evening.....usually a 3-8 hour drive to wherever I'm assigned to work in NY State. Check into my hotel and that's my home for the next 5 days. I MAY have a microwave and I MAY have a fridge....I mostly demand both!

I teach classes all day and come back to hotel (with sometimes 3 others traveling with me) and we meet in the lobby no later than 6:30-7 to go to dinner. That's where my trouble starts....what do a order? I always pack up the leftovers and try and use them for lunch the next day but sometimes it wasn't a good choice for dinner so I may not want to repeat that mistake at lunch the next day. (like 1/2 burger, other sandwich etc)

I don't do well with protein shakes but do make my own when I'm home. I'm home now for the next week and will be gone again by the start of November.

Any advice on ordering in restaurants? I also shouldn't be drinking alcohol but I do.......(I'm just being honest)

Work travel is such a lifestyle killer :P My partner spent an entire year flying out to Phoenix M-F every week and gained something like 30 pounds. Of course, when he stopped, he could just "cut soda" and lost the weight in like 3 months. Jerk :P I used to remember thinking "Ugh, I wish I drank soda so that I could lose 30 pounds just by stopping."

Do you get to pick where you eat, or are you eating with people? Picking where you eat probably helps. I recommend that you take the time to plan where you're going to eat BEFORE you leave for your trip. That way you can scout out the menus and make good choices when you're not hungry. I find that most restaurants have a good protein forward appetizer or two and that an appetizer size protein thing will satisfy me. If you're planning for lunch the next day as well, take tupperware with you to dinner or ask for a take away container when your meal comes to portion things out. Most restaurants have a meat+veg option that works with our way of eating.

Even if you don't have a fridge, you can take your own cooler and fill it from the hotel's ice machine. Driving really helps with this since you have much more leeway in what you can pack!

When I travel, since I make my own protein shakes, I take my protein powder in small tupperwares (with each day's shake ingredients in a tupperware), a blender bottle, and individual cartons of unsweetened almond milk - I think they're 11 ounces? I put the carton for the next day in my cooler or fridge before I go to bed and then mix my shake for breakfast in the morning. It's super easy and my body is happier when I have a shake for breakfast.

I don't know what the big convenience stores are in NY (Erin P?) but where I live we have Wawa and I know what I can eat that they've got. Beef jerky, hard boiled eggs, cheese sticks, cheese and pepperoni cups... Since I know ahead of time what they've got, that makes it easier for me to make healthier choices.

And, yeah... lay off the alcohol. :) If you MUST, try to limit it to "one glass at the end of the week" instead of multiple servings during the week.

Which brings me to another challenging thing with travel - make sure you are hydrating!! And staying on top of your vitamins. Those things always get so out of whack for me with travel. Also try to do little things for fitness as you're able - even if it's just taking stairs and parking as far away from your building as possible. Fitness won't help with the weight loss, but it will help with your overall health which is important too.

I've been traveling a lot for work lately. I found a place that sells smoked meat and I put it in the fridge and packed my lunches with that. I brought along a set of silverware and I nabbed some plates from the continental breakfast.

I found that most hotel breakfasts have hard boiled eggs/scrambled eggs. They also have cream cheese and greek yogurt. Dinners I ate the smoked meat or I found a place with chili, which is generally about 200 calories per cup.

When eating out with others, order a protein and a veggie and ask the server to leave off the things that might be tempting.

My husband travels regularly and he always uses Google Maps to scout out the nearest grocery store and heads there for staples (in his case, yogurt, fruit, nuts, jerky, etc).

I am at the OH conference now, staying in the hotel. Yesterday I got scrambled eggs and cottage cheese from the buffet, which they charged me $5.50 for but said I could fill a small container. I ate about 1/3 of the eggs hot yesterday, and put them in the fridge mixed with the cottage cheese for today and tomorrow for breakfast. For lunch yesterday, I ate 1/2 of the meat and cheese inside a sandwich and saved the other half for today. For dinner the last two nights I have gotten a fish based appetizer. So a fridge has been a must, but it is pretty easy to figure out how to manage food.