Traveling and Weight Watchers...how do you do it?
 

Ok....so I have a very active travel schedule for my job, and it puts me on the road for weeks at a time. My problem is this: our corporate travel department has a deal for full service Marriotts, so I'm never able to stay in hotels with kitchens built into the rooms. And they won't bend the policy. Which leaves me trying to figure out how to stay inside my Points Plus target without being able to prepare my own food.

Any advice on this? I really would like to avoid eating out on the road, but I don't know if that's going to be possible. Any helpful tips would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

I used to travel every week for work and had to eat out for every meal, which made weight loss tricky, but it is possible! I didn't do weight watchers, but I can offer some general advice.

My best suggestion is not to feel guilty about asking for customizations and substitutions when you are eating out. Some people are reluctant to do this, but when every meal is out, you have to suck it up. I would sub any starches for a side of vegetables or a side salad, get dressing on the side for salads, ask that veggies not be cooked in butter/oil, avoid the bread basket, and cut down on the alcohol. I don't know what your company is like, but between happy hours and team dinners, we drank a lot of calories!

Most of our hotels also had a fruit basket in the lounge or breakfast room, so I also took a few pieces of fruit every day and then would use those as my snacks.

Exercise is also critical. Luckily most hotels have gyms, so you just have to make a habit of using it. I would often try to go in the morning just to make sure I got my exercise in for the day, but going before dinner worked too.

good luck!

Thanks, Cheryl! I really appreciate the substitution advice. I've never really done that at dinners, but I'll definitely put your insight to good use. It sounds to me like our traveling experience was similar. I've gained all of the weight over the six years I've had my current high-travel job, and I know a lot of it came with the dinners/drinks that went along with networking. Me coming to town was always an occasion for them to go out and stretch the legs on their expense account, and that in turn helped to stretch my waistline. Ha.

Thanks again for the response. I think it will be a big help. :)

For breakfast, everywhere has oatmeal. You can order it plain and sweeten it with equal.

For lunch and dinners, it's really about learning to see whole new sections of the menu. Most of us deal with the huge variety of choices available in daily life by shutting out 90% of them. Before I changed my life, I only saw about three things on the menu--the three things I tended to rotate through. I struggled to find ways to make those things healthy. The solution, it turned out, was to try ordering totally new things.

Some tips for eating out:

Certain things have highly erratic calorie counts: for example, the temp at which fries are cooked can result in twice as much fat being absorbed, and you literally can't tell the difference by taste. Cream sauces and dressings are the same way: an extra tablspon of dressing on a salad adds over 100 calories, and you have no way of knowing how much they really put on. So I avoid anything deep fat fried and any sort of dressing or sauce.

Plain grilled meats with steamed, plain veggies are good, and everywhere will make these even if they aren't on the menu (i.e., if they have grilled-chicken-with-cheese-and-sauce, they can make it plain).

Soups--broth based or non-starchy vegetable--are very, very low calorie.

It's also a good idea to look up menus on line before you go and make your choices. Menus are pure pornography, designed to make you lust for food. The best way to win is not to play.

I would get the new dining out companion book from WW.There are plenty of restaurants in there for making better point wise choices.In restaurants I would stick with meat/veggies and plain tea w splenda..light beer if you have to drink or small amounts of wine...Is it possible to have a small cooler in the room? You could buy deli meats and cheese to make a sandwich.they even have hard boiled eggs already cooked..will you be near a Boston Market? You can eat 1/4 rotessirie chicken and steamed broccoli..Chinese food?..have steamed beef and broccoli w garlic sauce.

Thanks, Shmead and Cute....very useful. I'll get the WW dining guide and try to stick to grilled meats, unloaded salads and steamed veggies.