I have been going on a pretty healthy lifestyle change this last week. Cut out all candy, soda etc and replaced it with LOTS of vegetables, whole grains, good carbohydrates and protein food and eating every 4 hours.. I have no problem doing this at home
However, In my job I traval a lot. And stay at hotels. So I was wondering how I can keep this up while I am living in a hotel? There is a grocery store very near to the hotel but I can't heat up things so my choices are a bit more limited than at home. I can buy whole wheat bread, various stuff to put on the bread, some vegetables and fruit...My goal is to get around 1200 calories a day. Any suggestions on how I can do this without eating crap?
Assuming you have a reasonable per diem, there are good choices to make eating out--the trick is to learn that it's ok to ask for things. So you can order oatmeal, no butter and fruit, no glaze, for breakfast. For lunch and dinner, the magic formula is "Grilled [protein] and can you steam the veggies without butter, please?" There are other fairly healthy things you can eat out as well--many soups are quite low calorie, for example, and salads can be very healthy if you are careful.
Also, there is probably a microwave somewhere you can use. Just ask the desk clerk. They love to help people when it's something that easy.
if you're on the run (between meetings and such) i find that slimfast and special k meal bars are pretty good (plus the shakes, if you can handle them). i usually grab them and a piece of fruit and eat it on the go...plus: no mess!
Always request a fridge. Also, there are many hotels that offer kitchenettes, I generally try to stay in those. Also, Chipotle has a nice salad offering (skip the dressing) that makes it an easy place for me to eat when I travel if there is one around.
You can also check out what restaurants are local to where you're staying and maybe check out their menus and nutritional info online before you go. Then you can choose what you're going to eat without even having to look at the menu.
Dude, eating healthy while traveling sucks! The one thing that's really important for me is sticking to my regular mealtimes. I always look for hotels with kitchenettes or refrigerators so that I can stock up on the foods I regularly eat, and I'm pretty good about ordering healthy if I'm eating out.
The thing that really throws me off is random snacking or extra meals - usually out of boredom if I'm driving or killing time in a hotel room. I tend to eat at pretty regular times normally, so by keeping myself on track with those, I prevent a lot of extra calories from late night munching or rest stop snacks.
wow, sooo many good advice. Thank you so much for the help everyone. Really apprecaite it. I'll definately have to try some of those things and maybe do a little bit of research about the hotel and city as well.
You can also ask the restaurants for nutritional information. It will be easier to make better choices if you have some knowledge of what certain foods will cost you caloricly (thats probably not a real word )
I used to travel every week for work and managed to lose 40lbs despite the fact that it's so much more challenging to lose weight when all of your meals are in restaurants, but it is possible!
As someone already mentioned, don't feel bad about asking for customizations or substitutions. It might be a little bit of a hassle but when you're eating out that much, you can't really afford to have your spinach soaked in butter or fatty sauces on everything.
Cutting down on portion sizes is key too. A lot of restaurant meals are huge, so one of my coworkers, who was also trying to lose weight, ended up splitting an entree with me most nights and then I would get a side salad (with dressing on the side to avoid the lettuce swimming in dressing phenomenon which could otherwise make your calorie-saving salad a calorie bomb!). Alternatively you could just get half of the portion packed up or just not eat it, but I know I have a tough time not picking at whatever is left on my plate.
I don't know what your job is like, but because we were entertaining clients a lot and just because of the culture, there was a lot of booze...all the time. Beware of the alcohol! I think there were some nights that I drank the equivalent of a freaking chocolate cake in terms of calories.
Most hotels have gyms, so I would try to find one that has a decent gym and then make time to work out first thing in the morning or between work and dinner if you can manage it. Even if I only burned 200 calories in the gym, I found that I generally ate better during the day because I didn't want the time I spent in the gym to be wasted by overeating later. It was very psychological, but it worked!
Can someone please help me?
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