I have been doing a lot more travelling than usual for my job, specifically going to our NYC home office.
I basically eat out from Monday at 6am until Friday after dinner. Does anyone have any survival tips for me? I'm going to try and track as best I can, but it can be a bit difficult since its not like we eat in chain restaurants while there so some of my usual restaurant practices won't work.
I know WW has some kind of restaurant guide, tho I've never seen it.
Breakfasts- eggs, yogurt, fruit, oatmeal without a bunch of trimmings are decent for points... things like cinnamon rolls screw with your whole day.
Lunch- sandwiches, wraps, broth-based soups, salads where you can control the toppings/dressings.
Dinner- Forget things that are fried or prepared in cream or oil, and that dang bread basket. Choose meats that are grilled or broiled & steamed veggies. I like the dinner salads that you can "beef up" by adding meat like shrimp, salmon, chicken or steak.
Water, water, water. It's best points-wise, but also flushes out the sodium that restaurant foods are notorious for being filled with.
Are meal decisions made last minute, like you're walking past a restaurant and decide to eat there or is it figured out earlier in the day? If you have time, see if they have a menu on their website so at least you can go in already knowing what you want and can prepare the rest of the day around it.
Carry little low point snack things, like a 2pt granola bar just in case you get hungry mid afternoon. That will hopefully help you from overindulging in hunger at dinner.
When my lunch and dinner are unpredictable, I definitely tend to go for a very low point breakfast: hard boiled egg, light yogurt & lots of fruit. Then I can go to later meals with a bit of a points buffer.
When I know I'm going to be eating out, and that the Points will be unpredictable I tend to keep one thing in mind. "Track it anyways!" I write it down (or in my case type it up in my Plan Manager) no matter what it is. I can't always figure out what exactly they use in their foods. Butter or oils are always questionable. Some sauces might include cream that I don't realize. Even grilled can have oils or something on it that I don't know about.
So what I do is I just write down what food it is and the volume. I use the old "hand rule" to gauge amounts. A fist for a cup. My palm for 3 ounces of meat.
What this does, even if my Points can't be accurate, is keep me accountable by type of food. If I see that I've already eaten a cup of potatoes for dinner one night, then I'm more likely to want to balance that out with something less starchy the next night. And so on and so forth.
Depending on the hotel you happen to be staying in, some of them have included breakfasts. They aren't always extensive, but they sometimes have yogurts, cottage cheese and fresh fruit which is a great start. If they have fruit, I'd gladly grab an extra apple to hold onto for a mid-morning or lunch snack.
If you can pack a low point snack in your checked luggage (like a box of granola bars or trail mix) those might come in handy during the week. Again, for part of breakfast or a snack.
When you're at a restaurant, don't be shy about asking how things are cooked or if you can have the sauce/dressing on the side for certain dishes. Remember the "cut in half" tip. A lot of Points can be saved merely by cutting the food in half on your plate before you eat it.
These are some great tips! I usually just hit up Starbucks for breakfast, so I'm going to find out the points for their breakfast foods so I'll know what to get. Thankfully they also sell some fresh fruit, so I tend to buy a bananna or something for the 11am hunger (so that the vending machine doesn't tempt me)
Often we just wander down towards the restaurants by the theatres, and go where looks good. I think maybe looking up some options for some different cuisines, so I know what to get if we go Italian, or Thai or Mexican, etc. Hopefully that'll help!
I'm also going to take the advice to have some granola bars or something on hand to help me not make bad decisions because I'm starving.
I might add that at breakfast don't be afraid to ask for egg beaters instead of the egg, get sliced tomato for hash browns and skip the toast.
Lunch always have dressing on the side or use oil and vinegar for your green salad. Broth based soup, steamed veggies, grilled meat, a wrap with no dressing (try mustard). The cut it in half rule is really great. One other thing I do if I know I am going to be staying in one place for awhile. I pack cut up celery and baby carrots and keep them in the frig in the room and each morning I fill a baggie and put it in my purse and munch on them all day. They keep me full, satisfy the urge to grab a bad snack and I tend to want less for lunch and dinner
These are a few I have done
Psychologically, I think I sometimes tend to think of eating out as "special" so it is OK to eat more than usual or have a "special" treat, etc. But, when you eat out all the time then it isn't special any more and can't be treated that way. I have to remember that.
20 years ago I was at goal and went of town for work for 2 weeks eating out all meals. I came back 5 pounds over goal and never got back to goal again. So I'm very sensitive to this issue.
A few things that have since then helped me:
1. Don't buy breakfast from room service or the hotel buffet or restaurant. I now often take cereal or cereal bars with me when I go out of town and just eat that in my room before I go out in the morning. That keeps me from getting off track early in the day.
2. I find that when I restaurant eat if I try to eat low carb I do much better on calories/points. For example, I had the meat lover's scramble at Denny's the other day. It comes with bacon, sausage, hash browns and pancakes. It is over 1000 calories. However, I changed the sausage to bacon (bacon is much lower calorie), didn't eat the hash browns at all, got the wheat pancakes and only ate 1/4 of them (no syrup). Doing that, I ended up with a 16 point meal and enjoyed it a lot.
I generally find that if I don't eat any potatoes, rice, or bread that comes with a meal (or severely limit it) that I end up much better for points.
3. Avoid sauces and eat food as plainly as possible. Makes it much easier to count.
Travel Tips
