how not to gain weight while traveling: expert tips
Submitted by David Hamm on Thursday, 2 April 2009No Comment
By Lisa Davis (Chicago Weight Loss Examiner)
Travel can wreak havoc on your weight. The motto, “I am on vacation,” can add several hundred, if not thousands of, calories to your diet and cause you to pack on the pounds. As a travel writer I can relate. Every night on the road is equivalent to a White House State Dinner, with wines, cheeses, and rich dishes that send you into gastronomy heaven, or hell, depending on how you look at it.
Here are some tried and true tips on how to keep the weight off while on the road, compiled from my own experiences, and from the experiences of well-seasoned road warriors.
- At the airport, take a 20-minute brisk walk soon after the cravings to munch on McDonald’s begin.
- If the airport has a Macaroni Grill, try their grilled chicken and vegetables dish with a balsamic sauce.
- Supposedly, if you can avoid a craving for 20 minutes, it will pass. Difficult to do when you are at the airport surrounded by sweets whispering (or shouting) your name. See if there is another place you hang out away from the food court. If not, allow yourself one small indulgence – pick wisely and savor slowly – then bury yourself in something distracting, a book or crossword puzzle. Another thought: Buy a simple tea or coffee to sip. You might find that often dulls cravings.
- Give the hotel chocolates, the ones they put on your pillow at night, to the taxi cab driver or bellman. They will love it.
- Pack sneakers and run on a beach or path or in a forest, or on the road near whatever hotel you are staying in. You won’t always like doing it, or rather, you don’t like the idea of getting up at 5 a.m. to stretch and then run, but once you get started, you will love it. Running is a great way to explore a new city. And if it’s a third world country and you are afraid to be alone, pay a bellboy, or someone like that, $10 to run with you.
- If the hotel places chocolates or cookies on your bed, smash them up and put water on them and then throw them away.
- On a cruise, or in a small hotel, make a promise with yourself never to take the elevator.
- Bring a pedometer and wear it everyday even if it’s not a very active day. It’s amazing how many, or how few, steps you take each day.
- Bring low-cal granola bars, dried fruit, nuts, and other snacks so you are not ravenous by dinner. If you are hungry and need a quick snack, search out a hotel bar where they have pieces of fruit at the bar for drinks. Often a bartender will give you some fruit for free.
- Try to find someone on the trip who will share meals so that you can split one entree into two; one appetizer into two.
- Decide that you will have either wine or dessert, but not both, or make a promise with yourself that you will either have no wine or no dessert the entire trip.
- Always bring a bathing suit so that you can swim in the hotel pool.
- In some hotels, you can ask for an electric kettle (sometimes for a minimal charge), or hot pot, utensils, etc. so that you can cook healthy food during any down time or mornings where you don’t have to meet up until after breakfast. In Vegas, for instance, they brought up a kettle, plates, and small fridge and charged a $10 rental for a five-night stay.
- Call the chef at the hotel and ask him or her what’s low cal, or what is really, really good but not bad for weight gain. Sometimes, they will offer to make something special like a fruit plate delivered to your room or to your table.
- Pack energy bars and dried fruit for breakfast and skip the buffet breakfast. Instead, use that time to work out, and then eat your food while your dress. Start taking instant oatmeal packages too. Just heat the water in your room’s coffee maker and mix with the oatmeal. Remember to bring a spoon from home, although you can make do with those stir-sticks that are packaged near the coffee maker.
- Drink lots of water during the day.
- Order fish whenever that is a choice for an entree, which seems increasingly common.
- If on a group trip, order a few desserts, then take one bite and pass it on.
- If the hotel does not have a workout room, or it costs a lot to use, walk or run up and down the stairwells. It is a killer workout. You can break up a session by going up and down the stairs, then getting off on your floor and walking back and forth, then doing another set of stair reps.
- Use your airport time to log miles. If you have to take a 6 a.m. flight and can’t get to the gym, start doing laps in the airport. (I know my walking pace is about 15 minutes/mile, so if I walk up and down the concourse for 30 minutes, I have logged two miles and burned 200 calories.) One tip if you walk the concourse: wear good walking shoes and a lightweight shirt, because you’ll get sweaty, especially if you’re rolling your luggage as you walk.
- Put down a bath towel and do Pilates moves in your hotel room.
- Enjoy pasta in
Italy – their portions are smaller, so it really is not such a calorie and carb killer there.- There is a famous quote from beautiful Sophia Loren who (supposedly) said of her lovely figure: “Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti.”
- Carry Luna Bars with you to keep your blood sugar stabilized throughout the day. You could also bring along trail mix.
- From an anonymous travel writer, “One on-the-road trick that is going to sound really disgusting: When I get in-room hotel food treats or gift, I take a bite or two and then flush the rest down the toilet. I can’t throw it in the waste-paper basket. It’s like cigarette butts (which I used to retrieve too when I smoked). I know the food is there and it beckons me. It’s impossible to give food away to maids in most places (in Mexico I was told that they are accused of stealing, even when it’s a gift) or to take it home with all the luggage weight limitations.”
- For a temporary lift, invest in some great Lycra/Spandex undergarments. One travel writers says she likes to be encased thigh to thyroid. “I also have a slimming corset-type thing that I take on press trips and to conferences to delude people into thinking I have a waist.”
Travel writers Margie Goldsmith, Kate Pocock, Edie Jarolim, Linda Tagliaferro, Ann Cochran, Melanie McManus, and Judy Kirkwood were some of the writers who contributed their expert ideas to this story.
