I am a 27, 5'9" and weigh about 215 lbs, I want to get my weight down a little bit. I'm a traveling actor, I am on the road in hotels that sometime don't offer fridges or even microwaves so I am constantly having to eat out. Any suggestions on how to change my diet a little bit. I've been starting to order more soups, salads and will order just water or tea at restaurants. I also have a yoga mat but haven't been consistent in doing that everyday. Work out options are limited and that is the only option I found while in a hotel without a fitness center and when its too cold in Minnesota to get outside. Anyone else travel a lot and in the same boat? What do you do? Thanks!
i don't travel much but if you ever get the chance to be at home or a place with a kitchen, why not cook some stuff that'll last for a few days and take it on the road with you? that way at least for a week you'll be eating healthy. or you could freeze food if you have a travel bus with a fridge.
Not sure how you are traveling but if it is by car have you considered picking up a cooler and stocking it with healthy food you like? Most hotels have ice machines so it should be easy to keep things cool. You can then have fresh fruit, some vegetables, luncheon meat, buns, etc. in the cooler. It is one more thing to haul around though. If you have to eat in a restaurant, see if there is a Subway as they offer healthy subs, salads are always good, and don't forget to reward yourself once a week if you've stayed on track. One of the biggest tips I can give you is track\record everything you eat and calorie content if you can. There are apps for that for iPhone and other devices that make it simple. As for exercise, how about finding a mall to walk around in if it is cold outside? Or you could use the stairwell of the hotel to work out, up two floors, down one floor, etc. Sit-ups and push-ups can be done pretty much any where.
It's actually fairly easy to maintain a healthy (weight loss-oriented) diet while being on the road, but you have to have the discipline to do so, and it helps a lot to realize what, exactly, will help you lose weight. First, the most basic aspect of weight loss is that your calories burned must exceed the calories you take in. Simplest way to do this is to look for places where you can dramatically cut your calorie intake. -- Eliminate all sodas and sweetened beverages entirely, and drink water. This alone will save several hundred calories a day or more. -- Sharply reduce, or eliminate all refined or starchy carbs from your diet. This means bread, pasta, potatoes, cakes, donuts, danish, etc. -- Even so-called "healthy" foods can contain high fructose corn syrup, which is heavily implicated in weight gain. If you eat sweetened yogurt, jelly, almost any dessert, you're likely getting both high calories AND HFCS, a really bad combination. -- Watch for places where calories can sneak in. For example, many soups are LOADED with fat/butter/oils which are very calorie dense. Same with any main dishes with sauces. I was appalled to find soups at a Fresh Choice that were 400+ calories per serving! -- Same with dressings you put on salad, or even the salads themselves. The vegetables have virtually no calories. But put deep-fried chicken strips on, and suddenly it can easily be a 1000 calorie meal. Likewise, even a couple ladles of thousand island or ranch or blue cheese dressing can add 500-600 calories to a near zero-calorie meal. -- And cheeses, oils, butter, are all extremely calorie-dense, so, for example, a little pat of butter might be 100 calories, or a slice of cheese might be 150 calories. That adds up really fast. If you have had difficulty in losing weight in the past, even after having adjusted your diet, you may also want to read up on "leptin resistance." Leptin is a recently discovered hormone that helps the body to burn fat, as well as helping to signal you that you're full. Leptin resistance happens when the body loses its ability to make use of leptin, and is associated with excess fat gain, particularly around the abdomen. What happens is, certain types of foods increase your body's resistance to leptin, so even if you are eating a relatively low-calorie diet that maintains leptin resistance, you will still have trouble losing weight. Foods to eliminate if you suspect you have leptin resistance are: starchy carbs -- anything with flour or grains, such as breads, pasta, pastries, and most cereals; nearly all grains and legumes; all sources of refined sugars and particularly HFCS, and fructose, which means nearly all fruits; all red meat; This leaves just complex carbs, chicken, turkey, and fish... but you can do a surprising amount with just those things. The diet to eliminate leptin resistance is sort of complicated and restrictive, but is possible to do on the road. The simple diet to lose weight, assuming you don't have a leptin resistance problem, is a lot easier. Both simply take discipline. It's easy after a long day of being on the road to sit down and order a delicious-looking fried or fat-laden entree that's 1500 calories or more, a lot harder to order steamed vegetables and a piece of grilled chicken or fish with no sauce. And it's hard to skip dessert, or avoid ordering the Starbucks drink with a ton of cream and sugar in it, or that cinnamon bun for breakfast if you're in a hurry. But that's how you cut the calories. The other side of this is exercise. Other than reducing caloric intake, the fastest way to lose weight is to increase your metabolism and calorie burn rate. The way to do this is resistance weight training that increases muscle mass. (The more muscle you have, the more calories your body must burn to maintain them, even when you are not working out.) Ideal is to have access to a gym with weight machines (if you're not comfortable with free weights), but even without, you can do sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, and other activities in your own hotel room. Running and other aerobic/cardio exercise will help burn calories, which will directly help to lose weight, but will have little effect on building muscle to sustain an increased metabolism. So doing both is ideal. I realize that may sound like a lot, but believe me, it really isn't nearly as difficult as it sounds, once you set your mind to doing it. And as you start to lose, you will feel better about yourself, and that should further stimulate you to want to continue the pattern. You'll feel healthier, with more energy and less fatigue. It's definitely worth it.
What Chip said. I tend to eat out quite a bit. I quite often buy my lunch at work and then have somewhere to go after work, so I'll eat out again. I simply HAD TO stop buying the burger combos. Instead I'll eat one of the salads from the fast food places. They are surprisingly good, and even with the dressing (which you put on yourself, so you can use as much or as little as you want) must be better for me than a hamburger and fries. The other item I'll have is chili. High in protein and usually a decent size portion. My other trick - don't allow yourself to get crazy hungry. THAT is when your ability to turn down the burger and fries will be it's weakest. Instead, snack. You can keep protein bars in your hotel room, or unsalted nuts (almonds, soy, pistacios) to snack on. I never used to use the fitness facilities in hotels and I've never used weights at a gym. I was always too self conscious. However, now that I have been doing some weight training at home (using the P90X program) I'm more comfortable doing that. Instead of weights though, you can also use resistance bands. They demonstrate how to use those on the P90X program as well. You could buy those DVDs and a set of tension bands, and you could workout in your hotel room by playing them on your computer. That would be an awesome way to kill an hour or so and workout at the same time.
