Have Fat Will Travel

I’m of the opinion that travel is the arch enemy of getting healthy. It has been a few months since I’ve had to travel for work. Earlier this week I had to travel out of state for a few days, and temptation to derail my plan was around every corner. Despite what ski jumping commentator guy says my fat was flying above 30,000 feet so Suck It! I’m happy to say that I did okay with my plan despite being faced with the following 5 travel obstacles.

(Yes 5, my favorite number, that is my deal.)

1. Stress. Travel for work can often come with stress and long hours. Stress can often affect people’s appetite in one of two ways – you either eat a lot or not at all. My stress often comes with the desire to eat lots of crappy food. I was able to keep my eating under control this trip.

2. Away from home. I’m out of my comfort zone and into the DANGER ZONE. Not really, but that was fun to type and italicize. I don’t have access to our fridge, kitchen, and pantry at home to prepare something healthier for myself with my own hands. I don’t sleep too well in a strange bed alone. Weird, right? No, not really. If I don’t sleep well I tend to make poor decisions regarding my health. And that fitness center in the hotel LOOKS nice, but not as nice as the guest room in our house. It has the same type of bike and weights that I have at home – but it is not the same. I’m not going in there. That is something I’ll have to work on because I need to continue my workout plan even while traveling.

3. An abundance of food. It is a common practice in business that if you host meetings for clients there is an abundance of food. If you want the clients to buy your product or help you in some way you need to feed them into submission. There is often breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack. No shit from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. there are essentially 4 meals. Lots of great food often fried. Not like state fair fried food this fried food looks healthy, but in reality not so good. And desserts, there are tons of fucking beautiful desserts. For the most part the caterer this week had plenty of healthier options to choose from – fresh fruit at breakfast, salads and wraps at lunch, etc. I slipped the second meeting day and had a slice of chocolate chess pie at the end of lunch and a cookie during the afternoon snack. Chocolate . . . Chess . . . Pie . . . And . . . If you’re going to make cookies with M&M’s that’s just asking for trouble. But this was a minor set back or instead it could be viewed as a reward for continuing to avoid soft drinks of all kinds, the biscuits and sweet buns at breakfast, and the dessert options and afternoon cookies during the first day. I’ll live to fight another day.

4. Convenient access to food. In addition to the convenient food available at our meetings - airports are often just a series of mini food courts in between the gates and the stores that sell golf apparel. Oh but right there are newsstands where you can get a magazine, a cheap magnet, and every kind of candy bar in the universe. Temptation is everywhere, but I did really well to avoid it all. It helps that I hate to eat in airports in the first place. It just gives me an extreme case of the heebies and a couple of mild cases of the jeebies.

5. Boredom. Often with this type of travel either you’re busy working your ass off or your bored to tears. If I don’t have enough mental stimulation I often turn my gaze toward food. I brought a few magazines and such which helped keep my mind from wandering.

Speaking of occupying my mind apparently a challenge was thrown down to me and a few of my fellow passengers while waiting in line. When you fly Southwest airlines you often find yourself waiting in line. You wait in line to get on the jet bridge. Once you’re on the jet bridge you wait in line to get on the plane. On the plane you wait in line while everyone ahead of you struggles to load themselves and their carry-ons on the plane. While waiting in line to get on the jet bridge heading home someone decided to play a little game of “Who Farted?” It really smelled bad for about five minutes in our section of the line. My money is on the college age dude two spots in front of me. And I’m not picking on him because he had on a Red Sox hat either. He wouldn’t make eye contact with any of us during this five minute stink-off and he had a slight smirk on his face the whole time (okay and maybe it is also because he had the Red Sox hat).

All I have to say is DUDE, You ARE Nasty! (and you should probably see a doctor)

I’m a Newly Fat Guy and I'll weigh myself soon. “I can lose weight, but you’ll always be anonymously passing gas in a crowd."