Kymberly Williams-Evans, MA and Alexandra Williams, MA
Dear Fun and Fit: When you attend a convention, say in LA, how do you prevent from going overboard while dining out at night? I am curious what YOUR top 5 recommendations are on how to dine out while on the road and still keep your svelte shape? Does it count if I walked to the restaurant instead of ordering room service? Does ordering room service burn any calories? I don’t think so!!!!
K: Saaay, is that your real name? Catchy. Let’s say that I were hypothetically to attend a convention — like recently, for example, in LA — then my top tips would be:
1) Don’t dine out each night when at conventions or on the road! Who has the energy? I drag my toned, tight, tushie (Triple T) back to my room exhausted by all the lectures, workouts, seminars, workshops, and bags of irresistible purchases and samples from my trade show shopping spree. Then I raid the stash o’ food I brought. Which leads me to Tip Two.
2) Pack and bring with you healthy food, a water bottle, and a cooler (and what looks cooler than hauling an ice chest through a hotel lobby, eh?!). Use hotel ice machines to keep your enviable portable pantry refreshingly frosty and chilled. Bring only nutritious foods. By the end of the day when my make-up is a mere memory, my shoes are off, and my hair fought me and lost, I can guarantee that I am not going to exit the room looking for junk food. I will eat whatever is right there in the room and LIKE it. No, I will LOVE it. So close, so easy, so healthy!
3) If I do go to dinner at the end of a convention day, I badger professional fitness friends into joining me. This is the part where peer pressure really kicks in. I know they will set a healthy standard and select great options (peer pressure really works!). Believe me, it’s hard to slap down something greasy, fatty, and overly sweet when others have yummy looking, low-fat, high food value meals in front of them. I skip dessert because I am too cheap, I mean, I know they are HUGELY laden with calories. So my tip is to pick your dinner pals wisely. If you must, make a pact with your fellow road warriors that you will all reward yourselves by eating food that fuels, not fattens you.
4) Order water or iced tea, not alcohol or a soft drink or some fruity, fizzy concoction that is basically just ordering ice cubes with a little expensive liquid splashed in. Yeah, make the waiter’s day.
5) Eat well during the day. Then you will not be so tempted to go overboard at night. Be overawed instead, or an overachiever.
A: My fave five: (and click here for another 20)
1: Dine out in the middle of the road. You’ll spend lots of time dodging cars, which burns kcals.
2: Stop going to conventions – send your craven minions instead. Make it their problem by only giving a tiny per diem.
3: Yes, it counts if you walked to the restaurant…In Santa Monica!
4: Ordering room service only burns your wallet. Unless you call room service and ask to help schlep trays up and down…by the stairs, not the elevator.
5: Only order from the appetizer menu. One item.
And drink a LOT. No, not this: 
this: 
K: Bonus tip) “Keeping my svelte shape?” you say. I hide it under a one size fits all shmatta. As people say when they see me on the road trip or at the convention, “you’ve kept your figure. And added to it, I see.” Yes, I am so accommodating (As is my loose fitting top).
A: My last tip? Take two fewer bites of everything. And stop ordering this: 
.
Readers: What are your secrets for healthy and calorie-conscious eating during out-of-town forays? What is your favorite Monty Python scene or skit? And do you have one thin mint to spare?
Photo Credits: Creative Commons
I always hit a grocery store as soon as I get into town (sometimes I make the cab driver wait outside with the engine/meter running in an environmentally reckless manner).
I scoop up fresh fruit & veg, whole grain bread, a box of plain oatmeal and green tea.
The coffee maker in your room will heat up water for the oatmeal and tea.
The fruit, veg & bread make a great meal any time that doesn’t need refrigeration. You can supplement this by picking up chicken breast/fish/beans from room service or a nearby deli on the way back to the hotel after the day’s events (or going out to the deli if you are staying in the same hotel that the conference is being held in. Maybe you could have figured that out on your own).
I was going to say that I bracket my day with real food, but I could already hear one of you snickering.
So…I eat breakfast and dinner out. Breakfast is usually protein-heavy: an omelet–just egg whites if I’m having a feta and spinach omelet. Or maybe a yolk is in the picture if no cheese is involved. I pick at the hash browns and never order toast.
For dinner, always a protein like chicken or fish and I fill up on vegetables and salad. I do like a glass or Cabernet Sauvignon, though. That is my carb.
It does a lot for my mood to be able to sit down and eat at the beginning and end of each day. So I budget for it.
In between, I get by on protein drinks and protein bars. (I usually only go to fitness conventions, and these are readily available.) I try not to go crazy on the protein bars, however. Some are high in calories (fine for a 25-year-old bodybuilder, but not for me). I am quite happy if there’s time for a real lunch. Even happier if someone else buys.
That is a great list of ideas. I am certain if I did even half of those things on my next trip, I would save several million calories.
Thanks!
Love the extra tips: do a grocery store run; use the coffee machine as a water heater; start and end the day with great meals; do half our list and become a new man (or half of the man you used to be?).
The main point here really is courtesy of Kathleen: the BEST meal is the one someone else buys. Now you are talking!
I just have to throw in my 2 cents—
1. Don’t accept the mini bar key when you check in– it is nothing but midnight sabotage waiting to happen otherwise.
2. Subsitute SALAD for BREAD. No Bread, repeat no bread. You can eat your evening calories before your tuna tartar and cowboy steak even hit the table.
3. No salad dressing– ask for lemon or balsamic vinegar instead.
4. Eliminate calamari, fried onion rings and anything with wing or finger as a description.
5. Go fresh– steamed broccoli, aspargus, and forget the cream spinach, mashed potaotes, and mac n Cheese.
6. Eat a protein bar (FitTime makes agood one!) 40 minutes before dinner and drink 2 glasses of water. It will abate your appetite.
7. A glass of wine (or two) wont hurt if you worked out extra hard that day.
Johnny Fittime.
Thanks for the tips and the humor! Love it! I used to work with a gentleman who would request a refrigerator in his hotel room so he could easily pack his cooler and then unload it without having to worry about constantly melting ice. I tried it once and the hotel was very accommodating. It’s amazing what you get when you ask!
Thanks for the tips. I’m a band teacher and while I don’t attend too many conferences, I do spend a great deal of time traveling with my students. Sadly when feeding teenagers one tends to stop the bus at fast food joints. I’ll definitely try to apply some of these ideas to my schedule.
And two of my all-time favorite Monty Python skits are “The Four Yorkshire-men”, and the “Travel Agency Sketch”.
If you bang two ends of a coconut together will that burn calories?
Dear Aaron: It depends on whether the two coconuts are hollow or still full of coconut meat/milk. If hollow-you only burn kcals if you bang them together while galloping. If solid, you can easily burn kcals if you wake up each day, half an hour before you went to sleep, go down to work at the mill, pay the miller for the privilege….oops, got distracted. Solid halves of coconut – burns kcals if you bang them together while licking the road clean. You go first and let us know how many kcals you burn!
I bring apples, carrot sticks, almond butter on celery for that satisfying crunch and the quick feeling of fullness and satisfaction.
Also I toast Ezekiel (sprouted grain) bread and spread it with almond butter, then cut it into fourths and wrap each separately. One square equals one snack.
For cheese, I like a little mozzarella, but not the super salty ones from 7-11.
I’m also a fan of one hard boiled egg with spices and olive oil, because you need to keep up your input of essential fatty acids.
So there are some of my travelling treats.
Thanks so much! I’ll definitely start packing some healthy food – hmmmmm – I gotta say, it’s going to be hard to resist the new Bacon Egg Dijon sandwich on the Hyatt menu LOL
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