You have most likely have had to travel during a weight loss program before. You are probably well-aware of the difficulties involved in undertaking such a task, and you know that places like airports can be unforgiving to your weight loss program if you go in unprepared.
It seems like many people simply just take travel days as a total loss altogether, and you certainly can’t blame them for that.
I used to count travel days as duds too, until 2018 came around. It was in that year I found myself in a season where I couldn’t seem to escape high volume traveling for extended periods of time, and, because I’m just such a glutton for punishment, I was simultaneously training for a natural bodybuilding competition as well.
It was during this trial-by-fire time in my life that I found the best practices to maintain weight loss during times of travel.
*Side note: it wasn’t only my epic genius that led me to these best practices. (That is non-existent). I had a ton of help from the same person who taught me how to better understand how food affects my body in a common sense way that put me in control of how I look, as well as very reputable sources in the fitness industry.
What this blog post will do for you is offer you some best practices to follow in order to not fail at your effective weight loss program during times of travel. Additionally, you can put this honed guidance to use right now as you read this at the airport, train station, harbor, car seat, etc. After reading this blog you will go from someone who dreads traveling during your weight loss program, to someone who is competent and able to maintain your weight loss progress while roaming around world.
Let’s get to work!
Assumptions
First things first, these best practices are for all forms of travel for any amount of time; it makes no difference whether you are traveling by sea, land, and/or air. To make this information as digestible as possible, however, air travel will be used as the main illustration.
*Side note: what does matter, however, is the ability to have food and water available to you during your time of travel. It seems difficult to think of a mode of travel where food and water are excluded, but its best to cover all bases in order to help you better understand how food affects your body in a common sense way that will put you in control of how you look.
It’s best to tactically time your eating around your personal preferences
This one sounds a little obvious and elementary. It may also sound like your intelligence is purposely being insulted.
That being said, a great deal of what seems obvious goes out the window with time changes during travel, especially when you’re in an effective weight loss program. If, for example, you’re used to eating in four hour intervals and you go an extra hour or two over an interval, that has the potential to severely harm your mental game. You are at risk to feel overly-hungry and overeat. Combine that with an airport snack kiosk and you can find yourself spilling over into tomorrow’s food budget.
As the saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat, and there is certainly more than one way to time your eating around your personal preferences while you travel.
The use of Time Restricted Eating during travel days is a great method of tactically timing your food intake. This is what many people use synonymously with Intermittent Fasting, though Time Restricted Eating seems more accurate in this context. This practice is very simple to understand and requires minimal effort to put into practice, however, if you’re a hardcore breakfast person and can’t do anything without eating first thing in the morning, this may be a challenge for you.
With that, let’s say you have an early morning flight from Los Angeles to Denver. The actual flight time is 2.5 hours and you take off from Los Angeles at 0700 PST and land in Denver at 1030 MST. Simply, just don’t eat during your entire time of travel.
Now let’s say you have an early morning flight from Los Angeles to New York. The actual flight time is 6 hours and you take off from Los Angeles at 0700 and land in New York at 1600 EST. That seems like a long stretch of time between yesterday’s dinner and the time you land, especially when you’re in a caloric deficit. This is where you can tactically plan a meal (preferably high in dietary fiber) during the flight. You can plan that meal perhaps one or two hours before you land so you can eat dinner at a reasonable time in the new time zone you have found yourself in. This also comes with the added benefit of not feeling like you have to mow-down a bunch of food like a garbage disposal when you get to your destination.
Time Restricted Eating during your times of travel seems to lose its effectiveness as you get into late morning/afternoon travel times. Unless you’re a practitioner of actual Intermittent Fasting, it seems best to not go a full day without eating. Imagine how hungry you are during your normal eating schedule in a caloric deficit. Now imagine yourself in an airport, in the afternoon, having last eaten the day before, surrounded by all the snacks and restaurants. It just doesn’t seem like a good plan.
Next, we will discuss the tactic that is the most sure way to stay on track while traveling during your effective weight loss program.
Prepare all your meals in advance for your day(s) of travel
This best practice is THE way to make sure you do not fall of the rails of your effective weight loss program while traveling, however, it’s the one many fail to do because of laziness.
Harsh, I get it.
The truth is, no one enjoys taking Tupperware on a plane. It’s bulky, annoying, and you have to tape everything to make sure none of the lids fall off. Also, you can’t really take any condiments other than the basics because you have to make sure everything is in 3.4 ounce-or-less bottles. (Thanks, TSA).
It truly is a royal pain, but it comes down to one question:
How serious are you about your weight loss goals?
Though doing the Tupperware thing is the best option, especially in terms of maintaining your consistency during your effective weight loss program, the good news is that there is a way around this.
Freaking Quest bars
If you have been reading the Cornerstone Weight Loss Blog for a time, you already know what a huge role dietary fiber plays in both your effective weight loss program and your entire life. You also may have read about the feeling of satiety dietary fiber and drinking water gives you, which is a huge psychological advantage during your effective weight loss program.
That being said and with dietary fiber in mind, Quest bars will soon be your absolute best friend while you travel during your effective weight loss program.
First things first, let’s break down the macronutrients in one Quest bar. We’ll use Mint Chocolate Chunk as the example since it’s my favorite…
Kcal (Calories): 180
Total Fat: 7 g
Total Carbohydrate: 23 g
Dietary Fiber: 14 g
Protein: 20 g
Given the macronutrient breakdown of other protein bars on the market, these numbers are fantastic, with the outstanding factor being the amount of dietary fiber in each Quest bar. This amount of dietary fiber along with water will help keep you satisfied longer than most other options you may have during your time traveling. Additionally, most airports carry Quest bars just in case you forget purchase them before you get to the airport.
Furthermore, since each Quest bar has an average of about 200 kcal per bar, it can be used in place of the average meal during your effective weight loss program.
*Side note: if you’re wondering how the average meal assumption was made, it is based on what many clients have shown in their meal tracking apps over the years. It seems like the average meal during an effective weight loss program has been from 200-400 kcal per meal. This may be different for you depending on how you divvy out your daily caloric budget, and that’s totally fine. For the purposes of this blog post, your understanding of the principles, not the exact numbers, is what matters.
In one relatively inexpensive protein bar, a few challenges are overcome. You save space by not having to lug around ever-leaking Tupperware, you get a ton of dietary fiber that keeps you fuller for a greater period of time, and you get in an adequate amount of calories to keep you on track during your effective weight loss program while you travel.
Freaking Quest bars, man…
Get your water in and make sure you always, always, always book an aisle seat
If you were using a Cornerstone Weight Loss professional as your guide for your effective weight loss program, you would currently be in the process of better understanding how food affects your body in a common sense way that will put you in control of how you look. Part of that process would be organizing the tactics that fit your unique lifestyle, especially for the days that you find yourself traveling. One tactic that is universal to every client Cornerstone Weight Loss helps is the consistent daily intake and tracking of water.
If you take away just one thing from this blog post it’s this: in order to maintain your positive progress during your effective weight loss program, consistent water intake is essential. Consistent water intake keeps you on course for hydration, maintaining a consistent algorithm for your weigh-ins, helping your mental game by elevating your mood, aiding in good digestion, and much more.
Your body and mind don’t care how much of a pain it is to use the restroom on a plane, hydration is essential. If you’re eating your requisite amount of dietary fiber per day, consistent water intake is even more important. This means that using travel days as an excuse to not drink water is a very poor decision.
*Side note: as you stand in the security checkpoint line and you notice your full water bottle you forgot to drink on the ride to the airport, err on the side of chugging it. Try not to take the coward’s way out and throw it away in the liquid waste bin.
This brings us to the second point of this section: make sure you always, always, always book an aisle seat.
The window seat is awesome, I get it, but when you have to pee three times during a flight the window seat seems to lose its luster.
You may see this as an unnecessary part, perhaps something you can go without thinking about. It sounds ridiculous that part of your effective weight loss program consists of booking the most tactically-sound seat on an airplane.
Feel free to say no to this if you want to, however, small tweaks like this help maintain consistency over time. Consistency in an effective weight loss program is what gets you to your weight loss goal and helps you keep that weight off in the longterm. The more comfortable you are during the process, the more-likely you will succeed.
After all, the whole point to Cornerstone Weight Loss and the Cornerstone Weight Loss blog is YOUR success. Helping you better understand how food affects your body in a common sense way that will put you in control of how you look is the mission.
Let’s review
Traveling can suck, and traveling can suck more when you’re in an effective weight loss program. That suck gets multiplied when you don’t have the tools and tactics necessary to stay consistent during your travel days and can cause set backs for your weight loss.
In order to stay consistent during your travel days you can:
- Tactically time your eating around your personal preferences and travel times
- Prepare meals in advance for your travels
- Use light-weight, high-fiber options such as Quest bars
- Be consistent with your water intake
- Always, always, always book an aisle seat
At Cornerstone Weight Loss we help you better understand how food affects your body in a common sense way that will put you in control of how you look. In order to get in touch with a professional who can help tailor your weight loss plan to you, click below, fill out the information, and a member of the Cornerstone Weight Loss team will reach out to you to get the results in weight loss you deserve.