The Down Side of Traveling

I have been out of town on business since yesterday. These days are really challenging, and even though I think I have done okay, I am a little worried because I have my "official" weigh in tonight. So, even though I am excited to be able to comfortably fly, traveling is a challenge, particularly traveling for business.

 Here is what I have done so far this trip (well yesterday anyway) I made sure to eat a low calorie breakfast before I left for the airport yesterday, breakfast was about 250 calories....I should have added a piece of fruit, but did not have time (note to self, either eat fruit or take a piece along next time). On my flight up I got hungry because I didn't eat enough for breakfast, so I ate the nuts on the plane, which I usually do not do - 140 calories, 70 a bag...for those tiny little bags of nuts they give you on the plane Gah! ...and that is the reason I need to remember the fruit, the nuts were NOT filling at all.

I got to the conference, had lunch that was provided, small portions, stayed away from cream based dishes and anything fried...so lunch went okay. After about five hours of meetings, we had a break for an hour before dinner, which was at a nice seafood restaurant. So, I did what I have learned to do before I go out to a restaurant, during the hour break, I looked it up online and I looked at the menu and decided which of the lower calorie dishes to order. When we arrived at the restaurant, I found out that the organization convening the meetings was generously picking up the tab for everyone and there were small menus on the table with two options for each course...so much for my careful planning. I've learned to roll with these things, so I ordered the lower calorie option (i.e. NOT the pasta) I stayed away from the bread, ordered the salad rather than the clam chowder and asked for the vinaigrette salad dressing on the side, then skipped the decadent chocolate cake for dessert. (As an aside, vinaigrettes are a good option for salad dressing, but I have learned to be really careful with them because they contain oil, which is 100 calories per Tablespoon and can add up really fast). I ended up right around 700 calories for dinner, so, okay...given the situation. When I got back to the hotel, it was about 9:30pm and I still had not gotten my exercise for the day - so I went down to the work out room at the hotel and got in 1/2 an hour on the elliptical (I generally like to get more exercise, but in a pinch, this will do).

So my calorie budget every day is 1200 and at the end of the day, I netted just over 1500 calories for the day. I'm okay with this for a day, given the circumstances, but I am a bit nervous that this was the day before I weigh in... I guess I will see the result tonight - but even if I'm up, I'm not going to stress too much about it, I'm doing pretty well, and I'll be back on my routine tomorrow.