Maintaining a healthy weight while traveling can be a challenge. If you’re traveling for pleasure, it seems that you are always juggling between extended hours in the car or on a plane. If you’re traveling for business you have the added pressure of longer meetings and entertaining clients. By taking a few extra minutes to think ahead it’s simple to stick to your weight loss goals while on the road.
The Secret to Losing Weight While Traveling
Once you learn the secret I am about to share, you will continue to lose weight even when you are traveling. The secret doesn’t involve starving yourself. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. I know it works because I actually used it to lose 45 pounds over a 12 month period while traveling for my corporate job and without any additional exercise.
You see, prior to leaving the corporate world in 2009 to operate my own business, I traveled over 75,000 airlines per year and stayed 150 nights per year in hotels. I did this for an eight year period. During the first six years of my travel I slowly gained over 45 pounds. Nearly every day of the week I was entertaining clients for both lunch and dinner. The majority of the lunch meals offered high fat and low nutrition, and usually a visit to a five star steakhouse for dinner encouraged a very heavy meal.
However, one night I realized that my CHOICES of the food I was eating was actually causing me to become too heavy and unhealthy. I decided to do something about it. I started to do some research and I finally found the secret. The secret that I found was satiety (pronounced “sa-tie-atee”).
Satiety is basically the feeling of being full. It’s the feeling you get after a delicious, nutritious meal. Since you feel full, you don’t want to eat any more and avoid reaching for dessert or other high calorie foods.
Once I focused on satiety I started to lose weight immediately – without doing any additional exercises. Best of all, I didn’t feel light headed or irritable like I do when I am hungry. In fact, there are certain foods that help to make you feel fuller longer. This means, you would want to consume these types of food while you’re on the road so you’re not tempted to grab a candy bar while waiting for your flight or a bag of potato chips at the gas station. You’ll soon find that once you add these foods to your diet, you’ll be eating less and actually losing weight while you’re on the road.
A Satiety Experiment
Dr. Susanna Holt, an Australian researcher, is credited with creating the “Satiety Index”. In 1995, Dr. Holt published research results on which foods helped create fullness and the research recorded results on how a food had the able to satisfy hunger. The index is based upon 38 different foods delivered in 240 calorie portions. The baseline number for the research was 100 (on a satiety scale) and white bread was used as the baseline food. Any food above the baseline satisfied hunger, while foods under score of 100 were less satisfying.
A brief look at the some of the results
Fruit and Vegetables
Fruit and vegetables ranked among the highest. Bananas ranked at 1.5 or 150. Potatoes came in at 1.76, while apples were at 1.9 and oranges 2.4. This is great news since fruit and vegetables are one of the first choices for dieters. In addition to fresh fruit, consider snacking on dried fruit including dried apples, dried cherries and more. Check out Traverse Bay Farms for a complete selection of dried fruit delivered to your door.
Popcorn
Popcorn ranked at 1.54. Popcorn itself is a healthy snack. However, it’s when you start adding the butter, salt and other toppings that you have to worry about the calories. This tasty food, on its own, will leave your stomach feeling full.
Oatmeal
One of the best satiety foods is oatmeal coming in at 3.0. Oatmeal is one of the mainstay selections at many hotel breakfast bars. A bowl of oatmeal with dried cherries and walnuts tossed in will keep you feeling full until late morning if not longer.
Eggs
Eggs, while a source of cholesterol, came in at 1.5. So the next time you’re at the hotel breakfast bar, enjoy a small helping of eggs with your fresh fruit.
You’ll be able to lose weight without feeling hungry simply by making wise CHOICES while you’re on the road.
