Healthy and Fit

Ehhh, I am all thrown off this week!!!  Again 


Does anyone travel for work frequently?  I go and visit suppliers/vendors quite a bit in my new job and they always want to wine and dine you- they take you to lunch, give biscuits and tea and cakes for meetings and take you to very posh meals out with expensive wine.

Then, when I travel with co-workers there is peer pressure to go out in meet in the bar, go out to the pubs, etc.   Since I know, by far, alcohol is my biggest downfall and has made me fat, it's very hard for me to resist in these situations.   

I want to find ways to fit in exercise when I'm on the road -i.e going in the pools or going walking on the treadmill, but with 15 hour long meetings and trying to do my day job, plus sometimes dealing with time zone differences ,etc, you get shattered and can barely make it outta the room on time for the meeting, then to get up early to exercise...


So, frequent fliers, any tips??

Yup I was, and I had exactly the same issues, low-carb is the only thing that worked for me in this situation as you're just so freaking full all the time and the things you can't eat are the things that are around but that's not everyone's cup of tea...so here's my tips (make of them what you will!)

1. Caffeine reduction. It's not doing you any good, it's a diarrhetic, if you drink coffee you almost always want something like a biscuit with it. Are you totting up all the calories in those coffees and milks?

2. Protein heavy breakfast, yes my co-workers looked at me like I was crazy when I scarfed down eggs and bacon for breakfast every day, but I lost loads of weight and it meant I wasn't tempted by 'elevensies". Stay away from anything pastry related like your life depends on it, and be wary of fruit salads they're often sugared. A piece of fruit is not breakfast and will raise/crash your blood sugar, but you can include fruit as part of a balanced breakfast. Stay away from orange juice, especially in hotels. Sugar city!

3. Non refrigerated snack packs of food. Unsalted almonds in bags, those puffy pork scratchings, etc in your bag and you can just munch from them when everyone is having cookies or something.

4. Buy food at the terminal before you get on the plane. You can study nutritional info and you'll get more out of it then plane food. Also I find people eat on the plane even if they just ate before out of boredom. Get used to refusing the tray.

5. Diet coke and vodka, gin and slimline tonic if you're drinking. Stay away from wine and beer! I know you love your beer but it's bloating and calorific. Have beer like you would a desert, like a treat maybe?

6. Get some exercise stuff you can do in your room, like a pilates DVD you can play on your laptop, some light hand weights or a resistance band.

When I fly I request a seafood tray..I read once that they have to make more of an effort to make these nicer than the normal food that is being served.

1. Caffeine reduction. It's not doing you any good, it's a diarrhetic, if you drink coffee you almost always want something like a biscuit with it. Are you totting up all the calories in those coffees and milks?

That’s interesting.  I tend to drink a lot of tea, but without any milk or sugar in it. I like to keep fruit teas around for when I’m craving something sweet.  I had thought that there wasn’t any calories in tea as long as you didn’t add anything. 

Yup I was, and I had exactly the same issues, low-carb is the only thing that worked for me in this situation as you're just so freaking full all the time and the things you can't eat are the things that are around but that's not everyone's cup of tea...so here's my tips (make of them what you will!)

1. Caffeine reduction. It's not doing you any good, it's a diarrhetic, if you drink coffee you almost always want something like a biscuit with it. Are you totting up all the calories in those coffees and milks?

2. Protein heavy breakfast, yes my co-workers looked at me like I was crazy when I scarfed down eggs and bacon for breakfast every day, but I lost loads of weight and it meant I wasn't tempted by 'elevensies". Stay away from anything pastry related like your life depends on it, and be wary of fruit salads they're often sugared. A piece of fruit is not breakfast and will raise/crash your blood sugar, but you can include fruit as part of a balanced breakfast. Stay away from orange juice, especially in hotels. Sugar city!

3. Non refrigerated snack packs of food. Unsalted almonds in bags, those puffy pork scratchings, etc in your bag and you can just munch from them when everyone is having cookies or something.

4. Buy food at the terminal before you get on the plane. You can study nutritional info and you'll get more out of it then plane food. Also I find people eat on the plane even if they just ate before out of boredom. Get used to refusing the tray.

5. Diet coke and vodka, gin and slimline tonic if you're drinking. Stay away from wine and beer! I know you love your beer but it's bloating and calorific. Have beer like you would a desert, like a treat maybe?

6. Get some exercise stuff you can do in your room, like a pilates DVD you can play on your laptop, some light hand weights or a resistance band.

Thanks!!!! 

Well, it makes me feel slightly better that my GP thinks my weight gain is due, in part, to having been on antibiotics for over four months. They are irritating my stomach and he says that irritation often masks itself as hunger, as I often feel hungry, even if I have just eaten! He has given me some Zantac type medication to help with the upset stomach which should make me feel better all the way around while I finish this course of strong antibiotics before my surgery. Hopefully this will all help. 

Good luck Jewlz.  At least you finally have an explanation!

I'm down 8lbs now but haven't been drinking enough water (around 2-3 glasses a day...tops).  I need to do better but it takes a lot of effort for me.

I'm still having a hard time reaching my minimum calories even though I've started eating peanut butter and apple butter sandwiches with banana as a snack when I'm not even hungry (which is around 300 calories).   

I think if I start eating more meat it will help out with calories as a dinner of fish and veg doesn't add up to much even though it makes me full. 

Good luck Jewlz! Hope that helps your stomach!

E2W - What if you added some brown rice or steamed new potatoes to your fish and veg dinner? That would add some calories and the carbs aren't crazy high.

I would love to join the club! I'm new to the UK and am *desperate* to lose weight. I'd love to get a weight loss buddy, especially someone from the Glasgow area that I could meet up with occasionally.

I'm having a bit of a hard time losing weight right now because I'm totally addicted to sweets and we're living with my mother-in-law who keeps them in stock at all times. I've done well today and I'm trying to shield my daughter from the constant after dinner biscuits being served daily. Haven't had anything naughty today, so I guess I'm off to a good start.

I forgot to weigh myself again augh, I'll hopefully get it done tomorrow. Today I had a really good working, 50 minutes of intense cardio and then did my weight machines. I actually tried jogging instead of a quick walking on the treadmill and let me tell you first, I really dislike treadmills. They freak me out and I'm always afraid if I run I'm just gonna slide off the back of it lol, I dont know why but yeah . . . I'm weird. Anyways, I was able to job for about 5 minutes at a time so I was doing walking, running, brisk walking at an incline and alternated between all of them for 40 minutes yay! Also haven't had anything too bad to eat except a couple crisps cause my nephew kept offering them to me! I can't say no to him, he's just too adorable!

As of this morning, I have lost 2 pounds in the last 10 days or so .

Only problem now is that this weekend isn't going to be good: I ate out tonight (Nando's, plus 5 Milk Tray chocolates and a Bacardi and Coke when I got home ) and I'm also eating out tomorrow night (pub meal) and Sunday afternoon (local restaurant for lunch), plus I probably won't have much time to do any exercise this weekend as I'm at my parents' house (my mum would normally persuade me to go swimming with her on a Sunday morning, but the Australian Open final is on at 8.15 a.m. this Sunday and we'll be watching that instead)!

My husband has been losing weight steadily at the rate of about 2 pounds a week for quite some time now. (He is still overweight, but getting there.) What he has been doing is eating 3 meals a day, no snacks. However, if he sleeps past 10 he skips breakfast (doesn't need the extra calories if he is sleeping and therefore less active.) And if he overindulges he will skip a meal to make up for it.

So if he goes to the pub on the weekend and has a takeaway after, the next day he will skip breakfast and lunch and just have dinner.

Since he has done this, he hasn't noticed any weight coming on after pub day; previously he would put on weight over the weekend.

What's important is that when he does have dinner, he doesn't eat more than he would usually eat, and he engages in his normal level of activity. He doesn't binge or laze around.

Personally, I would never skip a meal, no matter what I had to eat the day before. I might modify a meal by eating less fat and calories, but skipping it totally throws your metabolism out of whack. No nutritionist ever suggests totally skipping a meal.

That's great that he's losing 2lbs per week, but if he's extremely overweight his body could actually lose more than that and be okay. There's a chance his body is holding on to the weight because he's not feeding it regularly and it's not sure when it's going to be fed again. 

I would say that sweetpeach is understandably proud of her husband for his weight loss efforts & success.

However, much like what Bmore_2_UK said, I disagree with the skipping meals & also not having some (healthy) snacks available in between meals as being generally good advice ideas.  In fact, that flies in the face of most medically sound weight loss advice out there, from organisations such as the British (and American) Heart Association, diabetes organisations, nutritionists & recognised healthy weight loss schemes such as Weight Watchers, etc.

Also, not everyone who struggles to lose weight is just binging & lazing around, btw. 

Okay, I probably am lazing around, but then so is my skinny-butt-never-gains-an-ounce husband too, so... 

Lastly, when I have been in weight loss groups before where there were men included, the guys are always the first & fastest at losing weight.  I think there is some science behind that actually - their bodies aren't biologically programmed to hold onto extra weight the way that women's bodies are.  Hopefully, a science-y person (phatbeetle?) might comment? 

If skipping meals was so bad then all observant Muslims would have weight issues. Companies that sell supplements or ready meals like to advocate eating frequently because they know most people don't have time to prepare healthy food all day long and have things like slimfast shakes instead.

But that's a bit different...Ramadan only happens for a specific time once a year.  Catholics fast too, but it's not a lifestyle change.