How I hit my protein and calories goals when I’m away with work.

Every week I’m in a different city working on a different live TV event, lots of travelling, lots of hotel rooms, service station stops and catering provided. It’s taken me about a year to really work out how I’m going to maintain my nutrition when I’m away, with no fridge or kitchen I have to rely on ready to eat, grab-able stuff with not much prep time. It’s not optimal, but I’ve found a number of products which I now rely on to hit my protein and calories goals. I just make sure that any fresh food I buy when I’m away is fruit or veggies I can eat raw, and concentrate on eating loads of veg when I’m home. All diets have an element of making the best of a situation, I rarely chose to go out to eat with colleagues when I’m away and hit the gym instead of the pub, as I’d rather save my calories for alcohol and calorie dense foods when I’m at home.

For a while I found it really hard to say no to free food provided by the caterers, but I’ve set myself rules about when eating catering is ok – often their options aren’t very aligned with my goals, and pudding is far too tempting so as often as I can I keep away, I do. Sometimes I’m away for too long to carry all the food I will eat with me and so then eating catering in inevitable, but for usual day to day there’s no excuse, and eating it won’t get me towards my goals. There will always be the opportunity to have apple crumble again, or that portion of chips… are the calories really worth it? (NO)

So here’s what I pack for a day at work…

Breakfast

My Protein whey shake 1 scoop with water | 103 calories | 21g protein.

Nestle Yoghurt |90 calories | 17g Protein.

Lunch

New York onion and chive Bagel | 213 calories | 8.8g protein.

Peanut butter 40g |238 calories | 10.9g protein.

Biltong 70g bag |210 calories | 35g protein.

Babybel Light x 2 |100 calories | 12g protein.

Dinner

Mugshot high protein Mac and Cheese pot | 284 calories | 15.2g Protein.

My protein layered bar | 220 calories | 20.4g protein.

Total calories 1458

Protein 140g

I’ve found this to be a great grab and go day’s food, which also allows for a few extra calories during the day if we go for coffee or if I’m especially hungry, I tend to bank some calories for the days when I’m at home so I can indulge with a gin and tonic and some yummy home cooked food.