Diets come in all shapes and sizes. Some are designed to
work quickly, others are to suit preferences. Some are good for you. Some are
not. Whatever your diet may be there’s something that can be immensely
disrupting, travelling. My view to diet is that you will begin to see results
once you start thinking about what you’re putting into your body and, perhaps
more importantly, why. I use flexible dieting for myself, and my clients, but I
don’t discriminate about diet. If it works for you great. But you should
probably be aware that if a diet involves you eating 30 cheeseburgers a day it’s
probably not a good one to be on. A little common sense goes a long way.
Diet shouldn’t be a temporary thing, it should be about
improving your lifestyle to achieve your goals, or just to be healthier. I hear
things like, ‘oh yeah, that diet really works, but you pile it back on after
you’ve stopped doing it’. There’s got to be a little compromise in there, you
shouldn’t have to eat food that you don’t like, but at the same time, you
shouldn’t just eat crap.
Those with the best intentions and a good knowledge of diet
could be disrupted by having to travel and ruining their routine. Not only will
your diet suffer, but it will usually get in the way of training too. I get
asked a lot about designing diets for people on the move. Or diets for people
who are too busy to prepare food.
My own experience of this comes from working a 0 hour
contract, I’d be asked to do shifts short notice, sometimes starting at 6am,
sometimes finishing at 10pm. It meant that I couldn’t always prepare food. It
meant that sometimes it was a good break from work to walk over to the shop.
The thing is, I worked in a gym, and I couldn’t be seen to
be eating unhealthy. I also felt that maintaining a good diet and healthy
lifestyle was part of my job. I can be very specific with my food, on a weight
cut I’ll weigh everything, and I’ll meet my macros exactly. When I’m training
for size and strength, I’ll relax it a little. I’ll eat healthy but a lot more,
usually 6-8 meals a day.
My advice to anyone travelling would be to prepare in
advance. If you know you’re heading away for a couple of days you could take
several prepped meals and just supplement them from the shop with
nuts/fruit/etc.
If preparing meals isn’t for you (as it often isn’t for me)
then you can look for healthy prepared foods from the shop.
1. 1. Chicken – You can buy prepared chicken from most
shops. In Asda they have very low fat chicken breast available in jerk, sweet
chilli, peri peri and roast. In Tesco they have pulled chicken. It’s worth
having a look at nutritional info on the back to make sure the protein is
around 20% and fat is less than 10%. I
always look for chicken first, it fills you up and it’s usually got pretty good
macros.
2. 2. Fruit – Fresh fruit is usually available, they
do handy little fruit salad pots in most big shops. If they don’t have fresh
fruit they likely have dried fruit which works well too. If going for dry
fruit, make sure it’s not overly dosed in oil, as that will make it higher fat
content.
3. 3. Nuts – High protein snack, it’s quite high fat
content but a good one to graze on. Don’t overdo it with nuts but they are an
awesome snack throughout the day.
4. 4. Cheese – High protein is usually the way to go
with diet, I quite like the macros on Babybell lights. 20% protein and 10% fat if
I remember correctly.
5. 5. Protein shakes – Most shops now stock protein
shakes, always check the macros but these are really good source of protein,
they fill you up and as long as their fat and carb content isn’t too high then
they will help with fat loss.
That’s a few examples that I personally would look for. It’s
down to preference but it’s worth just having a look at the nutritional
information on items in a shop. Ready-made sandwiches and meals are often full
of crap. So take a look before you buy a ready-made pasta salad thinking you’re
making a healthy choice!
I also encourage my clients not to have big meals, rather
small meals and often. This is a trick to speed up the metabolism. It decreases
appetite and makes your body more efficient. Things like nuts and fruit can be
grazed on and is therefore ideal.
Hope this helps, contact me at contact@MattRichPT.com if you require
further information on this, or any other fitness related questions!
Cheers,
Matt
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