Jaimie of Body By CrossFit & Paleo

Jaimie is the author of the blog – Body By CrossFit & Paleo.

She Crossfits, She Travels, She Eats Paleo, She Tweets.

I remember a few months back, I was standing in the Crossfit Invictus office, ready to get ‘pinched’ by Coach George, my nutritionalist. He was asking what my upcoming week looked like, in terms of meal planning, and I was telling him that I was going to be on the road for work.  However, never to fear, I actually tend to lose weight while on travel.  The owner, CJ Martin, aka Master Yoda of Programming, was sitting in the office as well and gave a laugh.  “That’s definitely the first time I’ve ever heard THAT statement.” I had to explain to him that I am indeed the exception to this rule.  

I’m on the road quite a bit for work; I’m a software consultant for a company that sells Cisco products.  I can be on the road for weeks at a time, or working remotely from my home in San Diego weeks at a time. It changes quite frequently. I’ve had this job for 4 years and have been eating paleo/primal for over a year now, so I’ve had a lot of practice at this. 

It can be hard enough living a paleo/primal life on a normal, every day basis as it is, with temptations of sugary or carb loaded foods thrown in our faces at all hours of the day. Add in sporadic travel with random obstacles (delays, long meetings, etc) and you would think it to be damn near impossible to stay on the straight and narrow path of paleo/primalism.  Thanks to lots of practice, I have learned the following tips that have ensured that I am able to stay 100% of whatever I want type of diet while on travel.

Just a quick disclaimer; I can’t guarantee these tips for personal travel.  Personally, if I’m on a trip for pleasure versus a trip for business, I worry A LOT less about my diet.  It’s vacation!  How often do you get to take them?!  Live alittle!  But…I’m sure if you really wanted to, you could still follow my tips on personal travel.  All it takes is prepartion!  (Which you should be well use to on this diet)

Tip #1: Airport Dining.  I have been to tons of airports all over this country; north south east and west.  I can tell you that basically none of the places have any paleo selection.  The closest you can get is a salad just containing lettuce and maybe some carrots/tomatoes or a (probably half fake) chicken breast, plain w/ mustard no bun, from a fast food place. *gag*   Right now, I am currently flying into Dallas on Monday mornings and flying home to San Diego on Friday afternoons.  On Sunday nights, I usually cook a big-ish dinner of meat (like pork loin) and roasted veggies.  I eat a third for Sunday’s dinner, and pack the other portions into two small tupperwear containers.  Airport security does not care about your food, as long as it’s not a liquid like soup, so they ignore it in my bags.  I’ll eat one portion as breakfast while waiting to board my flight, and then I’ll eat the other half when I land as lunch.  Problem solved.  I’ll also do something similar on Friday; I’ll order a double lunch or save a piece of chicken from the night before, pack it up and bring it with me for dinner when I’m leaving on Friday night. Gladware tupperware is really inexpensive so you can easily throw it away when you are done if you don’t want to fly around with empty tupperware in your bag.

Tip #2: Hotel Dining.  Tip #1 was definitely something you could do no matter what type of travel (biz or pleasure) but Tip #2 could depend on your budget. Currently in Dallas, I am staying at a Residence Inn (Marriott), which means my room is equiped with basically a full kitchen. My job will of course reimburse me for all travel expenses so I don’t worry much about room cost, but I do believe these types of rooms are generally not that much more expensive than normal hotel rooms; the one in Dallas that I’m staying at is $139/night.  If you are traveling on a budget, this tip might not help you as much but if you can, try to get rooms with as much kitchen equipment as you can.  Mini Refrigerators, Microwaves, Stoves, whatever you can get. 

Tip #3: Local Dining.  I usually land in Dallas around lunch time, go to work for the afternoon and then afterwards, I hit up two places; My Fit Meals and a grocery store.  My Fit Meals is located in four Texas locations and offers a variety of fresh ready to eat meals, including all nutritional and ingredience information.  And they are very inexpensive for what you get.  They have a whole low carb section that is paleo approved, so on Mondays I like to stock up on these individual meals to stash in my frig back at the hotel. They are perfect for me to bring to work as well for lunch.  Of course, My Fit Meals only works if you are in TX; there is also a Snap Kitchen in Austin. If you check out various google/yahoo search combinations of ‘healthy to go meals’ or ‘home delivery meals’, lots of search results come up so just check for the area in which you are traveling to.

If you can’t do that, then move on to grocery stores.  I like to stop at a grocery store on Mondays to stock up on unsweetened almond milk or coconut milk for my teas/coffees/Progenex shakes throughout the week, plus healthy snacks like finger food veggies, almonds, etc.  If you do have a frig and microwave, you can buy whole chickens already roasted and eat that for a few days.  It all boils down to being creative and being prepared.

Tip #4: Restaurant Dining.  On this particular Dallas project, me and my coworkers are all eating alone versus making it a group outing every single night.  On the plus side, I don’t have to get up super early to work out since my nights are now free to do as I please.  But usually, my team likes to have dinner together after work.  Again, this all depends on your budget, but I have always found that eating out at restaurants to be super easy on this diet.  Probably the easiest thing ever.  I never understand how people had issues with this.  As I’ve said a bazillion times in this blog; preparation (research) and creativity.  That’s all you need.  At most places, you can order simple meat and veggies; it can be any meat and any veggie, as long as the veggies are not fried and breaded and the meat isn’t smothered in carb loaded sauces. If there is the potential that you may be going to some place with limited paleo options, research beforehand what you might get in that situation.  One of my coworkers adores Thai; I thought that when I turned paleo, I would have to give it up.  I did some research and saw that if I go to a real thai place, I can get soup made from coconut milk with no added sugar, certain salads and certain meats.  I think the worst that I’ve ever had to make due with is tuna salad from a pizza place.  (Their mayo was obviously not paleo)

or jaimieh_1018 at yahoo dot com. – JaimieI’m always looking for new tips from other paleo frequent travelers so feel free to hit me up with any new ideas I didn’t cover in this blog.  http://www.twitter.com/Supervixen13  - Jaimie