I do a fair bit of travel for work, a lot of it to Ukraine where believe me there is no way to get nutrition info.

I find I just have to be diligent about the lifestyle of work travel. I don’t let myself drink a lot. I order simple menu items. When I order a steak I never get a sauce, for example. I only eat things where I can ball park the caloric content.

And I make sure I’m never above a 7 on the 1-10 how full am I feeling scale. This ensures I wake up hungry which is a good cue for me with weight.

I am 6 foot 3, I have seen 253lbs , when i started the journey 5 years ago i was 233. I've had a good nutrition coach and every other diet in the world.... It really just takes the answer you don't want. just do it! its not a 5 day diet, two day cheat... You just gotta man up and lose the weight, traveling is not an excuse. I am currently on a keto thing, and i like it. I will stay with it for maybe 5 to 8 more weeks, but then I am going back to healthy breakfast healthy lunch and then after lunch low carbs, low fat. like the chicken and broccoli stuff... i am currently 184. and It has been a long road but every year i seem to eek out 10 or so pounds...

Embrace being hungry. Go to bed hungry. Wake up hungry. Only eat when you're hungry. Don't eat the rest of the time.

Don't waste your money paying anyone. It really isn't that hard if you cut out totally all processed food. It would basically be impossible to eat enough vegetables to be fat. With protein get an understanding of how many calories are in each, steak for example is very high calories, chicken breast in comparison not so much.

Also cut out dairy, full cream milk has a stack of calories. And of course no sugar.

There you go, that will be $99.95 please..

You'll get a lot of advice here in part because many people here have either been there or at least have had to work to keep the pounds off. One thing you will notice is that different things work for different people. I disagree strongly with the guy who said you have to embrace being hungry. That's not sustainable for almost anyone. Instead you have to find the diet/lifestyle choice that works for *you*. You need to be able to eat the right amount of calories every day and have it mostly be effortless. Some people do low carb, some people do low fat, etc. Do whatever works for you comfortably. The most important thing is you like the diet and it becomes part of your every day life. I.e., it's not a temporary diet - it's for life. I think for almost everyone this means eating less processed foods, which tend to not really fill you up on a per calorie basis. This is obviously *much* harder when you travel a lot, but you can figure out something that works.

What I do: mostly track my calories, eat whole foods (e.g. whole grains instead of white), eat ~30g protein at every meal, not much fat, the rest carbs, eat a fairly large breakfast, stop eating after dinner (i.e. no food from dinner on for a few hours until sleep). Two more things that I think are pretty helpful: (1) get enough sleep - this could be almost the *most* important thing, (2) no alcohol. Using this routine, if I'm ever hungry I eat. I.e. I never *ever* starve myself. In fact, if I'm not careful, on hard workout days I will actually not eat enough. It's effortless to hold my weight, and I eat ice cream fairly often, etc, and I'm 50yo, BUT I do ride my bike a lot so that helps make it easy too.

I saw a pro-sports nutritionist and it was good. It was a surprise. I held the program for a year, but since slipped a bit - fully aware tho.

Corporate life & travel creates a lot of stress. Also is an environment where it is easy to make incorrect choices. Mostly too much sugary things, at least in my case.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

my 2 cents, as others have said what works for one may not for another. I played a ton of sports growing up and through college so never worried about nutrition in regards to weight. After other things in my life got more intensive competing took a back seat and weight went up. I found working with a nutritionist gave me the understanding of how what I was putting into my body affected my weight and how I felt etc...After 18months or so of working with one I had all the tools myself to maintain and adjust my diet as needed based off what was going on in my life.

10000 years of human evolution would suggest otherwise.

6'4" sitting at 220 now. Been as high as 280 and as low as 200. Caloric deficit is the best answer. Odds are you could be eating better. I know I sneak sugars and beer when I'm not really trying, and it shows, even though I try to convince myself I'm eating healthy haha. End of the day, it's all about burning more than you consume.

Right now about 40% of U.S. adults are obese. Prior to 50 years ago, that rate was well under 10%. Similar trends hold in other countries, typically starting at a later date. The reason people were not obese prior to 50 years ago is NOT because they did not have access to *more* food, and it is NOT because they walked around hungry. They ate to satiation and did not get fat. So, basically you're exactly wrong. 10000 years of human history and obesity was rare. Only in the last 50 years have people become obese, and in most countries it's more like the last 20-30.

Interesting that I logged into Slowtwitch tonight because I rarely do! There are some good suggestions here but what ultimately has to happen is finding out what is going on with you. If you haven't had some lab work done, then that would be a prudent place to start.Too many athletes are unaware of hidden clinical issues that are brewing and keeping them from performance goals. I am a Sports Dietitian and work remotely. Feel free to contact me If you want to briefly chat to see how this could work

Sheila Leard, RD, CSSD, CPT
http://www.MyNutritionZone.com
sheila@mynutritionzone.com

Its hard at the start. Avoiding fads, keto, any other trendy thing, fat adaptations or a nutrition coach will be good.

Train consistently around 10 hours a week maybe little more depending on how using intensity.

Cut out junk, chocolate,

eat as much as you want of the other stuff.

Be 6 feet four 162 pounds year round and maybe touch under come race day

You don't need to pay anyone cent. It's not rocket science-your body can't create fat out of thin air. If you aren't loosing weight the simple truth is you aren't burning more calories as you are consuming, it really is that simple.

So if you reduce your calories and are still hungry you need to look at what you are eating.

I dare you to eat nothing but vegetables and lean protein (As much as you like) consistently and tell me you aren't loosing weight. No cheats, no one off snacks or nights on the booze, just vegetables and lean protein-by the nuclear if you want.

I was at 232 from 2007-2011. Now I'm at 180-185 depending on the season. 6,3 btw, so there's your context. The road for my was long, with 232 -> 200ish, then back up to 215 and back down to 200 a few times before I found ways to get down to 190 and keep my upper limit at 200. Then eventually I learned how to "embrace the hunger", which sounds awfully bad but really isn't. It is not about starving yourself, but appreciating how it feels to be 500kcal ish under what would be maintenance. Anyways, first few stepped that helped for me:

1. Replace sugar sweeten soda with light soda. Skip candy and desserts. In the beginning I used to have a day every other week in which I was allowed to eat/drink candy/soda, but eventually life started to revolve around those days and I don't think that's the right way to do it.

Number 1 had a huge effect on me. Next step:

2. Coffee. When people eat, I drink coffee. I love the taste of it. Hated it in the beginning but now its my go to.

3. Skip unhealthy dinners. No more burgers, pizza, hot dogs, kebabs etc.

4. The process of enjoying healthy foods.

When you start craving fruits, vegetables, rye bread, berries etc instead of candy and chips you know something right is going on :)

Some good advice from others. lanierb in particular.

I workout before I eat. I don't eat and then workout to burn calories or lose weight.

What that has done for me is that I satisfy the need for re-hydration followed by the need for food.

The game you want to play is to replenish. Stop playing the losing battle.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

Is your travel by plane or car? By car you can get a cooler and meal prep. By plane is harder.

(I used to do about 120days a year, combination of car and plane)

You seem to be speaking from a very modern, very western-centric viewpoint.

Anyway, he needs to get hungry now because he's overweight. You don't have to starve yourself and be hungry all the time once you're at a weight you like, but you're not eating in excess.

Throughout human history, that excess was rare. Hence, obesity was rare, sure.

But your "access to food" quip is a bit silly.

Nobody can call them fat. There is just more of them to love! This is America, where there will be a girl who could be beautiful, but instead packed on 50+ lbs and will be in a magazine cover shoot about how “real” woman look and are beautiful as a size 18. Ugh

Society tells us we have the problem and we need to embrace the fatties!

don't be such a turd.

I'm not looking for "magic" and know such a thing doesn't exist. What I've come to realize, and this may sound really dumb, is that I just don't know how to eat properly. I've effectively been fat my whole life. Not grossly so but enough that it affect my athletic performance and certainly isn't healthy.

My thinking is that much like training, there's more to it than "just eat less." For example two people could do the same hour workout, and burn a similar amount of calories, but derive very different benefits if one was doing intervals and the other was doing steady state. There seems to be a horrible amount of "noise" in the nutrition/diet space, but it seems intuitive to me that different foods will react differently with different people. While a pile of sugar and a hunk of chicken may have the same calories, they probably interact with your body differently and should be deployed in different manners. I've fallen on both sides of this debate and vacillated between a dogmatic "It's all calories in vs calories out" and type of food matters, and I'm just not smart enough to get to the right types of food for me, and I eventually fall down on pure calorie counting, usually when I'm at the end of a hard training cycle since I'm constantly ravenous to support the training.

The travel thing presents a wrinkle since it's by plane 99% of the time, it's 2-6 days/week, and it's just not feasible that I'm going to cook something (or stay in the type of hotel that usually has a mini kitchen). I mention this not to make excuses, but as an example of where I'm trying to find some guidance for instance "At the lackluster client cafeteria eat X as a go-to rather than a turkey wrap, and look for these 3 things at restaurants, and avoid these 3." Home is relatively easy... My wife is an excellent cook and also eats healthy so the weekends aren't bad save for cutting back on the booze.

There's probably a fine line between looking for a magic bullet and "sustainable optimizations" but I'm woefully underknowledgable to the point that I'm not sure where to start. It's like showing up to your first tri with a Schwinn with streamers and flip flops and realizing you're on a new planet don't even know where to start.

At the cafeteria get the grilled chicken sandwich. If the workers look nice ask tell them you have dietary restrictions and ask if they have some white rice and grilled chicken. If it's breakfast get eggs and don't touch the pastries. Look for Subways and don't get cheese. Burrito places are usually accommodating of the white rice, black beans, and lean meat combo. At sit down places get a flank steak and veggies. Pack your bag full of protein bars for snacks.

If eating with clients your excuse for ordering healthy or special instructions can be generic "blood pressure" or "cholesterol" so you don't seem vain for wanting to look like a demi-god naked.

This was my strategy when I was traveling, fwiw. I was leaner then, but also younger, so who knows. good luck!

In my experience it is a combination of embedding good habits and losing the bad habits.

I'm 48 years old, 6'1" and 75Kg. I eat a ton, massive bowls of porridge oats every day with nuts and seeds all over it and fruit, lots of fruit. I eat loads of brown rice and avocados and full fat milk. I also eat a lot of DARK! chocolate, every day without fail.

One key is to keep moving. In an office job it's easy to do only 2000 steps a day or with some good habits you can go to the toilets 200m away instead of the close ones, and walk the long way around to meetings. Park your car far from the front door. Go for a walk at lunchtime. Bingo 10000 steps. That's not going to make you skinny suddenly but it's a good illustration of hidden calorific outgoings. Similarly - When you're in an airport do you walk everywhere or use the travelators and escalators and lifts or do you use the stairs and power walk everywhere? You're going to be sat down for a few hours so get 10 minutes of walking in beforehand. And when you're sat in a hotel room, eat a salad instead of a steak.

Give up alcohol, it's crap and nobody needs it. Give up sugar and processed fat foods. Avoid the donuts that people bring in when it's a birthday, and it's always someone's birthday.

Eat chocolate for sure, but eat Dark chocolate as that's actually good for you. (I think)

Keep a rough idea of food in vs food out and earn it. I'll generally be aware that if i get up early and run an easy 10k before work then i'm in credit for 600 calories or so for the day. Easy.

Everyone will have an opinion about how not to be a fatty and in most cases the answers are easy, but like any experiment you need accurate data: are you putting in 2000cals a day or 3500 (those sweets and beers add up). Are you burning 3500c per day or 2000c?

I'm not an expert (though have managed to stay in the same ~15 pound range for the entire 25 years of my adult life to date despite having a sweet tooth and the ability to decimate a buffet), but my take is that while the calories in vs calories out thing is true, there are 2 caveats:

1) What you eat, how much you eat, and when you eat it can impact the calories out side of the equation, not just the calories in. E.g. If you run a huge calorie deficit then your metabolism will slow down so that you also burn less calories.
2) It's much easier to control calorie intake with some types of food than others. E.g. If you eat 500 calories of sugary things they're not going to fill you up that much plus you're going to get a sugar rush followed by a dip, so you will likely be craving more food a few hours later. Whereas if you eat 500 calories of vegetables with some lean protein like salmon or turkey, you're going to feel full a lot longer and won't get those cravings.

My general approach is to meet my basic nutritional requirements each day with healthy stuff I.e. Veg, seeds, nuts, lean protein, maybe some good carbs like oats, brown rice, etc. If I'm not exercising or only doing short/easy training in a given day, I try to keep the diet completely clean. That covers the days when I'm travelling with work. The more exercise I'm doing, the more carbs I take on to fuel or refuel, and the more relaxed I become about what kind of carbs they are. If I'm doing a 5 hour ride and burning off 4000 calories then I figure it doesn't matter too much where those calories come from (as long as I'm still getting enough of the healthy stuff in as well).

Brother in blubber here. You've probably tried all the suggestions already. Last year I was motivated by a fall marathon and a 50 mile ultrarunning race (not much of a triathlete yet, that's this year's goal) and I lost weight. And then gained it back.

I have no sweet tooth and my diet is decent quality (I didn't say perfect), I just eat too much.

No, you don't "need" to pay anyone, but having an external person to be accountable to might be a key for you.

Anybody up for a weightloss challenge?

When I travel by myself, I lose weight. I don't go out, I just get a sandwich and head to my hotel room. I don't have a house full of food to tempt me in the evening. And yes, with four large athlete kids, I do need to have a house full of food.

When I travel with others, I tend to gain weight. Lots of long meals sitting around and I just keep eating. Plus I like to eat breakfast and lunch and the guys I travel with tend to be the type to skip breakfast, have a light lunch if anything, and then a big dinner. So I have the extra calories from a big dinner added to my normal consumption.

I don't have an easy answer, but some type of external accountability or goal might help.