Shedding Pounds on the Road

About the only time I eat at McDonald’s is when I travel. Usually my diet is pretty healthy, but give me a whiff of a Quarter Pounder with cheese in an airport terminal and I am like a lemming to a cliff. The reasons are more complex than you might imagine.

As any business traveler knows, keeping a diet and exercise regimen while traveling is just plain tough. Regular exercise routines are impossible, and meals either are grabbed at fast-food restaurants or are gut-stuffing wining and dining of business associates. Add a dash of stress, a tablespoon of sleep deprivation and a cup of jet lag and it’s a recipe for obesity.

Nobody knows better just how difficult it is to stay fit while traveling than the ever-in-motion Peter Greenberg, travel editor of NBC’s “Today” show. He logs 400,000 flight miles and 300 hotel nights in a year.

“Despite all good intentions, no matter what shape you’re in, or whatever your exercise program, travel is the great enemy,” he says in his new book, “The Traveler’s Diet: Eating Right and Staying Fit on the Road.”

After a routine physical showed that he tipped the scale at 284 pounds and had high blood pressure and “frightening” cholesterol and triglycerides levels, Greenberg knew he had to do something about his diet and exercise habits. But none of the many diet books on the market addressed the special circumstances of the frequent traveler.

So he embarked on “The Traveler’s Diet,” which chronicles his journey from 284 pounds to 240 pounds about a year later (with an ultimate goal of 224). Along the way, he consults with dietitians, physical trainers, sleep specialists, chefs and other experts to create a detailed diet and exercise plan that works on the road as well as at home.

The book helps explain why, for example, I might eat a Quarter Pounder in an airport when I would not otherwise consider it. It’s not just that it is convenient, fast and cheap. Travel is inherently stressful and just being in an airport can provoke anxiety. I feel subliminally that I deserve a reward for my stress. That Quarter Pounder is my guilty pleasure.

But will knowing this keep me from eating a Quarter Pounder the next time I arrive at LAX completely stressed? Maybe. And that is good enough.

The book is not about eating and traveling healthy, Greenberg writes: It is about eating and traveling smart. Armed with knowledge about why we eat what we eat, we can make better decisions.

Always the right ones? Heck no, we’re only human. But at least we will understand why we are gleefully shoveling something in our mouths that under normal circumstances we wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. And that knowledge can lead us to change our habits.

Greenberg employs experts who analyze fast-food, airplane and hotel meals, including the so-called healthy options. Initially I thought it overkill to include a detailed analysis of the menus from all the major hotel chains. But many business travelers frequent one or two chains, and being armed with this specific information could be very valuable.

There are moments in the book when Greenberg almost forgets that not every traveler has the same advantages as the celebrated Peter Greenberg. Whenever possible he has a personal trainer waiting for him when he checks into a hotel. And he recommends asking the hotel to remove the evil minibar.

Still, the point is well made that working out or going for a walk when you first arrive at a hotel is much better for you (and ultimately more productive) than immediately getting bogged down by doing something sedentary like logging into e-mail and raiding the minibar. And even if the hotel won’t remove Joe Traveler’s minibar, your relationship with it changes when you have actively sought to eliminate its temptations.

Greenberg writes from the perspective of the overweight traveler who knows from experience what a challenge it is to eat properly and exercise on the road. He puts his money where his mouth is -- walking_sweating and grunting. He is tempted but still manages to muster the discipline necessary to make this plan work.

The rules are not sacred, Greenberg writes, but the principles, the discipline behind the rules, are. The key to a successful diet and exercise program in Greenberg’s book is having the proper mind-set.

“The Traveler’s Diet,” then, is really a de facto personal trainer for business travelers. It provides the practical information needed to begin a healthy diet and exercise program on the road. Greenberg acts as catalyst and inspiration as he weaves his story of personal transformation from a gym-hating, junk-food-gobbling couch potato to an active, conscientious and healthy eater.

You just know that if someone who travels as much as he does can make his lifestyle healthier, then anyone can.

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James Gilden writes the Business Itinerary column for The Times. Contact him at james.gilden@latimes.com.

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Well and traveled

* The Traveler’s Diet: Eating Right and Staying Fit on the Road

* By Peter Greenberg

* Villard Books, $14.95, 384 pages

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Source: Publisher

Los Angeles Times