How do you balance the unpredictable when working towards a goal?

Taking the "small" wins can help you build confidence to make the changes you want to make.

[Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 57 seconds.]

Before I get into today’s post, thank you. In the past week, many of you have reached out to see how you could support me as I was dealing with the increase in anti-semitism. A lot has happened since the massacre in Israel. Subsequent events in Gaza, misinformation on what happened and who is to blame have not helped.

What has helped is knowing how many of you wanted to listen and to learn.

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This is the the 2nd part of the 2-part series on establishing guardrails when setting goals. This matters when you don’t have as much control over your routine as you’d like. 

Earlier this week, I covered how I managed working out and getting sleep while traveling for work.

Dessert from Milk Bar in Vegas. Nothing healthy here.

Today I’ll get into how I handled eating out while traveling for work. Plus I’ll get into how these strategies can help you at home if you have an unpredictable schedule.

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It’s the Food and Dining Out That’s Hard

Yeah, this was probably the toughest of the trio of sleep, fitness and eating. After the 1st full day on the road, my sleep was generally “good enough”. I always knew I would feel better after I worked out so that kept me motivated to wake up early.

You don’t have control over some of the places you end up dining out at. You don’t have control over the ingredients they put in your food. I can definitely empathize.

In my situation, I had more control of my food and beverage choices earlier in the day. As the day progressed, I had less control as others were involved in the decision making process.

I generally caught breakfast at a local Starbucks or the hotel. I did pretty well at that time of the day by sticking to protein. I’d pick up some healthy snacks there too for the day.

But in a couple of the places I traveled frequently to, the office was in the middle of nowhere and delivery was not an option. I had been caught more than once without anything and having to hit the snack machine. Nothing was healthy there.

Whether we’d go out for lunch or order in, I’d try to steer the conversation to choose a place that has some good protein options. Those establishments would typically have salads as well. That was the best I could do along with having some healthy snacks. And being ‘hangry’ was not an option as that led to poor food choices from me later.

Dinner was a completely different proposition. For a variety of reasons, dinner tended to take place at more upscale places. I know, I know. You feel bad for me. I ate at some great restaurants. I stuck with meat and vegetables as much as I could.

I knew dinner was going to be the meal where I had the least control and likely consume the most. I focused on eating as well as I could up until dinner. It took awhile to be successful at this. Then there was this other thing I did….

Sliced duck at Momofuku in Vegas. This might have been one of the best business meals ever.

I didn’t drink alcohol on the road. Drank only water and tea during these trips. The purpose was three-fold:

1. Personal safety - I saw enough strange things happening in hotels that made me understand having full awareness around me was a better move.

2. Sleep - it was screwed up because of the jet lag. Alcohol negatively impacts your sleep so I didn’t need to add to that.

3. Calories - alcohol has plenty of calories. If I was trying to continue my wellness journey, I was wasting them on alcohol while also having food that was higher in calories, etc.

You could look at this as boundary setting. It helped. In addition to the reasons above, I was dealing with some pretty thorny work situations. It felt safer to be known as the person who didn’t drink when a bunch of shenanigans were happening around me.

Obviously since COVID has happened, my work travel has been curtailed. I now work from home where I have more control over my meals. That said, I deal with many parents who struggle with eating healthy on a daily basis when they are at home.

Want a plan customized for you?

How would I apply all of this to my life?

Even if you don’t travel for work, most of us are spending more time outside of the house than we did 3 years ago. In addition to any ‘return to office’ (RTO) mandates, this also means:

• More meals out of the home

• Less predictability in your schedule

• Less time to focus on you (e.g., fitness, relaxation, etc.)

Think about the times of your day where you have more control.

• Is it before your kids get up?

• Is it when your kids are in bed?

• Is it when your kids are in school?

One of the things I discuss with clients is making improvements at the margins. Many times, a client will come in wanting to make massive changes. That’s great but implementing significant changes at once is hard to pull off over a sustained period of time.

Go Long wants to help you make changes for the long-haul. The focus is on identifying areas that are low-hanging fruit for you to put in place.

Is it packing a small cooler of healthy snacks for you while you drive carpool between multiple events in a typical evening? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Everyone has different spaces in their life where you can make those small changes. Go Long looks at YOUR life, YOUR constraints and YOUR schedule to make pragmatic recommendations for YOU. It’s bespoke to YOU.

Need help figuring out where you can make incremental improvements?

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Go Long can help.