Eat Less, Travel More

I’m traveling this week.  I’m on a business trip.  This is my first business trip in about six years.  I love an occasional business trip.  It gets me out of the office.  I get to see exotic places.  I’ve been to Israel, India, England, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, and now Boise!  After waiting six years for business travel, my first trip is to Boise!  Boise...  In November...

One of the joys of business travel is the expense account.  I can spend quite a bit on food.  I always eat more and better than I do at home.  I don’t mean healthy better, I mean expensive better.  I have a liberal per-day amount for food.  I usually eat light during the day so I have a lot to spend on dinner.  Years ago on a trip to Boston, I had lobster for lunch and dinner.  Not the same lobster.  I had two completely separate lobsters.  I haven’t eaten a whole lobster since.  The reason I haven’t eaten a whole lobster since? Eye stalks.  Lobster tail is good.  No eye stalks on a lobster tail, unless it’s a Chernobyl lobster.  But they’re rare and expensive.

The eating extravaganza used to start at the airport and end at the airport on the return flight.  After a full day of eating, I’d usually finish it off with two quarts of Ben and Jerry’s.  I’m sure there was a daily slice or two of cheesecake in there as well.

Now things have changed.  Just a little.  When I arrived at the airport, it was time to eat.  I drank a Starbucks herbal tea instead.  When I arrived in Boise, instead of going out for dinner at a nice place, I went to a grocery store and bought some seafood salad, Greek yogurt, and sugar free Vitamin Water.  I had to purchase a plastic silverware assortment for $1.25.  I should have eaten with my hands and wiped them on the sheets. Maybe next trip.

I went to Goodwood with a co-worker last night (for the company, not the food). I ordered a high-protein meal.  Everything they serve is high protein.  When my food arrived, my old travel brain said, “humph… not very much food.”   I was able to gorge myself and eat about one-tenth of the meal.  The only time I’d leave a restaurant with a to-go box was when I was taking a third piece of cheesecake for later.  I took most of my meal back to the hotel last night.

I’m learning that the main reason I loved to travel was for the food.  Eating three meals a day at a restaurant was a thrill for me.  A big thrill.  I loved seeing the sights at some amazing places, but in the back of my mind I was always more excited about where I was going eat my next meal.  If someone said, “We can either see the Eiffel Tower or eat at this French restaurant.”  Of course I’m going to eat at the French restaurant.  I can see pictures of the Eiffel Tower on the internet.  But, if someone said, “We can either see the Eiffel Tower or eat at this Burger King.”  I’d still choose the Burger King.  I’m not stupid.  The best solution would be a compromise, “We can eat, and then get something to go, and then eat again while we’re seeing the Eiffel Tower.”  There’s always a solution.

A trip to Boise a year ago would have been thrilling.  Short flight.  Familiar area.  Recognizable food.   Now it’s all business.   I had Greek yogurt at 6 AM.  It’s afternoon now, and I’m not ready for lunch.  I’ll probably eat the rest of my seafood salad in the hotel room tonight.  I’m allotted $300 for food on this four-day trip.  I’ll end up spending less than $50.

I’m happy about this, right?  I’m happy that I’m losing weight and eating less and feeling better.  Right?  RIGHT???  I wrote about the emotional separation from food a while ago.  I thought I was over it a few days after the surgery.  I guess I’m not.

The business trip thrill is gone.  Eating is eating.  About as thrilling as sleeping, using the restroom, or watching “The View.”  But, I did fit in the airplane seat really well.