Staying Consistent with Nutrition While Traveling or During Busy Seasons

So you thought getting jacked was hard at home? Wait till you try it on the road, where the universe personally conspires to shove deep-fried regret straight into your hopeful face. Airports, hotels, and your aunt’s “just-one-bite” casserole are all in cahoots. But sure, Jan, let’s pretend you’re going to “stay disciplined.”

1. Your “Non-Negotiable” Rules (Because Willpower Is a Myth)

Write three rules so brain-dead a golden retriever could follow them. Mine:

- If it didn’t have a face or a mother, it doesn’t go in my face.

- Zero calories that fizz, sparkle, or come with an umbrella.

- If I can’t name the vegetable in under three seconds, I’m not eating it.

Screenshot them, tattoo them on your forearm, whatever. When you’re three martinis deep in Denver and the late-night menu is whispering “loaded tater tots,” your phone gets to be the bad cop so you don’t have to.

2. Pack Like a Paranoid Bodybuilding Squirrel

Your carry-on is now a rolling supplement bunker. TSA agents will assume you’re either a pro athlete or running an underground whey cartel. Current record: 47 protein bars, 1.5 kg iso, and a bag of turkey jerky that could survive the apocalypse. Flight gets canceled? Fantastic. Everyone else is panic-buying $19 airport sushi while I’m over here feasting like a budget-conscious caveman.

3. The Airport: A Post-Apocalyptic Hellscape Designed by Satan and United Airlines

Pre-security: Stuff your face with real food. Post-security options are:

A) $24 “protein bowl” containing four chickpeas and a dream

B) Cinnabon the size of a manhole cover

C) The rotisserie chicken you surgically removed from its bones in the short-term parking lot like a serial killer with a Costco membership

Choose C, you absolute legend.

4. Hotel Room: Gordon Ramsay’s Nightmares, But Make It Budget

Congratulations, your “suite” has a mini-fridge and a microwave older than TikTok. Time to cook:

Dump a can of tuna on spinach. Nuke a sweet potato. Drown both in hot sauce packets you’ve been hoarding since the Obama administration. Boom—gourmet meal that tastes like broken dreams and discipline. Five stars. Would cry again.

5. Restaurants: Time to Become the Table Everyone Hates

Smile like a serial killer and say:

“Hi, quick question—can you make the chicken breast completely flavorless, double the portion, swap every carb for sad steamed broccoli, and then charge me full price for the privilege? Amazing, thanks.”

They’ll spit in it. Tip 30% anyway. Next visit they’ll cook it perfectly out of pure spite. Win-win.

6. Alcohol: The Final Boss Wearing a Sombrero

If drinking is mandatory (because “networking”), follow the sacred pain scale:

Vodka soda → tequila soda → dry wine → light beer → setting your macros on fire → anything that tastes like melted Jolly Ranchers and bad decisions.

Bonus points: Shotgun a 40 g protein shake before going out. You’ll still wake up regretting life, but at least your biceps won’t file for separation.

Working out around the holidays

7. Two-Meal Days: For When Your Calendar Looks Like a Hostage Situation

Some days you have negative seventeen minutes to eat. Solution: two comically large meals.

Meal 1: Protein shake thick enough to stand a spoon in + oats. Chug it in the Uber like a frat boy doing the opposite of good choices.

Meal 2: Descend upon an all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse like a starving velociraptor.

Science says it’s literally the same as six meals. Your coworkers will think you’re unhinged. Correct.

8. Tracking: Because MyFitnessPal Died of Exhaustion

Just use your meat hooks:

Palm = protein

Fist = veggies

Cupped hand = carbs

Thumb = fats

Four meals later you’ve hit your numbers within 3%. Or just give every day a color. Five green days = you didn’t completely implode. Treat yourself to another dry chicken breast.

9. Sleep: The One Supplement That Actually Works

You can eat 500 g protein, but if you sleep four hours on hotel pillows that feel like concrete with a hint of bedbugs, cortisol turns you into a stress balloon. Pack an eye mask, earplugs, and enough magnesium to tranquilize a horse. Look like a budget ninja, sleep like a sedated toddler.

10. The 90% Rule, You Fragile Little Gremlin

One croissant in Paris will not make you fat. One drunken deep-dish pizza will not undo six months of pain. Eat it, savor the shame, post the evidence, then go right back to being an insufferable protein goblin at the very next meal. The second you scream “Well, I already blew it!” and eat fourteen more slices is the second you lose. Don’t be that guy.

Now go forth, you magnificent disaster. May your macros be shaker clean, your hotel fridge stocked, and your willpower slightly less pathetic than everyone else’s.