STRONGMAN ON THE ROAD PART I: NUTRITION

Recently I had a work obligation that required me to spend 10 days away from home, which meant 10 days away from my kitchen and amazing home gym.  This isn’t the first time I’ve been forced to travel, and rather than just lament the situation like many, I took some action to ensure I’d be able to eat and train well without issue.  Primarily, I didn’t want to blow a lot of cash eating out for every single meal, nor did I want to feel like absolute crap from living off fast food and TV dinners.  I wanted to share some of the things I did, to include some lessons learned for the next time I have to do this.

 

FOOD BEFORE ARRIVAL

A picture is worth a thousand words.  Let me show you what “packing” looks like for me

 

Don't try to put this in a carry-on

 

What you are seeing here is

 

12 bags of microwavable riced cauliflower
6 pack of canned chicken breasts
2 bags of zero carb beef jerky
20 packages of tuna
15 servings of mixed nuts (my personal blend of walnuts, pistachios and hazelnuts)
10 Biotest Finibars (5 peanut butter, 5 dark chocolate
10 Quest protein bars (technically the Costco brand of bar, but they’re pretty much identical to Quest in terms of nutrition)
1 container of creatine monohydrate (partly full.  I’m also using it to store 10 days worth of fish oil, glucosamine, multivitamins and apple cider vinegar supplements)

 

It’s no secret I’m a low-carber, and even though I’m transitioning from losing fat to gaining weight again, quality protein and fat sources are always going to be my priority.  I had no guaranteed access to any sort of kitchen, so I packed things that required no refrigeration and, at best, a microwave to cook, but everything could be eaten right out of the package if needed.

 

On the Finibars: they are decidedly NOT “low carb”, at 40 grams a bar, but the truth is I won a trivia competition on t-nation.com and was sent them for free, and it seemed like a golden opportunity.  My plan was to make them my breakfast for the duration of the trip, as they’re convenient, and with plans to train first thing in the morning, I could make use of the carbs.  I am not endorsed or sponsored by Biotest, but I’ll say that, despite the macro breakdown not being what I prefer and it having some ingredients I’m not a fan of (maltodextrin being the big one), they really answered the mail, I found myself looking forward to eating them every morning, I’m going to miss having them for breakfast when I get back home, and I’ll definitely be packing them again for the next trip.

FOOD UPON ARRIVAL

 

Do not heed this siren's call

As soon as I got situated, I found out I had a minifridge in my room, so I went and acquired a few tubs of fat free greek yogurt (I prefer Fage), some Fairlife skim milk, some Special K protein plus cereal, a case of clearance Bang Energy Drinks from GNC ($1 per can, can’t beat that), a cheap tub of protein powder (grocery store special, looked for the lowest carb/fat content, got the chocolate flavor), a small container of PBFit, and some small knock off tupperwear containers. 

 

Ain’t that a lot of carbs for a low carb guy?  Definitely, but with me gaining weight I’ve taken to having carb up meals before and after training.  The thing is: those were EASY to get at my location and not worth packing.  And, of course, I’m trying to be a little bit healthy: you could always just go buy a big bag of skittles if you want some carbs.  And, of course, I bought the energy drinks because I’m an addict, but there’s your pre-workout too.  My breakfast each morning before training was a Finibar and a Bang, and boy is that the breakfast of champions.

 

WEIRD MEALS

 

Although Vision Quest is still much better, but that dude wasn't eating

When you only have so many ingredients and so many nutritional demands, you get creative.  The go to was chicken or tuna mixed with riced cauliflower, and then usually a handful of the mixed nuts thrown in for fats.  Post workout, I was originally doing my “milk, cereal and protein powder” meal followed by a follow on meal an hour later of PBfit mixed with the greek yogurt, until one day it dawned on me the greek yogurt has more protein than the milk does while 1 gram carb less, so I started making parfaits with cereal, yogurt and protein powder.  That’s a fantastic meal: you should make it.  

Pictured, slumming it with Chobani vs my preferred Fage

I also started mixing the PBfit with protein powder in the greek yogurt, resulting in a peanut butter cup style meal: also amazing.

 

Then I started mixing greek yogurt with the tuna to make tuna salad.  It works.  It also works when you throw in PB fit and protein powder.  It seems you can just sneak tuna into yogurt and get more protein.  And then I made rice pudding by mixing riced cauliflower with yogurt and protein powder.  I have weird tastes: this may not work for you at all, but the point is that you can make up a LOT of things with limited ingredients.

 

FRESH FOOD

They got to know this order pretty well at my local Qdoba

 

It still stands to reason that eating a bunch of preserved stuff is still not that great for you, so I was very fortunate to have a Qdoba within walking distance of me.  I ate there about once a day just to get something not canned in my body.  I took to having a salad, no shell, no rice, no beans, double chicken, extra fajita veggies, extra pico de gallo, red salsa and jalapenos.  Basically, as many veggies as I could get.  It had a very “cleansing” effect.

 

NUTRITION LESSONS LEARNED

Hopefully you come back from work looking more like the right than the left

-Next time, nut butters instead of/in addition to nuts.  I forgot that, with the high fiber in nuts, they can be like corn, in that they’ll pass through the body while remaining “in tact” when you eat enough of them.  That can be a little rough on the colon/end pieces over a 10 day stretch.  Nut butters avoid that issue, and I’ve heard absorb better.  I ordered a bunch of containers from some company called “Nuts ‘n more” that makes some sort of no-stir high protein/high fiber/lower carb peanut/almond butter that I plan to bring along next time.

 

-I plan to buy a jar of salsa in the future, just get add some variety to my veggies.  The riced cauliflower answers the mail, but it’s always good to get in your colors and variety, and salsa is easy open/close compared to canned veggies.

 

-Once again, those Finibars rocked.  I took to having 2 hour training sessions in the morning due to having difficulty adjusting to the timezone and waking up incredibly early with access to a 24 hour gym, and all I’d eat to fuel it was a Finibar 30ish minutes before training.  They have my vote.

 

-The same is true of that zero carb beef jerky.  Fantastic nearly pure protein snack, travels well.

 

-I don’t plan to buy milk next time.  The yogurt is just superior in every way.  We’re all so used to “protein shakes”, but really, it’s all just protein.  Get it how you can.  I honestly might just be done drinking milk in general now, since I’ve switched to drinkable egg whites at my home situation.

 

-Answer the survey on your Qdoba receipt: I saved $2.50 on every meal that way, which covered the cost of the extra protein.  It adds up.

 

 

Originally, I was going to write up my whole travel experience, but once I finished just talking about how I ate it’d already become a beast, so next post I’ll discuss training.  To give a sneak preview: lots of 2 a days and my adaptation of Dan John’s infamous “Litvinov workout”.