How to Eat Healthy on the Road - The Young Salesman

One of the most difficult tasks of being a travelling sales person, is eating healthy while on the road.

As I’m sure y’all don’t know me too well, health and fitness is another huge passion of mine. I’ve always loved to work out, but I hated eating healthy — as most people do. Naturally, I set out on a journey to figure out how to make eating healthy more delicious. More specifically, as I was working at McDonald’s at the time (I was 17 years old), I wanted to be able to eat healthy at a fast food restaurant (quite the paradox, ain’t it). Sure enough, I friggin’ did it. I ended up losing close to 30 pounds in 3 months, in the midst of a pandemic (when most people gained weight), and whilst working in THE BELLY OF THE BEAST.

Fast forward 4 years.

I began working as a travelling salesman. In my company, it was well known that as men and women entered the work force, it was inevitable that they would gain weight. I refused to accept that. I had designed my own playbook that enabled me to lose weight working (and eating) at McDonald’s — the birthplace of modern day obesity (sorry, McD’s) — and you bet your ass that I was going to use it.

Throughout this post, my aim is to give you tools and ideas to help you eat healthy while working on the road, whether you have the ability to meal prep from home, or you have to eat out.

Weight Loss in a Nutshell

First things first. Your calories. Arguably one of the most hated words in the English language. Trust me, weight loss is much easier than you think*. All you have to do is figure out how many calories you need in order to sustain your weight…………….. and then eat less. Not rocket science. There is a world of liars out there overcomplicating things and selling you products like weight loss or keto pills to make millions, so let this be your sign to not fall for it. Anyway. All food is made up of 3 macronutrients: Carbs, Protein and Fats. These have 4, 4 and 9 calories per gram respectively. This is more or less how the calories in all of your food is calculated. Below is a simple procedure for weight loss:

Calculate your maintenance calories. Use a TDEE calculator to figure out what your Total Daily Energy Expenditure is. This is the amount of calories that your body burns in order to sustain your everyday life — otherwise known as your maintenance calories. NOW. This is not accurate. It is a ball park. My advice would be to eat this amount of calories for a week or two, and if your weekly median weight doesn’t fluctuate then you know it’s correct-ish. If your weight goes up or down, then adjust accordingly.
Pick your deficit. Now, decide how much you want to reduce your calories. To start decide on your goal. My recommendation would be 0.5 to 1lbs a week (slow weight loss is sustainable weight loss). 1 pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories. So, if you want to lose 1 pound of fat a week, then eat 500 calories less per day (7×500=3500). Decide on your goal, and calculate accordingly.

*I’m thinking of writing a weight loss manual, using familiar principles of building wealth and applying it to weight loss. Comment down below if y’all would like to see that. What you are reading now is the crash course version.

Meal Prep

Meal prep is the most ideal way to eat healthy while on the road, but obviously not everyone has this option. If you do, take advantage of it. It’s less costly for your financial and your caloric budget. Meal prep can be extremely easy, so long as you don’t pick something super complicated to make. There is a world of meal prep ideas out there that you can try, HERE is a great one if you like pasta! Always take into consideration whether or not you are cool with eating food that is cold or room temperature if you won’t have access to a microwave. If you are going to take the Meal Prep path, hats off to you, than be sure to cook meals that are high in protein. Protein high meals are (generally) very satiating. My goal (and yours should be) is to maintain a caloric deficit while remaining as full as possible. The second you get hungry, your will power is going to be put to the test.

Fast Food

Ah, fast food. The truly delicious and convenient shortcut to high blood pressure and obesity. As I don’t recommend you seeking out fast food if you don’t need to, I get that sometimes you may not have too much of an option. Most fast food places nowadays display the calorie counts of their foods on the menu, but if not, here are my general rules:

Stick to low calorie proteins. Grilled Chicken (DO NOT GET THE BREADED CHICKEN), Ham and Turkey. These are generally low calorie meats that are offered in McD’s and Subway (My go to choices).
- Some tasty examples
  - McD’s breakfast – Egg (Eggwhite if possible) McMuffin — It’s made with ham and egg. I would drop the cheese as well, but that’s your call based on your goals.
  - McD’s lunch/dinner – Grilled Chicken wraps/snackwraps — Made with grilled chicken, sauce and veggies. Again, I usually drop the cheese as well.
  - Subway – Ham or Turkey subs – I load these up with vegetables — It’s just more filling for virtually no calories (the vegetables)
Take it easy on the sauces. I get it, the healthy options are not always the tastiest. PLEASE fight your instincts to load these foods up with sauces. Sauces can add a metric f-ton on calories without you realizing it. Try to aim for lower fat (in turn are lower calorie) sauce options. Also, while these options are great — they won’t save you when you DROWN your food in them.
- Some tasty examples
  - Barbecue Sauce – More often than not, BBQ sauce typically has a decently low caloric impact. Results may very based on the restaurant
  - Ketchup – While ketchup can have a fair amount of calories, it is significantly better than, lets say, ranch.
  - Mustard – Mustard has VERY low calories, generally speaking.
Stay away from anything fried. As you may have noticed above, fats have more than DOUBLE the calories that proteins and carbs have. So when a healthy piece of grilled chicken breast gets covered in batter and dipped in fryer oil (which is pure fat), best believe that your journey to obesity just got a whole lot easier.

Conclusion

Honestly. Take a look at what you’re eating right now. If you follow my fast food rules, and apply them to all aspects of your eating, you will be just fine. Low calorie and high protein meals (known as Anabolic Meals) are going to be your best friend in your journey to weight loss. Forget everything that you’ve been told about specific “diets” that can get you in shape. Quit the cycle of dieting for 6 months and then bouncing back for the next 6 months. Calories In, Calories Out (shout out to Coach Greg!). That is all that matters. The recommendations that I have outlined here, are relatively effortless ways to clean up your diet without trying, suffering or starving, whether you are working on the road or not.

What rules do you live by to eat healthy on the road? Anything I missed? Drop a comment down below!