Long overdue but here it is. My weekend at the East Regionals and how I try my best to stay consistent with tracking my macros when out of town. Hope you enjoy!

Travel Flexible

In my last post I talked about my journey into Flexible Nutrition, today I want to talk about how to make this a permanent lifestyle change.  For many of us, we want to eat out or if you’re like me you travel a lot.  I travel every weekend for CrossFit and coach on the Level One Seminar staff.  For the first few weeks I would start to get stressed out every Thursday, knowing the weekend would be challenging to hit my macros.  The more I traveled the better I got at hitting my numbers on the road, here are a few tips I came up with.

Buy a travel scale - Yes, you will be the weirdo weighing food at a restaurant…but you will also be the weirdo with a six pack.  I found a cheap one on amazon for about $12, it’s about the same size as my iPhone.

Bring food with you - if I my weekend is driving distance, I pack for my entire day Friday so it only leaves me with two days to worry about.  Weekends I fly, I always pack some what I call “stand alone foods” these are foods that are primarily protein, carbs, or fat.  For example, I’ll bring some turkey for protein, licorice for carbs, and cheese or even fish oil for fat. I also always bring some pop tarts or cookies to get in my comfort foods in the hotel room.

Whole Foods - I always find a whole foods in the area as I know where to find the foods I like.  Any supermarket will do, I’m just most comfortable with these guys.

Google the airport if you have a layover - If I have a layover and think I’ll be hungry, I google whatever airport I’ll be at and restaurants and you can find what food you can buy there.  I typically look for a Subway or Sbarro, with the app update their foods are verified and I plug in ahead of time what I’m going to order.

Plan ahead at restaurants - Saturday night is international cheat night CrossFit Trainers so they choose restaurants they can go crazy at.  Knowing this, I’ll ask early in the day what the plan is and look up the restaurant.  We rarely go to chains so many of the restaurants are not in the app.  I’ll find similar foods and restaurants and plug in what seems to be the closest food and I always prefer to overestimate my macros than underestimate.  I’ll find something on the menu I can compare it to and if I can’t, I don’t order it.  My mentality is, even if it’s not 100% accurate, it beats the hell out of what I would have done, which is eat all the food!

Eat less throughout the day - These Saturday nights I also keep my intake lower all day so that way I have slightly more flexibility when I’m out.  For example if I ate all day and then get to a restaurants and nothing has less than 30 carbs or 20 fat etc, it might be harder to order something.  I would rather have to concern myself with eating more to hit my macros than being over.

If I go over a bit I don’t freak out.  This took time, I’m super anal with my numbers and work diligently to hit zeros daily so I know if I’m over 5-10 one day a week it’s not the end of the world.  I simply get right back at it Sunday and hit those numbers again!

Take a day off!  You won’t die and you won’t get fat.  Once in a while we go to a super fancy place and I eat whatever I want!  If we go to an upscale steakhouse and I’m hanging with CrossFit big wigs I let loose.  It’s FLEXIBLE dieting, it’s ok to be chill every so often.  With that being said, knowing this ahead of time, I may choose to IF (intermittent fast) that day and I typically keep alcohol to a minimum, less than two drinks as I would rather be over my carbs with cheesecake than wine.

Those are my tips for successful travel.  If you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out, jasonackerman36@gmail.com, check out my websitewww.squathterapy.com, or find me on instagram @jasonackerman78 - good luck on your Flexible journey!