Travel: My Biggest Hurdle

The fancy restaurants. The one, and if you're lucky, two meals a day. The team-building bar nights. The shortest line at the concession stand. Yes, people, this is the life of a tradeshow attendee. 

Work travel is my biggest hurdle.

No matter how much I psych myself up before a work trip, I always lose motivation and strength when I'm there. I'm leaving for Amsterdam in a couple of days and it's making me nervous. I've come so far already that I'm afraid that I'm going to lose all my progress while I'm there. 

So, I've been thinking about what I'm going to do to keep myself on track for the next 10 days abroad. Reflecting on my eating habits of the last few weeks, I think my main tactic is to try and eat like a vegetarian. Lots of fruits and vegetables, find some high protein meals that don't 100% come from meat and pass on all the appetizers and desserts that my coworkers like to indulge in. 

But I see two more difficult issues than just food: eating more often and drinking.

I'm now used to eating 5 smaller meals a day, not just the 3 main meals. When I'm traveling for a show, I often times only eat once or twice a day. The days are long and are incredibly busy. Luckily, I'm landing a day earlier than everyone else, so my plan is to find a local market and buy some fruits and veggies that I can carry with me throughout the day. Our hotel rooms all have a mini kitchenette with a stove, fridge and sink, so I should be able to easily store a week's worth of snacks. 

The drinking is going to be the hardest. I love beer and wine....especially European beer and wine. There's not a whole lot of things to do at the end of the day after a long day on your feet at a tradeshow. My coworkers and I often just get dinner and hang out at the local pub, have a few drinks before bed and do it all over the next day. It's also a great time to socialize and bond with them, which is extremely important to my job in marketing. So, my tactic here is to limit my drinks to one a night and stick to light beers or a glass of wine. 

Oh...and water. Water. Water. Water. If I find that market, I might pick up a few bottles of water too. It's easy to forget to drink water throughout the day when you're busy, but you must. It's so super important, yet easy to forget. 

Ok, so that's my plan. I leave on Monday and plan on reporting a successful trip!!