The Hotel Experience

During my first trip to Bangalore in July (note that I'm posting in August so a little behind in my posting :) ) was among other things, to find a suitable place to stay.

I ended up staying at the Sheraton Bangalore which is quite a nice hotel, 4 running machines, small pool. The restaurants were accommodating and tried to help where they could. Breakfast is the easiest  meal of the day as they have eggs, fruit. I usually grabbed an apple and orange to eat through the day. Note that you need to wash all fruit and veg before eating and I have yet to eat raw veggies. Raw veggies might be what I miss the most so far. Cooking your veggies is less convenient for sure. 

Again I had brought protein bars with me for lunches as well as almonds and cashews for fats. So choices were not too numerous and meals are slightly boring. Dinners were were challenge more from the point of saying no to the numerous request from the serving staff to try x/y/z or try to pour you more wine than you want.  Eating in restaurants is very time consuming as well and it would be nice to just get something and get back to your room to relax or work. 

Work is interesting when you travel. People in NA think that your basically on a holiday. In reality, you work like 6 hours longer/day as they come on time and you interact with them through email. Add jet lag to that and I didn't leave the hotel area other than to hit up the mall to buy a shirt and some peanut butter.

Speaking of peanut butter, its readily available in Bangalore but its not like Kraft. Less sugar and more peanutty taste. I actually prefer it.

Here is one variety available (imported obviously) but available in More Stores.

On this July trip I also travelled to Delhi for a few days. Even for very short flights, they try and serve you a meal on the plane. I just skipped that entirely. I stayed at the Leela in Delhi which is again a fantastic hotel. The staff here were terrific and absolutely went out of their way when I explained my restrictions. The morale of the story here is if you are staying in the hotel, don't be shy about telling them exactly what you want. The 5 star hotels can have some great chefs and they can make tasty meals from simple ingredients.

Being prepared for hotel living by bringing a few protein and fat supplements was the way to go. If you are going to have a dessert, plan for it a day ahead so you can prime yourself to say no or to adjust other elements of the diet to support having that dessert. Also remember that hotel portions can be rather large. Practice not finishing the food. Its very hard to leave 1/2 of your favourite tiramisu gelato on the plate, but scarfing down the whole thing only leads to regrets and depression eating. 

I've also been learning to stop rewarding myself with food. So when I hit milestones like (215 lbs or 200 lbs), I bought a print instead of saying I'll have a slice of cake. Avoid things like, "Its the weekend, or its Friday night so what the hell." I've need to change the way I think about food. Portion control, elements of the meal, grazer style of eating, planning ahead and avoiding spontaneous treats are all valuable changes to my life style that I am planning on sticking with during the maintenance period, which should be in a few weeks. 

Having slagged the hotel food a little, this particular meal at the Sheraton Bangalore was rather nice. Grilled shrimp on a bed of baked beans in a tomato sauce.

Yes folks, this is on the diet. The 3 what I would call normal size shrimp make a 1.5 oz or a single serving. In this case, the shrimp are quite a bit larger than what I would call normal. Getting out ones weigh scale at a restaurant is pretty inconvenient, so lets just say 2 make a serving, and there are 6 shrimp so there is 3 of the 9 daily servings. I knew I'd be eating out tonight so I planned for it and left myself 4 servings. Eating a scoop of beans covered that base off. There is undoubtedly oil in this preparation, so I tick off a fat, 1 of the 5 daily servings. The glass of wine replaces a fruit serving, some would argue two.

And I forgot to mention, I drink water (carbonated in this case) and always bottled in India. Never drink the water if you don't see the bottle opened. I've been sick 10 previous times and the last 5 have been great because I'm being more careful and not taking any chances. Trust me and do not touch street food, sweet coconut is amazing but I saw god I was so sick.

Planning ahead will get you through those difficult restaurant meals. And if you didn't plan on having dessert, don't have it.