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“We need you in San Francisco in 48 hours,’” shouts Rosanna Pit-tella, mimicking her job’s frequent and urgent demands for air travel. “Usually, I’d go by the seat of my pants and come home with 10 extra pounds.”

She’s exaggerating, of course, but not by much. At one time, the 41-year-old consulting-firm director and mother of three carried 263 pounds on her 5-foot-2-inch frame. She blames the excess baggage on the sheer exhaustion of making repeated crosscountry trips. “When you’re that tired, you eat what’s convenient—and that often means unhealthy foods,” she says. “And once I’d blow it, I’d feel sick the whole trip. It sets up a cycle of bad eating.”

Finally, Rosanna wised up to her unhealthy ways. Temptation is greatest when you’re out of your routine,” she says. So she devised a plan for ensuring that she sticks with her healthy eating habits when she travels. “I pack an emergency food kit, using an insulated lunch bag that belonged to one of my kids,” she explains. “I fill it with cans of tuna, small cans of vegetables, canned snack packs of fruit that are for kids’ lunches (the portion sizes are perfect), fresh fruit, and bottled water. That way, I’m not a victim of airport food or late-night room service because it’s the only thing available.”

Today, a year later and 103 pounds lighter, Rosanna is happy, comfortable, and soaring with energy. She says that packing her emergency food kit is like brushing her teeth. “I won’t leave the house without doing either one,” she says. “They’re so much a part of me that I can’t avoid them.”

WINNING ACTION

Flying? Don’t forget your food. You don’t have to be a frequent flier like Rosanna to face the nutritional pitfalls of air travel. Your best bet is to prepare for your hunger.

Pack your carry-on bag with healthful snacks such as bagels, fresh or dried fruit, single-serving boxes of cereal, and nonfat or low-fat sliced cheese. Take some water, too. Airplane cabins are extremely dehydrating; during a 3-hour flight, you can lose more than a pint of water through your skin and by breathing.

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• CRITICAL PERIODS FOR FAT GAIN AND RELAPSE
• MACRONUTRIENT BALANCE

Tags: Weight Loss . This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 9:50 pm and is filed under Weight Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.