Business trips are usually stressful for me. My POTS is triggered by lack of sleep and dehydration and my IBS flares up with a variety of higher fat foods. Usually on these trips, we are doing employee meetings at all hours of the day/night and only get 4-5 hours sleep and eat out for every meal. Throw in a layover at my brother's house with some beer tastings and high fat foods and you have the recipe for a POTS/IBS perfect storm. Nothing better than feeling like you are having a heart attack, being disoriented and having minimal control over your bodily functions.
Originally when my wife and were talking about me starting Whole30, my plan was to wait until I got back from my trip. Remember, I am the king of procrastination. "Why do today what you can always do tomorrow" is my mantra.. This is the same philosophy and approach that allowed me to push off the start of working out for almost 3 years and balloon up to an impressive 240lbs.
I don't see my brother too often, and we like to stay up late and talk and have a couple of craft beers (ok, maybe more than a couple). Plus I was worried about how I would handle 3 meals a day eating out or with food brought into our meetings.
But the night before my trip, with my wife as my wing-man - we prepped for me to fly to Ohio. She walked me through what to eat, what to buy at the grocery store and how to order lunch. I packed some cashews and apricots for the plane trip and off I went to bed, ready to take on whatever would come my way.
To be honest, I felt great. I was on Day 3 - I wasn't tired or bloated and I left for the airport after a eating a Fritatta for breakfast. The flight went good, I passed on the peanuts and instead ate the cashews and apricots I had packed in my computer bag. For lunch I stopped at Subway and got a chopped salad with chicken breast with veggies and oil and vinegar. All was going good... and then DINNER....
I was eating out by myself and went to Applebees -- one look at the menu and I was in a panic. Everything had sauces, or chips, or beans.... After the 3rd time the waitress stopped by to see if I was ready and me having to tell her no, I figured maybe I should leave and eat some cashews in my car. Then I thought why not use a life line and phone a friend. I texted my wife and she pulled up the menu, and walked me through what to order.... I was pretty happy with my steak, steamed veggies, plain backed potato and lemon/vinaigrette dressing.
After dinner I went to a Wegman's grocery store to get some items to help me get through the next couple of days in my hotel. This place had an unbelievable organic/whole food section. They had stuff I had never heard of. The produce section was bigger than my first house. One thing I did learn though... read the labels. All things "organic" are not Whole30....
I got some fruit, veggies, sliced organic turkey (read the labels, deli meat has a lot of "stuff" in it) and some hard boiled eggs and some Lara bars and assorted olives from the olive bar. Total time in the grocery store... 90 minutes. I found myself wandering up and down aisles and having to read every label. The stock clerks probably thought I was some type of health food stalker because there I was, 90 minutes later, still reading labels... Believe me, the trip was not without moments of panic, like when I ventured into the "normal" part of the store to look for salt, I had to pass the potato chips, sausage and pepperoni that a week ago, would have been calling my name.
Full disclosure, I had to text my wife and ask her questions like "can I eat "natural dextrose"?
But Day 3 came to a close and I felt like I had won a victory. I had traveled, ate lunch and dinner out at a restaurant and shopped by myself.
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