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Adding Padding
The Travel Critic · September 21, 1998

Hollywood television producer Ed Shaw recalls his days as a corporate traveler, when he jetted between Los Angeles and New York regularly, with an uneasy mix of nostalgia and dread.

"One time," he remembers, "I flew in to New York to visit Anthony Quinn. And we were in his hotel room at four in the morning, and he says, 'Aren't you hungry?' And I say, 'Well, yeah, I guess.' And he orders four cheeseburgers from room service."

Shaw's weight ballooned accordingly. A lifestyle that included all-you-can-eat buffet breakfasts, free lunches and nightly cocktail parties pushed his weight from a healthy 139 pounds to past the 210 mark. At 5-foot-7, he became, by his own admission, "a very big guy."

Sadly, he's the rule rather than the exception. All too often, being a corporate traveler also means being a corpulent traveler.

A recent study by Denver's Brown Palace Hotel found that nearly half of its guests admit to being in worse shape because they travel. Why? It could have something to do with the 11,000 martinis and 2,500 scoops of ice cream the hotel serves every year.

Walk through any airport and pay close attention to the business travelers. See how they fit into the lounge seats with great difficulty. Observe their heavy breathing, their unhealthy pink coloring.

Health experts say frequent travelers are hefty for a variety of reasons.

"Airline meals are a disaster," says New York nutritional doctor Robert Atkins, author of Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution. "Sometimes you'll get a breakfast with nothing but carbohydrates. The snacks that they give you are total junk food. I think the airlines have made matters much worse with their efforts to cut costs."

Temptations lurk elsewhere, says Melanie Polk, director of nutrition education at the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington. Things can get lonely in that hotel room between meetings. "Food comforts you," she says. "Food can be your friend."

What's more, notes Karen Miller-Kovach, general manager of program development for Woodbury, N.Y.-based Weight Watchers International, "room service is only a call away."

The biggest weight-gain culprit for frequent travelers is alcohol, she adds. "Each drink is adding 150 calories to your intake-and that's for a small drink. Three drinks is the equivalent of a light meal. It's like drinking a Big Mac for dinner."

But there are many, many other traps. It's considered rude, for example, to nibble on a little side salad when entertaining clients. You're expected to order a real meat-and-potatoes meal and wash it down with a bottle of wine. The pilgrimage to Burger King is almost reflexive to many travelers on a long airport layover. Or you could just blame your expense account, which entices you to order items you'd otherwise never dream of, like desserts.

Staying trim is a matter of taking into account both the physical and the psychological reasons for weight gain. Cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, author of Optimum Health, says when you're on the road, "you feel vulnerable" because you're in a new place and surrounded by different people.

"You're less likely to go down that laundry list and say to yourself, 'OK, this is good for you. This isn't.'"

Ed Shaw had to do that. He pared his travel schedule and started eating and drinking less. "I absolutely avoid airport food now," he says. "That's my No. 1 rule." Today he weighs 158 pounds.

As a travel writer, I've struggled to keep my poundage under control too. When I started my career in travel journalism, my weight mushroomed from less than 175 pounds (at 6'1'') to more than 200 pounds. I snacked on pretzels at the airport and chowed down at the breakfast bar just like the rest of the road warriors. I'm back down to about 180 pounds now, thanks in part to taking fewer trips and making a conscious decision to eat less.

But I can definitely relate to the plight of Shaw and countless others. My horizons aren't the only thing that expand when I travel.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.