Hi everyone,

I bought Michael Mosley’s 8 Week BSD on a whim when I strayed into the books section (my weakness!) at Selfridges two weeks ago.

Today is Day 2 and I’m feeling good about it, though I do need some advice from all you seasoned BSDers out there…

I’m a consultant who spends Monday-Thursday working on the client’s site several hundred miles away and Friday-Sunday in London (home). Those client site days are spent living out of a hotel with no access to a kitchen, fridge or microwave and the client offices don’t have these either.

Do you have any recipes or suggestions for easy-to-make travel-friendly meals that don’t require a kitchen/fridge/microwave? I can buy things from the local supermarket on a Monday night but can’t afford the time to be going there everyday and I’m lacking inspiration for what foods I can throw together.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks everyone 🙂

Hi Amp511, the first thing I would do in your situation is invest in an insulated food box (can’t think of the proper name ) I would freeze a couple of bottles of water (as potable ice packs) and take some made up salads, some top quality ham, some boiled eggs, prepared avocados(skin off, stone out, sprinkled with vinegar or lemon), some full fat yoghurt and berries. You could also take some little packets of nuts. Get a wide necked flask and take some home made soup for your first day.

Hope that helps 🙂

Hi. I’ve seen about someone in a similar situation who used a soup maker in his hotel room. It’s quicker and less conspicuous than a slow cooker.

A coolbox, Hashimoto?

Good idea. It would keep fruit and yoghurt fresh for breakfasts.

If you’d normally eat out, you could ask for salad or veg in place of the potatoes or rice.

A lot of sound advice above, especially if you can re-freeze your water bottles to keep the cool bag cool. It is great to be able to prepare your own food and so be assured of what you are eating, but if you only have a kettle the options are limited (you can boil
eggs in a kettle, or make miso broth for example). How much time and energy do you have to go shopping, and are there any local
stores? Things like smoked salmon, cheeses and houmous are pretty widely available even without a superstore. If you can get to a
large supermarket then ready prepared salads, celery, tomatoes, and so on are a reasonable proposition, but wont keep overnight.
As a final resort, I would scope out some places to eat nearby where there is one meal that you can rely on. Breakfast would be anywhere that would do scrambled eggs, dinner anywhere that does a plain steak or grilled fish. You might have to accept a level of
repetition in your weekday diet, which you might like to offset by preparing more exotic meals at the weekend. I would recommend having something in the freezer ready for your arrival home on a Friday night.

hi Amp511,

This is far from the Mediterranean origins, but when I have travelled I have skipped breakfast and then had a low carb protein bar for lunch. I have then had something more normal for dinner, but with 600 kcals to spare it is easier than usual. There are several companies selling shakes and bars which might be more suitable than the one I had. The ‘good’ thing about these bars is that they aren’t so nice that you are tempted to eat two. The guilt free brownies travel well, but I find it harder to resist eating two!

If you can have either breakfast or dinner with a meal replacement shake you should be okay. If not tinned vegetables might travel well – I’m thinking small tins of chickpeas or kidney beans with some cheese.

I think that there are hard boiled eggs that don’t need refrigeration (saw them on dragon’s den).

Good luck with the diet if you can make it worth I think that you’ll find it worthwhile

Thanks, Patsy, a cool box is the handle I was mentally searching for.

I used to freeze cartons of juice and pack the cool box with frozen/chilled food for a weeks camping ….in my much younger days 🙂

Thanks for your replies everyone – there are some great suggestions here 🙂

@hashimoto I bought myself a smallish Thermos flask today, which I expect will help (e.g. keeping hard boiled eggs or fruit cool). Thanks for the tip about the kettle @Ahmedin. I will have time on Monday nights each week to do a shop at my local supermarket. @fofi I think you’re right on the weekly balance; I’ll probably have to accept Monday-Thursday will be more bland then go wild with flavours on the weekends. It’ll be something to look forward to! Protein bars are a good shout too as they’re so easy to pack.

If I think of anything truly ingenious whilst on my weekly travels I’ll post it up 😉