Traveller’s diet?

I need a magic diet for travellers…
About five years ago, I was overweight and decided to make a change and get back to a healthy size. At my worst, I was over 100Kg. Disgraceful really – when I look at the shirts and trousers I used to wear back then, aged only 26 or 27, it’s hard to believe they were my ‘normal’ everyday clothes.
Although, ironically, I was much fitter than I am today, visitng the gym four to five times a week and doing lots of cardio style workout, I was too big. Actually, I’m being too nice – quite frankly, I was a bit of a porker. My diet was low fat, but I ate a lot of bread, rice and pasta.
In those days I could control what I ate. By cutting out the carbs I was eating and swapping them with vegetables, I lost a lot of weight, painlessly, over around nine to twelve months. Atkins it wasn’t – simply a more sensible balance of protein to carbohydrates. No hunger, no pain, just gradual, sensible weight loss.
By the time I moved to Dubai I was around 80Kg, settling at around 82-83Kg once I relaxed a little and started eating out a bit more, but well within my target healthy weight. Since working in SEE for the last 15 months, I’ve been inching slowly up to 86Kg. (Since I’m talking kilograms, I suppose I really ought to say ‘centimetring up to 86Kg’).
The twin evils of travelling are not being able to control what you eat and not being able to resist eating what you shouldn’t eat when it’s late/early/you haven’t eaten all day for attending meetings. Timezones mean you’re hungry at strange times and inevitably it’s easier to eat some bread or a sandwich rather than grab a meat salad.
Being weak-willed plays a role – I’ll never eat dessert in a restaurant, but if I’m at an event with delicious cakes on offer, I find it very hard to say no. On the other hand, if I’m taken out to dinner, it’s hardly my place to refuse what’s on offer.
So, I admit I’m weak-willed and have a tendency to stuff, so what can I do? My resolutions are –
* Ask for two meat portions on the plane and not eat the bread or pudding
* Avoid deep fried and overly fatty foods at dinner, lunch and the breakfast buffet
* Carry my gym kit everywhere and make sure I use the hotel gym, even if it’s a simple twenty minute walk – anything is better than the “plane, taxi, hotel, meeting, hotel, taxi, plane” lack of movement.
The ‘not eating dessert on the hotel on the plane’ idea works best when I sprinkle salt and pepper all over the pudding as soon as I receive my meal to stop me from gobbling it later on. This does encourage odd looks from whoever’s sitting next to me. ‘Why is this strange English guy pouring salt and pepper on his dessert? Is this some strange English way of eating sweet things?’.
Nope, it’s a fomer porker trying to avoid returning to his old ways…