Employees who travel for work know that swapping cities and hopping time zones can take a toll. You have to adjust to new hours and routines while living, working, eating, and sleeping in unfamiliar settings — and it can be tempting to prioritize convenience over health.
So how exactly can you stay energized and engaged to ensure employee travel is successful for you and your organization? One of the most effective ways is to pass on the easy-to-grab comfort food and sustain your body with healthy, nutrient-dense meals.
Why it's important to eat healthy while traveling for work
When you're on a work trip, it can be difficult to keep a balanced diet. You may skip a meal here and there for the sake of making your next meeting or taking your next call. But because proper nutrition is a key component of performance, that's a short-sighted approach. According to the philosophy of mindful eating, when you make conscious decisions about which foods you consume, it's beneficial for both your brain and body.
From creativity and productivity to memory and mood, food plays a huge role in overall cognitive performance. Your brain can suffer from oxidative stress if it's not regularly fuelled with a variety of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. Eating unhealthily can even disrupt your rest. Since you're more likely to wake up throughout the night if your diet consists of high-sugar and high-carb foods, this can detract from your alertness, awareness, focus, and judgment the next day.
How employee travel makes healthy eating a challenge
You're in a new place, and your calendar is packed. Even if you're lucky enough to have a kitchen and refrigerator at your accommodations, do you have the time to shop for food and prepare it?
For many people who have to travel for work, the answer is no — and that's why they end up selecting unhealthy food options as a last resort, rather than prioritizing the healthy eating they need to perform at their best. Cost is a major consideration as well. Eating at restaurants every day can be time-consuming and sometimes expensive, especially if your employer isn't fully covering your meal expenses.
Typical hotel meal options also don't tend to be the healthiest. Continental breakfasts are full of breads and pastries, and these high-sugar, high-carb foods can adversely affect gut health, while also altering the balance of hormones such as tryptophan and serotonin. If you're familiar with the notorious midday crash when you're on a work trip, it's probably because the breakfast at the hotel or conference center wasn't able to sustain you.
When you travel for work, here's how to eat healthy
Here are some straightforward tips and tactics for healthy eating to sustain peak performance when you're on the move for business.
Do:
Eat mindfully: Trying to multitask during meals tends to be counterproductive. Stepping away from your work to eat a meal allows for mindful eating and gives you the opportunity to recharge and refocus.
Moderate portion size: Eating healthy isn't just about the kinds of foods you choose — it's also about how much you consume. Paying attention to portion size is a great way to get the nutrition you need while avoiding feeling overly full and sluggish.
Eat fruits and vegetables: Antioxidant-rich leafy greens like kale and spinach are full of vitamins and minerals to help protect against inflammation and improve cognitive function. Protein-rich nuts and seeds also have these nutrients, along with healthy fats.
Drink plenty of water: Hunger can sometimes be an indicator of dehydration. Drinking enough water can help ward off the temptations of snacking on foods that are high in sugar and sodium.
Don't:
Skip meals: Just as it's important to not overeat, you don't want to under-eat either. Your daily meals enable you to maintain the metabolic balance your body and brain need to function effectively. While breakfast is an important meal to fuel you in the morning and prevent hunger pangs later, lunch and dinner are equally vital, as are protein-rich snacks to sustain your momentum during a busy day.
Overindulge in sugar, fat, and empty carbs: While an occasional treat is fine, consuming too many calorie-rich snacks isn’t worth the trade-off of decreased wellness and focus. Fruits and vegetables won't give you the immediate energy rush that a cinnamon roll would, but they provide the nutrients you need to stay sharp and effective.
Eat alone: When possible, try not to eat in front of your computer. Getting together for meals with colleagues is great for bolstering mindful eating, as well as fostering collaboration, creativity, and camaraderie. And if you're trying to build professional relationships, offering to take a contact out for lunch can make a good impression.
How can DoorDash for Business help both employees and employers?
Eating healthy — as well as occasionally treating others to lunch and dinner — often comes at an increased cost for employees. That's where employers can make a difference by opting for a corporate meal solution for employee travel.
Here are three main ways DoorDash for Business can help employees focus on healthy eating while traveling for work:
Availability: DoorDash is the leading food delivery service provider in the United States, with a large geographic presence of 500,000+ merchants. When employees are traveling for work in the cities where DoorDash operates, the app will offer convenience for ordering a wide variety of healthy food.
Accessibility: Today's workforce is diverse, and DoorDash's ease of use and wide variety of food options means healthy eating is just a click away for employees with physical access issues, unusual hours or schedules, allergies, or specific dietary preferences.
Administration: DoorDash for Business lets employers and admins operate from a single, easy-to-use dashboard where everything is integrated with an expense reporting system, tracked in real time, and recorded for future reference
One particularly effective way employers can support their team members with healthy eating is with expensed meal credits. With a solution like DoorDash for Business, employers and team leaders can provide a food budget for employees and set parameters around when, where, and how much they can spend. Then the employee has the freedom to choose the meal options that make the most sense for their needs while out of town. They don't have to invest time and effort in preparing their own food or incur the costs of constantly dining at restaurants.
Can an employee deduct travel expenses for work? With DoorDash for Business, that’s never a concern. It’s easy for businesses to set employees up with business deductions for meals and incidental expenses, as well as one-time meal vouchers. So if you're on a business trip and you want to take a client or prospect out for lunch, it's a simple process.
These types of expensed meal credits contribute to an organization's employee personalization — an approach to workplace programs, benefits, and communications that tailors offerings to individual needs.
Eating healthy while traveling is worth it
What you eat, when you eat, and how you eat impacts everything in your day. That takes on even more importance when traveling and having to balance both work and healthy eating.
Learn more about how your business can support healthy work eating on the go with DoorDash for Business.
