By Peter Greenberg

updated 3:55 p.m. ET Jan. 30, 2007

Travel and weight gain ... story of my life. The two seem inextricably linked and for a long time I thought it was absolutely impossible for me (or anyone) to travel without jettisoning my diet and my exercise program.

For years, I even avoided checking the scale, until one day about two years ago when, during my regular physical, my doctor forced me to look. I couldn't ignore the truth -- I was tipping the scale, literally, at nearly 290 pounds.

I had to do something about it. At the same time, I've always believed that part of being smart is admitting what you're dumb at, and this was a classic example. I knew the problem but not how to achieve the solution. I needed to diet and exercise, but I still needed to travel.

Slowly at first, then surely, I put together a team of nutritionists, exercise physiologists, doctors and physical trainers, and asked their advice. But I couldn't heed their advice in a vacuum -- they had to position their suggestions in the context of my travel schedule, which by most measurements is extreme since I log more than 400,000 miles a year. I'm away from home more than 300 days of 365.

My team and I constructed an approach, a regimen of diet and exercise whilst traveling. First, I had to be honest with myself; I was not going to abstain from my love of food. Second, I was not going to be moving full-time into a gym. This was all about multitasking, common sense and balance.

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Toward that end, I dissected just about every component part of the travel and exercise process. And in doing so, I figured out how to lose the weight and stay in shape. In less than eight months, I lost 42 pounds. And I'm still on my way to losing my goal of 28 more. There were downs, and there were ups. There were depressing plateaus. And yes, there were days when I consciously cheated.

But in the end, the approach worked -- and it still works.

Let's start with food.

Airport Food
This isn't about healthy. It's about finding relatively healthier food on the way to the plane.

As airlines have cut back on serving food, airports are filling the void. And, more often than not, they are filling that void with calorie-laden comfort food. Something to perk travelers up. The problem is that when you're stressed and tired, you tend to pick what's more palatable, and that translates into two bad words in the world of diet: sweet and fatty.

Still, there are ways to cut down on those two words -- and on the airport calories.

If you're going to stop at a McDonald's, at least get a kid's meal containing Chicken McNuggets (six pieces), Apple Dippers with Low Fat Caramel Dip and an Apple Juice Box (6.75 fluid ounces) for a total of 440 calories and 16 grams of fat.

If you're going to pick up a Subway hero, beware the Tuna Deli, with 350 calories and 18 grams of fat, and the Chicken and Bacon sandwich that has 530 calories and 25 grams of fat. Try the roast beef Deli sandwich has only 220 calories and 4.5 grams of fat.

Shutterstock Hilton offers its Eat Right menu, which is a separate menu of healthy eating options. These Eat Right menus provide a complete breakdown for each item, in milligrams, of carbs, fat, sodium and protein, and they tell you the total amount of calories in each dish.

The good news about the fast food you find in airports is that many chain restaurants, from Starbucks to McDonald's, now have their nutritional information online. McDonald's has even announced plans to put nutritional information on its wrappings (although one could argue that receiving nutritional information after you've bought your item is a little late).

You've run the gauntlet through the airport, and you got through it without succumbing to Mr. Goodbar, or even that over-sauced turkey wrap. Now you've finally reached your gate, and with any luck, in a few minutes, you'll be on the plane and in your seat.

About that seat: Is it your imagination, or are airline seats getting smaller? Sorry, folks, but as small as the seats seem, as uncomfortable as it is to have your knees wrapped around your neck in coach, the truth is that the seats aren't smaller -- you've gotten bigger. I'm sad to report that the plane isn't the only wide-body rolling down the runway.

If you ever needed more incentive to lose weight on the road, consider this: In 1995, the FAA set the recommended average weight per adult passenger, which is used to calculate aircraft loads, at 180 pounds in the summer and 185 pounds in the winter. That's heavy enough, right? Not exactly. After a deadly crash of a commuter plane in Charlotte, in January 2003, investigators determined that the actual weight of those on board might have been a factor in the tragedy. As a result, the FAA ordered airlines to add 10 pounds to the assumed average weight of passengers when calculating aircraft loads.

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