Trying to Stay Healthy - A Consultant's Life on the Road.

I recently accepted a full time offer to start in the fall and have been wondering about various things that can make or break my next 2-4 years as a consultant. One thing that came up pretty important was how to stay healthy while managing a hectic traveling lifestyle. Like many of you I'm going to be 80% client site and could mean anywhere in North America. Luckily I'm in a financial hub so sometime it might just be traveling around my metro area. Overall I am concerned about being consumed by work and only realize my health went to shit when the signs are too big to ignore.

I want to get the opinion and advice from other consultants here who travel a lot and how they manage to stay relatively fit/healthy.

- How do you setup a workout schedule that won't get shit all over by long hours?
- How do you manage your diet on the road? (Unlike some people that lose weight when tired/stressed, I'm a member of the gainer camp.)
- How do you manage an adequate sleep schedule when you are expected to be on call 24/7? (Sleep? psh. i can sleep when i die or make Partner, whichever one comes first.)

Feel free to add anything else you feel is relevant or have made/broke your consulting lifestyle

 

Pre-MBA or Post-MBA? 1) Workout schedule: Try workout in the morning 5-6 AM for 30-45 minutes. Do it Tues and Wed, that should be enough. Do most of your workout during the weekend 2) Eating habits: try to eat less than you think you need, or count your calories. There are more opportunities to over eat when traveling, so, always remind yourself to eat less than what you are used to 3) Sleep: you cannot do anything about it

 

Echoing @"freroht"

I'd start with a caveat that a lot of this depends on the project/manager. S/he will usually set the rules on hours/personal time, so you may be out of luck no matter how hard you try.

1) Morning is best. It's much easier to carve out time before work than at night. I do Tuesday Wednesday as well. I've been lucky to be on a team that respects my interest in keeping healthy, so I've been able to do one of those workouts in the evening. 2) Limit yourself in terms of what you get. This can be done in many ways. Some do calorie counting. I limit myself on how often I get meat/pasta/salad etc per week. And I never order dessert, and try not to drink every dinner. (The last bit can make quite a bit of a difference actually) 3) This is completely out of your control. You try to get it when you can. But ultimately, you can't do anything about it.

 
Best Response
  • How do you setup a workout schedule that won't get shit all over by long hours?

Put into your calendar two workout sessions during the week e.g. Tuesday and Wednesday. For me Tuesday and Thursday worked out usually the best if I worked from my home office. If you travel it gets tougher depending on the place and hotel you stay in. Let your engagement manager know that you need to work out and might not be available for an hour or two (first try to understand if your EM gives a fuck about well-being of his subordinates, some don't give an f and you can have problems if you jump out with a need to work out on your first day). Personally I hate getting up early so I rather preferred to work out late evening, even if I had to finish some work after the work-out.

  • How do you manage your diet on the road? (Unlike some people that lose weight when tired/stressed, I'm a member of the gainer camp.)

Simply try not to eat shit. Even if your boss is a big fan of junk food. Look at him at how he looks, you don't want to look like him. Wherever you are always try to find a good place. And don't rush. Your mind needs a 45 min-1 hour lunch break, believe me, your performance will only benefit, you can't focus for 12-14 hours non-stop.

  • How do you manage an adequate sleep schedule when you are expected to be on call 24/7? (Sleep? psh. i can sleep when i die or make Partner, whichever one comes first.)

You are never expected to be on call 24/7 unless there is some emergency or a difficult time in a project (in that case you will usually know that in advance). So go the fuck to sleep as a normal human being. You can't be effective if you don't sleep at least (!) 5-6 hours a night on average. I worked with extraordinary analysts and associates that need to sleep more. Because they were rested they usually worked faster and the quality of their work was better than those who tried to impress me by pulling off all-nighters.

  • Feel free to add anything else you feel is relevant or have made/broke your consulting lifestyle

Draw the fucking line. And do it straight at the beginning. Those who make to the partner level usually know how to balance their work and life relatively well. If you work like crazy you will burn out fast.

 
  • At the start of every project, your team should have a kickoff session where you talk about how you like to work, what you want to get out of the project etc. Use this to tell the team that you'd like to work out twice a week and set days and times that you'll be doing this. Explain that you'll be happy to work later in the evenings on these days to catch up on anything you've missed

  • Make sure that you use these agreed times in the first few weeks to actually do this. It will be tempting not to (because everyone will be busy, you'll be keen to create a good impression) BUT if you don't do this from the start of a project you never will. Once it's part of your routine, everyone will just accept it and work around it

  • Also, agree hugely with the advice above about drawing lines. No-one expects you to be on call 24/7 (you're building PPTs and Excels, not saving lives!) and there's no reason you should be. No-one will or should think badly of you for wanting to sleep. If they do, they're stupid and you should avoid working with them

I previously worked for McKinsey in London and have started a blog about consulting and how to get into it at www.theconsultingcoach.com
 

sometimes i order room service the night before for a set a.m. delivery time rather than setting an alarm easier to wake-up than when a dude is knocking on your door with food.

for red-eye's, I do the same as OP. Check the availability of the hotel for the night before -- if there are a lot of open rooms, they'll let you check in early. if it's filling up, i book another day of stay so i can check in early.

also for red eye's, i wake up early the day i fly, so i can actually fall asleep on the plane. i try to get a work-out or somethig in that day, too, so my body is tired.

 

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