(Yes, all meals were accompanied with a Diet Coke. Grr, back off—it's my one vice.)

Tuesday

Breakfast: Ah, Birmingham airport, how well I know thee. An apple plus a danish. I still have the apple, but I ate the danish. 265 calories.

Lunch: Late in the afternoon (after the plane ride and first assignment). Fortunately, I had snacked on trail mix on the plane. Trail mix pretty much gets me through a lot of days at the office and long stretches on the road without ready access to food. It's fairly nutritious (especially when I skip the kind with the M&Ms) and gives me energy.

Sadly, actual lunch was at McDonald's. I went for the Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken, skipping the dressing as always. 320 calories. What I didn't realize is that it comes with a little bit of dressing ("Cilantro Lime Glaze") already mixed in. Drat.

I picked grilled over fried chicken ("It's not a salad without meat," I always say).

And, I had a small order of fries on the side. I was hungry, and fries are hard to resist, even at 230 calories.

Piling on the calories, I had two apple pies for dessert (two for a buck, my downfall). At 250 calories each, that doubled the meal to 1,050 calories total.

Dinner: Sometimes, you reach your hotel at the end of the day, ready to settle in. So when chain restaurants sit nearby my hotel room in Ellenton, I choose them for a safe, easy choice. Don't get me wrong: I love trying new places and dishes, but that night, I just wanted takeout, comfy PJs and a good presidential debate.

After scouring the online menus, I ordered the Cajun Lime Tilapia (apparently, I was on a southwestern bender) from Applebee's Weight Watcher's Menu. Because I have a sweet tooth, I ordered the smallest dessert I could find, a Key lime pie dessert shooter.

The tilapia came with rice and veggies, 310 calories. I'm guessing, but the dessert probably clocked in around 250 to 300 calories.

So there was my seafood, from a national chain instead of a local joint. Sad sad sad.

Wednesday

Breakfast: I got up early early for the first assignment, and my tummy was rumbling during the interview.

I found a Cracker Barrel, and tucked into blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup and butter, plus a side of bacon. I went from starving to very full (too full) during that stop. Let's say 500 calories for the pancakes, plus another 300 hundred for the bacon.

Lunch: Thanks to a big breakfast, I was not very hungry.

I tried to find a Cuban restaurant, but my online research led me to a dead end. So after a lot of driving and turning around, I was frustrated, not very hungry and wasting time.

It was late afternoon when I arrived at the mall in Tampa. Stopping at what looked like the first good option in the food court, I had a veggie panini at an Italian restaurant. Little did I know, it came with fries.

I had half, boxing the rest to go. Maybe 600 calories in the half I consumed.

The meal just sat heavy in my stomach. Ugh. And no Cuban.

Dinner: On the evening flight home, I ate the rest of lunch. (It's here that I'll caution you to do as I say, not as I do. Keep leftovers in the fridge to avoid spoilage and contamination.) It was OK, filling but not much else. Earlier, before catching the flight, I had four pre-packaged chocolate chip cookies from the hotel (200 calories).

I was fading fast. The meals were weighing me down, and my eating had not gone well.

Grand Total

More than 4,000 calories over 2 days or six meals. The good news was I was walking a lot of places, usually with one or two bags in tow.

Take-Home Lessons

I would've felt a lot better about the meals had I been able to do my original plan: seafood and Cuban.

And as challenging as it is on the road, it would be better to try and eat closer to my regular meal times, instead of delaying them by hours.

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