NYC- Stylish or Confusing- Either Way, It’s Fun!

A month of studying has come and gone, and I can happily say that I am really enjoying my time here in America. Having spent another week with my head somewhat in the books I yet again hopped on my beloved mega bus and ventured down to NYC for a weekend of adventures.

This weekend I was set on checking out at least one nice restaurant and lounge to make up for the weeks on end of not so glamorous stops with my friends at maccas, starbucks and how could we forget, cheese steaks!

I can happily say that I managed to fit into my 2 nights away a stop to a gorgeous restaurant, Buddakan, a wonderful lounge on the rooftop of the Dream hotel (I find that making random friends can really be of assistance when you are in a city without connections! Apparently you get to skip lines and go straight to the hot spots if your with the right people!), a yummy tasti -d-lite dessert whilst walking around central park and an enjoyable comedy show, You’ve got hate mail (these can be hit or miss, so luckily I got this one right!).

On Saturday when I had my hair done I was totally impressed by the service at the salon. I have

often been offered a tea, coffee or water at my hairdresser back home, however here I was greeted with the offer of a red or white wine. I think this may be a tactic to get the customer to relax and let the stylist work their magic without constantly having to answer questions about what they are doing! Either way, a glass of red wine, some great tunes (which they did turn up significantly once they noticed how much I was enjoying them!) and a lovely Israeli hairdresser who made me feel right at home was exactly what the doctor ordered for an afternoon of pampering, relaxation and balance!

I yet again was amazed at the extremes in the food situation here. Even in tasti-d-lite where most would think one goes in order to be able to select a lower calorie dairy based frozen dessert, you find a huge array of add ons that are highly dense with sugar, saturated fat and calories. Purpose defeated don’t you think?!

I went into a side cafe so that Jonathan could get a sandwich and it was amazing to see the huge burgers covered in cheese and a side of fries, which then had walls covered in posters for a range of healthier options that people could select (although, I was still slightly unimpressed that you had to pay a premium for the whole wheat roll for your burger or use of reduced fat dairy products in your drinks!)..improvement nonetheless.

The hotel we stayed at appeared to be attempting to offer some ‘healthier’ options in the guest lounge, with muesli bars and raisins on the menu, instead of cookies and candies that I had previously seen at other hotels. I genuinely wanted to just show them how easy it could be to switch to a healthier muesli bar than the ones they had on offer, or get them to put some fresh fruit or nuts in place of the dried, super large packs they had.

Maybe it will be a new consulting service I try and offer..although I honestly could be quite happy to give away this information for free given the positive impact it could have on mine, and so many other peoples travels!…If the hotel chains want to take on my advice is another question in itself and probably the harder challenge to crack.

Anyway, I’ll leave you again with these thoughts, it’s becoming quite clear why there just might be some issues here with misunderstanding on what healthier options are and how ‘healthy’ foods are being promoted.

For now, the travelling dietitian x