Most nutrition advice is designed for people who control their schedules. Executives do not control their schedules. They control their responses to schedules that are controlled by other people.
The advice that follows from this reality is different from what most coaches offer. It is not about optimization. It is about protection.
The first principle: anchor your nutrition, do not optimize it. Three or four things that are reliably present regardless of what the day does to you. Not a meal plan. Not macros. Anchors.
The second principle: understand what travel does and respond to it specifically. Travel is a nutritional stress event. The combination of time zone disruption, poor sleep, and limited food access is not a reason to abandon your nutrition — it is a reason to have a travel-specific protocol.
The third principle: protein and fat protect cognitive function under stress. Carbohydrates are not the enemy, but they are often the default — and the default airport meal is usually a spike followed by a crash timed perfectly to arrive during your afternoon meeting.
None of this requires discipline you do not already have. It requires decision-making done in advance, so that the decisions you make under pressure have already been made.
The second principle: understand what travel does and respond to it specifically. Travel is a nutritional stress event. The combination of time zone disruption, poor sleep, and limited food access is not a reason to abandon your nutrition — it is a reason to have a travel-specific protocol.