Every Monday afternoon for the past three months, I start getting ready for Tuesday’s full day in the office. I am in the process of committing to a healthier lifestyle to improve my health, and I’ve been watching what I eat and my food choices. This week, my colleague, Stephanie Makowski, and I were talking about how hard it can be to stay on track with your goals as an occasional traveler, let alone as an everyday commuter. She suggested I blog about my routine.

I work remotely from New York, so my commute days have been reduced from five or six days a week (in previous jobs) to just one. Tuesdays I spend a full day at the office and roughly 4.5 hours commuting from New York City to Yardley and back — hence “prep Mondays,” as I like to call them. Oddly enough, I really don’t mind this much travel, but I despised my 25–30-minute commute to the Upper West Side from Washington Heights. I think that enjoyment is partly due to the amount of thought I put into it and how I prepare for it. I also refuse to let the commute interrupt the routine I follow when I work from home.

Let me break it down for you: On Monday evening I prepare dinner and make sure to cook an option that would be perfect for lunch the next day. I also prep some snacks for the trip there (a.m.) and the journey back (p.m.). I make sure I pack enough meals/snacks that would suffice for the workday and commutes. The travel begins in Uptown Manhattan; I hop on the 6 a.m. downtown-bound A train that gets me to Penn Station around 6:20 a.m., barring any interruptions. My New Jersey Transit train to Trenton doesn’t depart for almost another 20 minutes, and I use this time to grab breakfast and/or meals in the odd case I didn’t prep the night before. My go-to option is a breakfast smoothie from Planet Smoothie, located in the lower level of the station toward Eighth Avenue. There I’ll grab an oatmeal/banana/almond butter smoothie or a carrot, orange and ginger juice and then head to my train.

From Trenton Transit Center I hop in a 15–20-minute Uber (pick-up times are usually longer than eight minutes at that time of day) to the office. Around 10 a.m., I eat the first snack, which helps me not feel super-hungry until it’s time for lunch. At around 12:30 or 1 p.m. I eat lunch and don’t eat again until I’m on the way home — unless I get too hungry during our weekly sales meeting, which happens now and then.

By the time I arrive back at Penn Station, it is around 7 p.m. and I have to plan for dinner. I either grab a salad from Europa Café (they have a great mini salad bar and toss or chop my salad for dinner) or I opt for a salad bowl from my local Chipotle —the last thing on my mind is what I’d have to cook for dinner after a long day.

This is just one day, so I take my hat off to those who make it happen all week. That’s a testament of determination and tunnel vision! To the right, there’s a picture of my meals for this Tuesday’s commute.

How do you prepare for your commute? Are you a planner like me, or do you prefer eating out?

— Yasser Ogando, sales planner