Business trips involving a hotel stay often invite the opportunity to stray from eating healthy with indulgences in heavy restaurant foods or splurging on room service treats. A new initiative created by Sheraton Hotels & Resorts is designed to encourage guests to stay faithful to their diets simply by adding a little color to their meal plates.  

Color Your Plate is the latest extension of Sheraton Fitness, a program developed by Core Performance, a company that combines fitness coaching and technology to employees and companies. The company’s custom training and nutrition program is based on the four fundamentals of optimal performance—mindset, nutrition, movement and recovery.

According to a Sheraton spokesperson, the program takes a holistic approach that is integrated throughout  more than 400 of the chain’s hotels worldwide.
 
“Traveling used to be an excuse for poor nutrition,” said Core Performance founder, Mark Verstegen “Sheraton is now offering an innovative and easy way for guests to enjoy healthy, delicious meals on the road.”
 
Color Your Plate makes it easier for travelers to eat healthy on the road by adding three colorful fruits and vegetables to the meal plate, encouraging healthier eating and increase energy while travelling. The hotel chain’s new menus are also designed to be great for the waistline, with all featured items coming in at 500 calories or less.
 
The Color Your Plate initiative incorporates Core Performance’s “Nutrition Color Code” to educate Sheraton guests about the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. All menu items feature colorful, key nutrients from fruits and vegetables to ensure all meals represent the perfect dietary balance.

According to the company, “Yellow foods: optimize brain functions; green foods: rejuvenate musculature and bone; orange foods: support skin and eye health; red foods: support heart and circulatory health; white foods: enhance immune system, lymph system and cellular recovery; and purple foods: promote microcirculation.”
 
A Sheraton spokesperson said another factor that contributed to the creation of Sheraton’s Color Your Plate initiative was the USDA’s recently updated Food Pyramid—the colorful plate icon representing healthy eating. The new food pyramid provided the framework for “Color Your Plate.”
 
The branded menus also follow the Core Performance philosophy by offering well-balanced meals that provide proper fuel for the body. With the new menus available at restaurants and in-room dining, guests now have access to a global library of nutritious, tasteful dishes no matter where their travels take them.
 
In 2007, Sheraton partnered with Core Performance to develop Sheraton Fitness Programmed by Core Performance—a signature fitness offering that lets guests use the strategies developed by experts in pro-athlete training to become “the ultimate road warrior.” The alliance marked the first time that Core Performance partnered with a hotel company to create customized training and nutrition programs for travelers.
 
“The last thing people have time to think about on the road is getting the nutrients they need,” said Amanda Carlson-Phillips, MS, RD, CSSD, vice president of Nutrition and Research at Core Performance. “By brightening their plates with colorful fruits and vegetables, we hope the program encourages travelers to re-think their nutrient needs while still enjoying the tasty menu items they have come to expect from Sheraton chefs.”
 
Color Your Plate offers a variety of flavorful, well-balanced menu options, including: Skirt Steak Chimichurri, Shrimp Tacos, Portobello Burger and All-Natural Roasted Turkey BLT with lemon mustard aioli.