If you were doing the work in Colorado while being paid with a W-2, then you were considered an employee during that time, not self-employed. This would mean that the expenses you incurred for meals and incidentals are employee business expenses, which are no longer deductible as part of your Federal tax return. This change was implemented as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Certain states do allow you to deduct employee business expenses as part of your state return. To be sure whether your state is one of these, you should enter the expenses into your Federal return so that they can be carried to your state if needed. You can search for '2106' to go to the correct section to enter the expenses.
Had these expenses been incurred as part of your self-employed business, then you would be able to use the per diem amount for meals and incidental expenses and they would be claimed in the section as described in the previous post by user KarenL2.
Take a look at the following TurboTax article for more details: Can employees deduct any job-related expenses?
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