A big part of staying healthy for truck drivers is establishing and maintaining good eating habits. But when you’re in the trucking profession, where the more time you spend sitting most likely means more money in your wallet, it is easy to forget about this vital part of life. Unfortunately, too many people wait to make a healthy lifestyle a priority until it is too late.
We understand that a lot of drivers are just unsure of how to properly eat healthy while living a lifestyle on the road. Relying on trips to diners, fast food, and convenience stores as the best options for food can be challenging. But a little good planning and knowledge can go a long way toward your health.
Healthy Meals
Being away from home and having a strict schedule can tempt you to eat fast foods. The life of a trucker is often filled with burgers and fries, steaks and butter, and sour cream and coffee and soda. This is far from the healthiest meals you could be eating. Fast food is high in fat and full of empty calories, which provides no health benefits to you. Many people find they lose 5-10 lbs. in a month or so just by eliminating soda from their diets. A better choice is to set aside time and money to eat in a healthy and responsible way.
We know that while when you’re on the road in rural areas looking to eat, options can be somewhat limited, that doesn’t mean you can’t exercise good food judgment and find something healthy to dine on. When dining in restaurants, many people looking for healthy options immediately think “salad.” This can certainly be a misnomer and certainly not always true. For example, a fried chicken salad can have cheeses, fatty dressings, and other high-calorie foods included in them, leaving them not much healthier than a burger and fries. For example, let’s choose a popular restaurant chain—Chili’s. If you order a plate of their boneless buffalo wings, you’re consuming 1,090 calories. The boneless buffalo chicken salad? 1,040 calories. The Caribbean salad with grilled chicken? 720. The Quesadilla Explosion salad will set you back 1,430 calories. Even their grilled chicken sandwich has over 1,000 calories.
It’s more important to be creative: look for grilled chicken and fish as a staple of your restaurant dining. Look for vegetables and fruits, and maybe rice instead of fries. Also, drink water instead of soda. Soda is empty calories, and just 3 or 4 per day can add hundreds of calories to your daily intake. For example, Chili’s lighter choices feature steaks, salads, and chicken platters, with Ancho Salmon being the most calorie-rich with 600. Most of those dishes are about half the calories of the above dishes. Just being aware and making the right decision can make a big difference.
Snacking right
When you’re fueling your rig, you pick a few choice items from the station’s store, right? Beef jerky, potato chips, candy bars? It’s no secret these are mostly empty calories, and while they taste good, they also have almost no nutritional value whatsoever.
What is a better option? A small cooler filled with fresh fruit and vegetables. Cut up apples or celery and a little peanut butter. Raisins or dried cranberries. Trail mix, peanuts, or almonds. Stash a few bottles of water in there as well. Of course there is limited space in your trunk, and things like ice need to be replenished on a regular basis. But a small cooler doesn’t take up that much space, and compared to paying convenience store prices, you may be saving yourself a lot money and calories along the way. With these few changes in mind, what is the best way to get started?
Find Time for Exercise
Even if you can’t go 30 minutes a day on the treadmill, you can still squeeze in some stretches and a little cardio if you know what you’re doing. If you’re in a place where you can’t go for a jog, run in place for a few minutes, or jog laps around the truck stop. Do some jumping jacks or buy a jump rope. Find some time to do some stretches when you wake up and before you go to bed.
Start slow, doing only what you can do, then work up. Set goals and push yourself a little more each day as you get stronger.
Do your Homework
First, do a little research. There are websites devoted to maintaining the health of truck drivers that can offer excellent tips on staying healthy on the road. These sites are often developed by truck drivers and can provide you guidance on all aspects of staying healthy on the road.
Next, make a plan. It is much easier to make a change in your life if you have a plan to stick to. Spend some time to write down a schedule, shop for healthy snacks or plan out meals along your route.
Why all this emphasis on health?
You’re driving a truck, not becoming a professional athlete, right? That is true, but driving a truck is a physical job that requires people who need to be high functioning. When you are a truck driver, there are dangers to putting on weight beyond heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. When you are carrying extra weight, you are prone to sleep apnea and fatigue. That can spell trouble when you are driving on long, dull stretches of highway, which can make you more likely to fall asleep behind the wheel.
Also, over time that extra weight can lead to those other issues. Unhealthy truck drivers are prone to ailments that cause problems in their extremities, particularly the feet and legs, which can make driving uncomfortable, and later, can cause you severe pain. As you get older, it may become increasingly difficult to impossible to do your job.
Your health is ultimately your own business, but if you want to remain healthy, follow some of these steps and take precautions. The key is to eat less high-fat, high-calorie fare, and more natural fresh fruits and vegetables. By simply making wise eating decisions, you can stay healthier and have a longer, more productive, more enjoyable career.
