Already now in the second month of this new year, have you given up yet on those resolutions? Huge numbers of people abandon a New Year’s resolution even as early as mid-January (or, let’s be honest, January 2).
It’s a phenomenon we can blame on what’s sometimes called false hope syndrome. This frequently happens when we set unrealistic goals that produce frustration. Or we try to change too much, too fast, or fail to include accountability methods in our goal plan.
Of course, many of us make resolutions to lose weight or get healthier. If one or both of these is your goal and you’re reading this, I’d advise you to think hard about how easy the goal can be abandoned, because for OTR truckers, anything related to health will be very easy for you to quickly give up on. We seldom have access to healthy diet alternatives at truck stops. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, that’s been even more the case than before, with the shuttering of so many sit-down restaurants once fairly standard issue for truckers.
In fact, in today’s fast-food trucking world, though there are of course exceptions, I’d argue we mainly have seven options not counting the roller dogs, pizza, chicken wings and other fare truck stops themselves produce.
- McDonald’s. Food here is typically high in calories with saturated fats, sodium, added sugar, and lacking fiber and essential nutrients, which increases the risk of chronic health issues like heart disease, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes.
- Chester’s Chicken. Similarly high in calories, fat, cholesterol, and sodium.
- Carl’s Jr. burgers have been ranked as unhealthy as McDonald’s and other fast-food burgers.
- Subway sandwiches, while offering some healthy options, provide high calories, fat, and sodium.
- Pizza Hut. Unhealthy saturated fats, carbs, sodium, high calories. (Am I sounding a bit like a broken record?)
- Godfather’s Pizza. See "Pizza Hut" above.
- Wendy’s, while it can be somewhat healthier, has no small number of sides that are high in calories, cholesterol, fat, and sodium.
[Related: Truck stops see enduring shifts in food, other services in pandemic's wake]
Add to these food options the push of the clock and long, sedentary hours sitting behind the wheel. Inactivity, combined with poor diet, is linked to increased risk of heart disease, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, poor circulation, muscle weakness, certain cancers. … Prolonged sitting can also result in metabolic slowdown, and mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though, for the truly motivated trucker. Simple, realistic changes can make a difference. The key is to focus your goal setting on things that are achievable, which add up to take you to the ultimate goal of better health. It's like climbing stairs. With each step, a small goal hit, that gets you closer, ever closer, to the top.
When the 14-hour clock is ticking down, fast food feels convenient, easy. Yet you can adopt a lower-carb diet by eliminating specific high-carb ingredients such as bread, fries, some of the condiments. You could call this approach dirty keto, and some do, in which you work around limited options, bowing to reality; others might think of it in the context of a carnivore diet that’s focused solely on animal products. Yet as a diet for weight loss, the general idea is to be judicious about your choices available to eliminate as much sugar as possible and lower your carb intake, to force your body to use stored-up fat for energy.
[Related: My way of eating for better long-term physical, mental health]
Getting to fewer than 60 grams of carbohydrates daily is enough to do the trick. If you want to lose weight fast, though, introduce healthy fats like avocados, olive oil and coconut oil, and keep your carb intake to 20 grams daily. That lower carb intake isn't for everyone, and is certainly challenging to maintain; some people will feel symptoms of what we refer to as the keto flu. Generally, they pass, and drinking pickle brine can help, I’ve found.
Figuring out what your particular body needs in terms of caloric intake and then generally limiting yourself to that amount or less as closely as you can is another strategy to get started. It's one that Overdrive’s Trucker of the Year Alan Kitzhaber has employed.
Kitzhaber combined that, though, with adoption of a moderate exercise routine, as he spelled out recently. It’s a huge step for any trucker in the right direction of better health and/or weight loss. How many times walking around your rig gets you beyond a mile? It’s not that many: 37. Add to that some push-ups, crunches, simple toe touches all to increase mobility and blood flow.
All will improve mood and help stabilize mental health, too. Each diet choice can be a step in your climb. Every effort put into a moderate exercise routine can be another step. We work in an industry that cares more about the bottom line than workers who pad the coffers. If you want longevity in the trucking world and more of that irreplaceable commodity of time to achieve your goals for your life and family, only you can control your choices.
Small ones can make a huge difference.
[Related: Take care of yourself with diet, exercise: You'll be better able to enjoy the fruits of your labor]
