Remember Tony? He prioritizes his health. He chose a gym membership that allowed him to exercise at any location along his route. You can do the same! Lack of time is not an excuse; we make time for what is important to us. His family and health top that list, and he knows that if he wants to be around to see kids and grand kids grow up, he needs to maintain that health. It is important to overcome those obstacles and thoughts that are fighting you every single time you think about exercise.
But what about food? It is more challenging to make healthy eating choices when on the road, but not impossible. In many ways, this part is more important than exercise. You can lose weight and improve your health if all you did was eat healthy and never exercised, but the same isn't necessarily true if the roles were reversed. That said, there are immense benefits to doing both, which is why we highly recommend taking baby steps towards increasing exercise time and healthful eating.
1. Watch your posture. You spend your day sitting. How often do you think about HOW you are sitting? Make sure that your lower back is supported and you aren't hunched over the steering wheel. Believe it or not, this will reduce fatigue. It takes a lot more energy to hold up your head when it's too far away from your center mass. Neck muscles become strained, back muscles become overstretched, and pectoral muscles are constricted and tight, leading to potentially severe muscular imbalance and chronic pain. At first it will take some work to remember to position yourself properly every time you get behind the wheel. Once you develop the habit, however, it will become second nature.
2. Walk, walk, walk. Piggybacking on the point above, it is important to walk as much as possible when you are NOT sitting behind the wheel. The nice thing about walking is that you can do it anywhere. Ha! Ok, well if its -2 or 120 degrees outside, perhaps it isn't the best idea to take a long nature walk. But at the very least you can do a few laps around your truck to keep the blood flowing. Maybe throw in some jumping jacks at the truck stop, or make sure to hit up a gym along your route. The main thing is to fight against all of those hours of sitting you do each day.
3. Stretching is key. Many people underestimate the restorative power of stretching. It can provide relief, and even an energy boost when you're hitting an afternoon slump. If you simply started here on your journey to better health, that tiny serotonin boost it gives you might just be enough to get you to do more. One good habit leads to another!
4. Body weight exercises are enough. Think you can't get a good enough workout without a gym full of heavy weights? Tell that to a Navy SEAL! When you're ready to graduate from healthy eating and walking off the pounds, try out this bodyweight workout that can be done anywhere. Then again, you don't have to do this exact workout to see results. Just get moving!
5. Focus on your food. "But all I see is fast food, but I have no fridge, but, but, but..." As my mother always says, "When there's a will, there's a way." How badly do you want to improve your health, energy levels, and reduce aches and pains? In order to get rid of the obesity problem in our industry, we must take a good look at our food choices. Even fast food joints these days are adding more and more healthy options. If you are better at planning out your meals and don't wish to rely on fast food to get you through the day, here, and here are other healthy options for when you're on the road.
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| Make this... |
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| ...and this, your best friend! |
With consistency, hard work, and determination, you'll be able to reverse the course of your health, get rid of your extra weight, and help combat the obesity problem in the trucking industry as a whole.
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