Healthy Eating on the Road

Hi all, pictured on the left is my typical lunch. As you can see it's not a small amount of food. Eating this way initially gave me a weight loss of 160 lbs. I got a bit lazy last summer and began adding some foods that weren't on my food plan and put about 60 lbs back on.

The good news is I have gotten back on the plan and have already dropped 15 lbs in about 3 or 4 weeks.

Since I began this journey into healthier eating (Feb. 2011) I have managed to reverse my type 2 diabetes and have not had to take any drugs since July 2011, I still test 2 to 3 times a day and have a A1c test done twice a year. My lowest A1c was last July(2012) at 5.6. This past January even with the weight gain it was 5.8 still well in the normal range. All without any regular exercise, nor have I quit smoking or drinking coffee. If I had perhaps the results would have been better, faster.

I have learned a few new things about eating healthier on the road that I would like to pass on to you.

The first is the importance of eating your meals 4 to 6 hours apart.

I have learned a bit about how our digestive tract works and why this spacing between meals is so important.

Our bodies are much like our trucks in that they require a consistent amount of fuel and raw materials be delivered to the intake manifold, meaning our small intestines. This is done through our stomach where the food is broken down into a slurry and extruded slowly into the small intestines where the different types of fuels are then routed along with minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients to the blood stream. Here they are then sent to where they are needed most.

When the stomach is empty and the fuel requirements are no longer being met, the stomach begins to spasm informing us that we need more fuel. This process keeps our bodies fueled and happy. When we space our meals too close to each other we throw this system into confusion and it doesn't know if it should pull some calories from the warehouse, ie, fat cells or store some. Too far apart and the system thinks we are in a state of famine and therefore when calories are once again present it will delivery some of  them to the fat cells for storage.You can see it's a logistics problem.

Eating on a schedule can be a problem for those of us who make our living driving truck. While the latest HOS rules have made it better, there are still some times when it becomes necessary to flip our schedules, for those times what I do is eat my first meal, breakfast, within the first hour I am up regardless of when my last meal was and start my clock from that point. It's not a great solution and still causes the body some confusion but the impact seems to be minimal. I also use my snacks to fill in those times when it is just not practical to stop and fix a meal, again not a great solution but it does work.

To those people who think "grazing" (eating small bits of food many times a day) is a good solution please hear me, it's not a good solution for many reasons but especially these two. First you really can't keep track of just how many calories you are eating this way. And, second you are short circuiting your bodys normal hungary/full response, hence you never know when you really do need food or when you are full.

There is a third and critical reason, balanced nutrients cannot be obtained when eating like this, therefore some part of your body is always in a state of famine. Eating this way will cause you to fail at any attempt to lose weight.

A practical tip that I learned from my wife and was surprised to find worked so well is that you don't have to have a microwave or stove top to fix wonderfully tasting oatmeal, just put the uncooked oats in a bowel ( I use a closable soup cup) with the proper amount of milk or water, mix and let sit overnight. By morning it will be the same as if you had cooked it, room temperature of course, but still very edible. Also, I now use almond milk in my oatmeal, it adds sweetness without adding as many calories as cow milk and far less than adding sugar or honey.

You can find the food plan I use at this link http://truckershealth.blogspot.com/2012/04/numbers-are-in.html
I did have a Nutritionist go over it with me and she liked it and thought it to be a great way to meet our bodies needs and lose weight. I received it for free so I am passing it on for free.

'Till next time keep the rubber side down and God bless.

Les