Make it Hot... To Go!

I do love my  Road Pro Portable Oven.

The Picture shows a lentil chili I made for dinner. Half a cup of dry lentils, half a package of chili seasoning, half an onion, a can of diced tomatoes and about 4 ounces of shredded roast beef plus about half a cup of water. I put all of that in the bread tray the put it into the oven, plugged it in, and headed down the road. About an hour later I had to pull over and eat it cause the smell was making me hungry!

I don't get paid for endorsements like this one and if you would like to encourage me to keep writing then buy my book, "So, You Want To Be A Truck Driver". or my other one "Ten Commandments a Guide to Holiness".
At the very least like my Face Book Author page, please.

Enough advertisement!

The company I currently work for doesn't allow inverters installed since they think their little 1500 watt inverter will run a microwave and the environmental air, so the portable oven has been a Godsend for me.

Pictured on the right is my average breakfast (when I don't oversleep). It is made of 3/4 cup rolled oats with about a cup of almond milk made overnight by adding the liquid and letting it sit. I did make my eggs in the portable oven by lining the bread pan with foil then adding two eggs whipped with about a quarter cup of water, poured onto onion and bell pepper, plugged it in for about 20 minuets and presto, scrambled eggs. I did find that adding about half a cup of water into the oven under the bread pan does speed up the cooking of any item, but be careful when you open it that you don't get a steam burn.

I have cooked potatoes by wrapping them like I would for a conventional oven and putting them directly into the portable oven. I have had better results by adding water to the bottom half of the oven and then putting in the bread pan and the potatoes in the pan. It take about an hour to hour and a half and the way I deal with the time issue is to put them in at one of my stops then plug the oven in about and hour or so before I stop for that meal.

I have steamed broccoli in the same way I cook potatoes, takes about 20 to 30 minuets.

I like hot meals and with this cool little item I get to eat fresh and hot while on the go.

Keep the rubber side down.

Les

NO TIME!!!

"I Don't have the time to eat healthy",I can't tell you how many times I have used and heard this truly lame excuse for not eating healthy while on the road! That excuse is especially lame now, since we must take the mandatory 30 minute break we are all complaining about.

Let's get honest guys, the fact is you do have time you just don't want to do it.

Look at the meal in the picture at the right. I guarantee it took less time to fix than standing in line at Mcdonalds. I can guarantee it because I made it. Half a 12 oz. bag of salad mix a few slices of onion and tomato, as well as a few slices of cucumber from our garden, a can of tuna and a can of green beans, all under 8 minuets, heck, took me longer to eat it than to make it. So don't give me that lame old excuse,"I don't have time to fix healthy meals while on the road". I have two words for you B.S..

Let's consider the long term situation.

Keep eating at Micky D's or getting those footlongs at Subway and the oversized sodapops and the bags of chips, cookies etc. at the truck stops and I guarantee you your body will rebel. Diabetes, sleep apnea, heart and vascular diseases are all from poor nutrition and a lack of exercise. Lets face it, our way of life is a formula for physical disaster. We aren't just sedentary we are Super Sedentary. Of course there are exceptions and if your one of them please pass this article on to a fellow trucker.

For years I said I didn't have time to eat right while working, I was lying. First came sleep apnea, the mandatory yearly sleep studies are expensive and require an overnight stay at a sleep lab. There is the nap study which takes just an afternoon but what a pain.

Then came diabetes. I then had to learn something about nutrition and controlled it for a few years with diet but the day came when the good old excuse was once again employed and I soon lost control again and couldn't get motivated to regain control, that in time lead to being put on insulin.

Truckers if you are put on insulin work is done until you get a waiver from the FMCSA.It took me 10 months to get that waiver, thats a whole bunch of time. The waiver procedure requires that you have an endocrinologist and optometrist and see them every three months, not cheap without insurance or an income. And, unemployment in most states will not cover you during this time. Disability, forget it if you can work doing something else like cashier at Micky D's or greeter at Wall Mart.

So for every dollar you spend at one of the fast food restaurants or the junk food isles at the truck stops you better save two dollars for you future medical needs or you can take the time to eat right now and avoid the future health problems of wasted time and loss of income.

Your choice, spend a few minuets now making a healthy choice or spend months or years paying for it.

Keep the rubber side down.

Les

Dealing with Family Emergencies

Hi all' been a few weeks since I wrote last because I had to deal with a family member emergency and while I did have some time to write I just couldn't get my mind around to it.

Family emergencies are in fact one of the biggest problems truck drivers have on the road. Life is filled with all kinds of surprises but one of the worst is medical situations.

The picture above is of my wife's arm on Sunday morning after the dressing had been removed. She had had an emergency procedure to remove blood clots from a vein after a scheduled procedure to reopen stents in her chest that had closed. I had to schedule some time off for the initial surgery and then the following day we had to return to the hospital for more test as she began to experience coldness in her hand. To make a long story short I went home on the friday before her scheduled surgery and will be returning tomorrow (tuesday) 10 days later. Not a problem says the employer, most are understanding. But, what about when something unplanned happens while you are on the road?

What happens when an accident occurs with your wife or child and you are a thousand miles from home under dispatch? What happens if there is a sudden unexpected death in the family? What happens if you are suddenly taken sick or have a heart attack?

It happens.

I personally, had the experience of my step-daughter die while I was 250 miles away delivering a load. You will have to get and read my book for that story.

Most employers are really great about working with you when there is an emergency at home. I have heard a few horror stories where the employer was a real SOB, but I suspect it had more to do with the lack of professionalism on the drivers part than any truly cavalier attitude on the employers part. Remember, you agreed to do a job, it is assumed you know the difficulties in scheduling and the liabilities involved in doing your job. Sometimes it just isn't possible for the employer to allow you to immediately duck out and go take care of things at home, thats when your professionalism matters most.

Like everything in life emergencies at home must be prioritized. The flooded basement does not take as high a priority as an accident with injuries. The death of Grandma doesn't rate as high as a child being admitted to the hospital with an unknown illness. While setting these kinds of priorities for yourself will help to keep you level headed when the unexpected happens, you may have fall out with your spouse or other family members.My wife still hurts 13 years after the fact, that it took five hours of her dealing with her grief alone after losing her daughter for me to be by her side.

I think it is important that we try to have a discussion with our loved ones about this very real problem and try to have some kind of understanding of what can be done and what expectations are realistic when there is an emergency.

Make sure your family members know who you work for, what truck you're assigned to, who your dispatcher is and any after hours phone numbers they may need in order to get a hold of you in an emergency, don't rely on your cell phone alone, coverage is still spotty in many areas.

And if you really want to be prepared set up an emergency fund that will cover an airplane flight from anywhere in the country as well as enough money to pay your bills for at least three months.

Well, as always, keep the rubber side down and may God bless you
Les

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