I've been driving regional as a company driver for a year and 7 months now and I can honestly say this is not the life for me. Countless hours on the road, up for hours at a time, sitting for most of the time, eating more fast food than home cooked meals, gaining weight and not exercising enough. The biggest problem is finding time to exercise. By the time you finish your route, your so tired from driving. The only thing you have time for is sleep, and you barely get enough of that. [But enough complaining. That's not why I'm writing this. I know my days as a company driver is numbered. Right now my mindset is on becoming a owner operator, which I can see happening a year from now once I get a few things in order that I need to take care of. Until then I'm stuck being a company driver on a regional account. The pay is ok, getting use to the day to day lifestyle of a trucker is what's getting to me. Driving trucks can be tough mentally and physically. [ Since I plan on making a career out of driving, owning my own truck one day, I came up with a way to stay healthy and exercise more on a daily basis. In the cab and outside of the cab. It's time to get fit. Study shows truck drivers have a high risk of having heart problems. Stress, obesity, lack of exercise, diabetes, unhealthy diets and smoking all lead to major heart disease. I read a article that stated, "almost every month there is a story about a truck driver who climbed into his cab to rest for the night and never woke up the next morning. Heart attacks are often the primary cause of this nightmarish scenario." There's a statistic that states, 73% of drivers are overweight, and 50% are obese." Finding time to exercise should be at the top of our priority list. Not every day I have time to workout but I came up with a solution to get me back in shape. [For the next 30 day's. I chose a 30 day challenge for myself to loose 30 pounds because I'm currently over weight. I'm 5'9" 210 pounds and my goal is to get to 180] I planned a weekly routine that should help me stay fit while on the road. Monday through Friday every morning before I start my trip, I'll begin my day with a stretch to loosen up my muscles, then do 4 sets of 100 on the jump rope, follow that up with a stretch and hop back in the cab and knockout 25 sit ups to start my day. At the end of my day I'll start with a stretch, then power walk 10 laps around the truck, do 2 sets of 20 on the jumping jacks, hit the jump rope, do some lunges and hop back in the cab and knockout 25 sit ups to end my day. Now that's just the exercise I'll be doing while on the road. On my off days which are Saturday and Sunday, I'll run two laps around the neighborhood track in the morning to get my day started. I also plan on recording this whole process on my Instagram account @ Murray_Garrett_Jr so I can inspire other truck drivers to do the same. The trucking community is very large and my goal is to save as many lives as I possibly can by bringing awareness to the health risks that are among us. Exercising isn't the only key to this process. We also have to watch what we eat and how we eat. Avoiding greasy foods, like hamburgers and pizzas. Just the other day I was sitting in my cab after a good workout, right after a 10 hour rest break and I noticed another truck driver carrying a large box of pizza back to his truck. A couple of slices yeah, but a whole box to yourself is way to much for anybody, especially if your a trucker, giving the many circumstances we face living on the road. Our health have to be the number one concern. I'm not saying go on a diet. I'm simply saying watch what you eat. Eat healthier. I had to switch up my eating habits. There's nothing I love more than a nice big double cheeseburger with jalapeños and bacon added to it, that use to be my daily eating habit, along with wings, pizza and other unhealthy foods. Now I'm eating a lot of salads and subway while out on the road. Again, I'm not going on a diet. I'm just trying to watch what I eat and how much I eat. Subway sandwiches are a whole lot better than double cheeseburgers and ordering pizza while waiting to be unloaded. I also keep a box of cereal in the truck for breakfast. I eat a lot of fruit over the weekend. Mostly grapes, bananas and smoothies. I try to eat as much fruit as I can over the weekend because I know once my weekend is over, eating fruit is not much of an option. We're not aloud to have mini refrigerators in our trucks, only coolers. So keeping fruit fresh for a week out on the road is pretty tough to do. Microwaves aren't allowed in our trucks as well, so subway sandwiches and salads are the chosen choice of food. The biggest problem we tend to overlook as a truck driver is sleep. WE NEED TO GET MORE SLEEP. Sleep is one of the most important factors to safe driving and a healthy lifestyle. Truck drivers are becoming more dangerous do to fatigue. Killing themselves or others do to the lack of rest they get. Falling asleep behind the wheel trying to make a load on time, when you could of easily just pulled over and got some rest. I've always told myself getting to a load late is a whole lot better than not getting there at all. When I first started driving as a regional truck driver, they had me driving overnight. Once I seen how difficult it was for me to stay focused at night. I started leaving 2 to 3 hours early. That way if I got tired, I would pull over, nap for 2 hours then get back on the road. I did that for 6 months, then they switched me to day shift, which is what I'm doing now. "sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke." Just how lack of sleep can be bad for your health, stress can to. Some of that stress comes from not getting enough home time, being under paid, living check to check, missing important moments with your wife and kids for being on the road so long. I tell a lot of people that's looking into being a truck driver, that it's good to have a understanding with your significant other before you get on the road. They need to know before hand that you will be gone for weeks at a time and that there will be a lot of things you will have to miss. It's good to have that understanding so they can prepare themselves for what's to come, that way you don't have to keep explaining over and over again why your not at home. Again that can be very stressful and cause major health problems over time. You want to be stress free driving the type of hours that you will be driving. Most people make the mistake of not knowing what there getting their selves into by not doing the proper research on over the road driving, which is ten times tougher than local driving. Most of us just think of how good the pay will be being an over the road truck driver until we find out that it's really not that great, especially being an inexperienced truck driver. I'm only speaking for company drivers at the moment, (Owner operators tend to do very well on the road form what I heard). Even though the pay is not so good when you first start out, if you can manage to stick around for 2 to 3 years and keep a good driving record a good company with great pay and benefits would love to have you. Those good trucking jobs are out there. Their just hard to come by, because those jobs aren't hiring everyday like most of these other company's that have a high turnover rate. Most new drivers start out with company's that have a high turnover rate because they really don't have a choice. You can't work for a good company making over $46,000.00 a year with no experience. That's why the company with the high turnover rate can pay you so low. Really their just good for you to come in, get your experience and leave. And hopefully you can get your experience in two years without getting into an accident, which can be very difficult not to do for any new driver. Almost every new driver hit something within their first two years of driving a 18wheeler, and usually it will happen when your trying to back up. I also see a lot of new drivers getting their trailers stuck in ditches because they miss judged a turn, which is also considered an accident if there's damage to the trailer. Not trying to discourage anyone. Theirs just a lot of things you need to consider before becoming a truck driver. Being healthy is a lifestyle. In order to stay committed to that life style you'll have to change the way you live... Instagram: Murray_Garrett_Jr
