The conversation nobody wants to have but is extremely necessary. According to FMCSA 69% of truck drivers in America are obese. 17% are morbidly obese, and only 16% consider their health to be good. Why is that? Whose fault is that? The truck drivers or the trucking culture? Do we blame ourselves for how we eat or do we blame the trucking industry for what they have to offer? Idk but what I do know is, you can blame everyone and anyone that you want, but until you put the blame on yourself, you’re not going to have the need or want to change. It is much easier to blame someone else than to take a look on the inside and take full responsibility for your bad eating habits and take complete accountability for letting yourself get so heavy, overweight and unhealthy.

Here is the truth of the matter, it is way harder to get in shape than to stay in shape. These days I only workout to retain the physique that I have gained. If I don’t maintain it, I will lose it. My workouts and eating habits are not as strict as they were in the beginning, why? Because it is way easier to maintain my current body than trying to acquire it.  I remember when I was big and fat, and I was, I used to weigh 235 lbs, that’s 75 lbs more than what I currently weigh. A complete transformation that took over 2 years to accomplish. Most drivers know that they need to start the process to get on a healthier path but rather not do it because in the back of their heads, they know it’s something that’s going to take a long time, discipline and tons of training, especially when they are the heaviest they have ever been. They want the magic pill that’s going to make them lose weight and make them lose fat and become  fit overnight. Well guess what, it doesn’t exist. But i’ll tell you what does exist, you losing your health due to your poor choices.

I used to be weak, had no energy, would lose my breath easily, low self esteem, very insecure about myself, and couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror for longer than 2 seconds. I didn’t like that feeling, I hated myself, especially when I knew how athletic and in shape I used to be in my college years, that was well over 10 years ago. One day you’re enjoying life to the fullest, the next day you wake and it seems like you have run into a wall. So many years have passed without paying attention to what goes into your mouth, then one day, boom, you start to have health issues. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease are just a few issues truck drivers are more prone to, just because of the trucking lifestyle, and the health issues list is long.

The body is like any man made machine with an engine in it, with time and use, eventually it’ll have problems and the parts will start to deteriorate. So I’m an owner operator, I have a 2016 Freightliner Cascadia. It would be in my best interest to do PM’s to my truck, PM stands for preventative maintenance. Preventive maintenance is the act of performing regularly scheduled maintenance activities to help prevent unexpected failures in the future. Especially since the truck is getting older as time goes on and is more viable to breakdowns, I try to do the best I can to keep up with PM’s. I don’t wait til my truck starts to have issues in order for me to start taking care of the maintenance, by then, it might be too late! With so many different parts and components that go into making a truck, the consequences from a slight error can vary from something small to something catastrophic.

It is no different with the human body. Use your body or lose it. Take care of it or lose it. Nourish it or lose it. Are you really going to wait till you’re laying in a hospital bed before you start thinking about your health? Is it really going to take a Dr to tell you that you’re on the verge of having to take high blood pressure medication before you start to walk around the truck stop and watch what you eat? What is it going to take for you to understand that consuming high levels of processed sugars and food for years with no end will only lead to diabetes amongst other health issues down the road. Not only are you cutting your trucking career short, you’re also cutting your lifespan. So we all need to start doing some preventative maintenance on our own bodies, our bodies are the vehicle that is going to take us into the future! Pretty dumb if you ask me to ignore the only thing that’s keeping you alive. Preventive and routine care helps prevent health problems or finds them before they become serious. It would be unwise of me to wait til my truck is in the shop for me to start thinking about its maintenance, so why should it be any different with our bodies? We take more care of materialistic things than we do ourselves. Some truck drivers feed their pets better than they feed themselves. You need to start taking care of your body as if you were taking care of your pet.

Nobody is going to tell you that you’re fat and you need to start losing weight for the sake of your health because that would be considered bullying nowadays. That’s what I needed to hear and that’s what I heard from someone that I didn’t even know. At first I was pissed, I got so angry that I was ready to fight someone. I didn’t like the feeling of a stranger calling me fat, but that was my emotional side thinking. After a few hours had gone by and I was back to my normal self, I started thinking with my logical side. Everything that person said was true. So why was I mad? Because I didn’t have anything back to say? Because the way they delivered the message? Or was it that I just couldn’t simply argue logic and rather use my emotions to try to cope with it? Every single point they were making about why it’s so bad to be overweight was true, and real, but why do they have to say it so harshly? Couldn’t they have said it in a nicer tone? 

One thing I’ve learned since then, is that soft words don’t work. Talking gently to people when you want them to do something that you know it’s only going to benefit their life is hard. Its like talking to a wall. Why? Because the current society has made it like that. it’s all about body positivity now, well guess what also comes with body positivity, positive diabetes, positive blood pressure and positive cancer results. So if you don’t want to be dealing with those health issues, I suggest you get your ass up and start doing something that’s going to benefit your miserable life! That’s what I had to do! I didn’t get here by wishing on a star! I put in the blood sweat and tears to get here, but I had to take it upon myself to want to better myself. Nobody is going to cme to hold your hand. Are you a child that needs help crossing the street? Or are you an adult that’s going to cross the road on your own 2 feet? Life will beat you up, kick you to the ground and make you stay there if you allow it!

Pause

Do you think I like to workout? Do you think that it’s easy to try to get a complete workout with only 2 dumbbells in my truck? Do you think after driving all day long that I want to workout? The answer is no. I’ll tell you what I do love though, I love the results that it has given me. Some people won’t workout unless they can go to a planet fitness, but what are the chances of being able to workout there? Once a week? Possibly 2? And they wonder why they can’t lose weight and stay in shape. You don’t need a complete gym setup to stay active. Active is the keyword. You’re trying to create a better lifestyle for you and those around you, you’re not trying to build muscle to be able to compete at mr olympia. So if a gym is your excuse as to why you can’t be fit, then stay unhealthy and overweight cuz that’s the alternative to trying to do a little bit of exercise no matter where you are. And no, just cuz your skinny fat doesn’t mean you’re healthy. 

Any day that you’re not getting stronger, you’re getting weaker. There is a biological clock on your body. Matter of time before it starts to give you problems. You’re only accelerating the problems with the type of food that you eat. Food is your number one enemy. Food is what is going to keep you obese. If you don’t start limiting what type of food you consume, you will end up looking like a balloon at the dr office when you’re trying to renew your medical card. He is going to look at you and tell you he wants to see you in 6 months, instead of the normal 24 months. Stop digging your grave with fried food and a fork. Heart disease is the leading cause of deaths in America for both men and women. I’m willing to bet the heart disease numbers from truck drivers is through the roof.

If you don’t use your health, you will lose it. If you don’t use your fitness, you will lose it. You have to take your health seriously, it is the tool, your body is the instrument that you’re going to take into your future. 1 year from now, are you going to regret that you didn’t take your health seriously, or are you going to be happy that you did. What about 5 years from now, 10 years? Do you think your future self will be happy with your present actions or hate you for what you have done to yourself. The future is where you are going to live, so if I were you, I would start to prepare for it. Use it or lose it. That’s what it all boils down to.

You have to use your opportunities to strengthen your health and fitness. Not only that, You have to use your opportunities to strengthen your family. Healthy family, happy long life. Do you think your family wants to be lugging you around in a wheelchair cuz you decided to jeopardize your health many years ago? Do you really want to put that burden on them? If you haven’t thought about it, then you don’t care, and if you don’t care, you’re just a selfish person. One of these days, your family will not be with you. They are either going to be at your funeral, or you’re going to be at one of theirs. As much as we would like, we are not immortals. Everybody has a date and time scheduled for them, and by the way some of ya take care of ya’s body, ya are only speeding up the biological clock that we all have on our bodies. It’s almost as if you want for your last breath to come faster. That’s real. No 2 way street there. there’s no going back in time. You are not going to be able to rewind the clock to be able to do things differently. Actions have consequences. Whether the consequences are going to be good or be bad, is totally up to you. You are in danger of losing the most valuable thing in your life, your health.