I carried a weight set in my truck while on the road. I had to get my workout on every once in a while, I used to be a fitness instructor a long while back. Anyway, I came up with my own little routine I done while inside the truck and it actually worked. I think all the big truck stops should have some sort of small area with a few machines and treadmills or stairmasters. Although I have not seen many, not even the Iowa 80 truck stop had workout areas.

 

The truck stops are loaded with high carb/high fat definitely going to kill you food. You can pick out things on the buffet that are not killer foods or some of the sit down restaurants offer grilled items (which may be filled with sodium). The fast food salads are a rip off, not much there for your $6-7 so I recommend you steer clear of them also. What a lot of drivers do is get a refrigerator (a cooler only works good under 80 degrees or so), an inverter that will allow a microwave and maybe an electric frying pan or crock pot. Cook your own meals, they will save you hundreds of dollars and lots of pounds. In order to reduce the mess (since water is limited and a sink isn't installed on the truck) use cooking bags or tin foil to line with and paper plates/plastic utensils to throw away. You can purchase a few days worth of food at Wal Marts and it will be much healthier.

Don't know how to cook? Pick up a slow-cooker/crock pot easy to read recipe book. One pot, add the ingredients and let it cook.

 

I miss a lot of meals...and when I do order a meal, it'll usually be breakfast - any time of the day.

I like 2% milk, which is nearly always available.
An Egg Mcmuffin is actually a balanced meal.
Wendy's makes the best hamburger.....don't eat fries - ever!
Bananas are always at truckstops.

Going to bed without supper is probably good for you..

 

The trucking lifestyle can be very unhealthy and I'm glad to hear you want to put some effort into being the exception to the rule... I do aerobics in the truck and some weight training using resistance bands (I don't know what the real name is). If you go to Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target and go into the exercise section you may find a lot more "small space" items than you think. I would LOVE to walk more- but I don't think it's too terribly smart for a woman to walk around some truck stops alone. I drive team, but that usually means we have different waking hours- so it's not like he can escort me. I have a dog and I try to take him out for a good walk twice a day- but truck stop lots can be nasty so we usually pick a spot and stay there running around playing chase.

This article has some decent info in it:
Trucking Lifestyle Tips

This article isn't about eating healthy but it has some good restaurant reviews that sure beat Thad's and the Country Pride!:
Truck-friendly Restaurants

 

Well I'm as green as they come (got my CDL this morning in fact) but here's my plan:
I usually do most of the cooking anyway (not my wife's forte) so I'm going to make lots of stuff I usually make for supper anyway (vegetable lasagna, enchiladas, stews, etc) and freeze in containers, foil, etc., keep them (should be okay for at least the 1st week or so as long as I don't let the cab get too hot don't you reckon) in a Coleman 40 quart DC cooler (now $75 at Wal-Mart BTW).
I'll heat them up in the Burton lunchbox I just bought (on sale at TA for $25).
TA also has a 12 cup (regular size) coffee maker on sale for $20 which should also help keep my costs down (I like a lot of coffee).
Excercise...I'm just going to have to continue to do (okay start back up) my 30 minute morning jog regardless of how busy I may get.
It all looks good on paper to me at least...I guess we'll see.

Randy

 

Uh, yeah...that's green. :mrgreen:
Congratulations!

 

GRB53 said:
I found a review of this on-line from a 4-wheeler. He offered the following comments:

How well does it cool
Not very well in my opinion. If I have a choice between getting a cool beverage out of this or an ice chest with ice, then I am going to choose the ice chest. It will only get your drinks down to 40-45 degrees and an ice chest will be a little above 33 degrees.

This cooler even becomes more useless if the outside temperature is above 90 degrees. Unlike an ice chest, this cooler?s temperature depends greatly on the outside temperature. So if it is 115 degrees in the car (typical for a car in Southern California.) then this cooler will only cool a drink down to 60-70 degrees. This is typical for all electrical coolers because of the lack of insulation.

How well does it heat
Heating is fine, just do not expect to cook with this. It will keep food warm for short distances/times. You can expect the temperature to be around 135 degrees but this also varies depending on the outside temperature. This is not a long term storage center for food since most foods will spoil in a matter of hours at the temperature. That is unless you want to make your whole family sick for Thanksgiving.

Noise level
For me the noise is obnoxious. I could never sleep in a dorm room with this going on. It even irritates me when I am driving the car.

 

I was very active in my previous job before getting my CDL. So when I started rolling my diet, money, and exercise went down the drain. I talked to this lady and she told me about Advocare. I was very sceptical at first but after doing some research I found that many pro athlets use the products to get and stay in shape. I have been using the product for one month and I lost 25 pounds and feel great(As great as one can without being to exercise daily). Without boring everyone to death I use a meal replacement shake(just add water), vitamin, Spark energy drink (tastes like kool-aid), and thats it. Pretty cheap also. Around $210 a month. Hope this helps. You can go online to order or research for yourself at https://www.advocare.com/06093715/

Take it easy!!!

 

Sounds like a good plan. I think you'll find that the electric cooler does a decent job. Just keep an eye on it.

My experience with the 12-volt coffee makers wasn't such a good one. Of course, this was about 10 years ago. I bought a 4-cup one and it took FOREVER to heat the water. I took it back. I would suggest that you try it out before you run out of time to return it just in case. You can look into a small inverter and using a regular coffee maker. Coffee makers take a lot of juice, though, so make sure the inverter is big enough (and if you have a really big one, you want to make sure it's properly installed- some folks have caused fires with improperly installed inverters- and the companies tend to be wary of them).

 

TA hot dogs and tornados for everyone!!!!!!!!!!!