This post appeared in the January 2017 edition of Truck News.
The formula for staying healthy on the road is a simple one.
Eat less and exercise more.
I was reminded of this when I crossed paths with
Glen at the Pass Lake Flying J, a driver I had worked with at J&R Hall in
the past. He’d lost a bunch of weight and was looking fit and happy. He was now
running lanes mostly to Virginia and South Carolina that gave him the time to
walk for an hour each morning and evening. Glen told me he still ate basically
the same food he always had just less of it. Glen had found a formula that
worked for him on the road with a carrier that afforded him the time to care
for himself.
With another year dawning many of us will be turning our
thoughts to weight loss and kicking the nicotine habit. Our intentions are
good, we know the change will benefit us, but being tethered to a seat for an
average of 12 hours a day simply works against us. The chips, twizzlers,
cookies, and cigarettes are a way to pass the time. The tight schedules, limited
sleep time, and mental fatigue at the end of the day feed our inability to get
out and move. It’s even more difficult for teams that simply never stop moving.
Despite all of that working against us many of us that drive
for a living still find a way to break those habits that drag us down and form
new ones that are beneficial, but it takes discipline and tenacity. Sometimes you need a little push, a little
encouragement, a little pat on the back, to keep you on track. This is where a
carrier can play a leading role.
Step challenges and weight loss challenges have become a
staple with a number of carriers of late. We had our first weight loss
challenge at J&R Hall take place from September 1 to December 15. At the
time of this writing the final results aren’t in but I’m down 25 lbs with just
a couple of weeks left in the challenge. Having that weigh in commitment each
month was the piece of the puzzle I needed to break my procrastination. Health
professionals tell us one of the best ways to develop healthy life choices is
to do it in the company of others in order to find that added encouragement and
motivation. For the lone wolf driver these challenges help provide that
connection.
There is no doubt that for carriers and their
employees/owner operators these challenges are a win/win in so many ways. So
having nearly completed my first challenge I have some feedback for employers.
First I suggest you create categories for drivers and for
inside employees when comparing results and providing rewards for total steps
or weight loss percentage over the course of the challenge. Why? Because
drivers do not have the option of moving from a seated position for most of
their day. Reaching a 10,000 step daily milestone is a huge achievement for an
OTR driver. Employees in non-driving positions can hit 20,000 plus steps in a
day. With greater activity comes greater weight loss so when involved in weight
loss challenges drivers will, on average, lose weight at a slower rate than
inside staff. So keeping driver and non-driver results separate allows everyone
to compare apples to apples.
Second I suggest you set up a private Facebook group, Google
group, or email group for participants in each challenge. It should be loosely
structured and allow for participants to share their experience rather than
just results. It’s great to find out where other drivers stop to walk or
exercise, how they changed their eating habits and so on. Connecting to others
across the whole company that face the same hurdles as you do is what builds
camaraderie and open communication. That is a winning formula for all.
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