Exercise and healthy eating for the OTR truck driver

You're right Ducks, drinking water is also extremely important. It flushes alot of toxins and fatty deposits from your system and improves your over all daily health. I just cringe when I see drivers loading up on cases of soda. If they only knew what all of that sugar was doing to their bodys. Most don't stop until they develop chronic back pain from sore kidneys. Usually by then, the damage has already been done. I personaly drink close to a gallon of water a day. In fact it's the only liquid that I consume other than a couple of cups of green tea. Let me just say that I don't know everything that there is to know about health and fitness, but I have studied and continue to study health ,fitness and nutrition. I do know enough to help others and thats all that I'm doing here. I'm very passionate about it and I enjoy helping others. Thanks

 

What I do is buy 24 of the 20oz bottles from Wally world($4.78)at a time. I drink 5 or 6 of those a day. You have to train yourself to drink water at that volume. Its really not alot. Lose the diet cokes, they just don't help you at all. As for the green tea, it has numerous health benefits and is a powerful antioxident.

 

It's not really a question of how much sugar is good or bad, its more of a question of the types of sugar that you consume on a daily basis. White sugar(which is processed), high fructose corn syrup(which is found in just about every packaged,bottled or canned food that you can buy), corn syrup, sucralose, maltose,dextrose(fancy names for processed sugars) are all forms of sugar all of which are processed and have no nutritional value. They are high glycemic carbs which means that they digest extremely fast once they hit your digestive tract and cause your insulin levels to soar in order to eqaul out your blood sugar levels. This process repeated over time is one of the main causes of diabetes, because once it's repeated enough your insulin levels become depleted and then you have to have the insulin shots to regulate you blood sugar levels. They're also stored in the body as fat. Right now look at the labels of some foods that you have around you and I would be willing to bet that most if not all of them contain one of the sugars that I mentioned above. High Fructose corn syrup is the main ingredient in soft drinks and juices. OJ unless it's fresh squeezed by you usually contains about 24grams of sugar per 8fl oz's. Thats alot of sugar. Back to the hfc(high fructose corn syrup), it a really nasty byproduct of sugar that has numerous negative affects on your health. It causes your body to hoard fat, incourages fatty deposits in your blood and arteries and contribues to overall poor health in many ways that are still being studied. Many nutritionist beleive that it's a major reason for obesity in america today. White bread and white rice though they are not sugars, once they enter the body they are quickly broken down into a bad form of sugar and stored as fat and spikes your insulin levels also. A few snacks and a few soda's a day and you are grossly overloading your system with sugar, unknowingly and possibly a future diabetic. Okay , now the good sugars as a rule always remember this "manmade and processed is bad, what god made is good. Sugars in natural form such as sugars found in fruit and veggi's are very good for you and are what we call low glycemic carbs because once they are in the body they take longer to breakdown and digest, provide more sustained energy and don't overwhelm your blood sugar levels and most are loaded with fiber which keeps you digestive tract clean and free of nasty bacterias. This is why its so important to consume numerous fruits and veggi's everyday. Some of the fruits and veggi's that I consume everyday are apples,pears bannanas, blueberries, grapes, brocolli, spinach, onions, geen peppers and sweet potatos. Try to get a variety if possible. I hope this clears it up and answers your question. You have to eat to survive so you may as well eat foods that help you to become strong and healthy, versus foods that harm you and ruin your health. Most people don't care, they eat and drink whatever they want to until their health is ruined or until the doctor tells them that its a matter of life and death and then its to late.