it is possible to eat well OTR

What I like about meal planning and preparation during breaks from the road, and fifteen minute power walks during pee breaks is the feeling of being in control of your own health. It puts control of your blood pressure, your cardiac status, your blood glucose, etc. back in YOUR hands. You are then better informed when you see your health care provider next time, and you are an active participant in decisions.

Here's an easy recipe for trail mix which keeps for several days in sealed baggies. You can put "trail mix," or "granola recipes" into your pc search engine and come up with hundreds on your own. You have more choice, and more control over your health. Also it's cheaper than eating out, and you don't have to leave a tip. This is so easy and you adapt the recipe to suit your taste! More grains and nuts are good for your health.

Two cups cheerios, two cups rice/corn chex. One half cup raisins, or chopped dates, or chopped figs, or dried cranberries, or dried cherries. You decide what you want in it. Then add another half cup of chopped dried mango, papaya, pineapple, or dried banana chips just for variety. Add a cup of dry roasted peanuts (unsalted). Add another cup of another nut of your choice: cashews, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds (also unsalted). Finally add a cup of dark chocolate m&ms (if you're diabetic leave this out). Stir the whole thing up and portion into re-sealable plastic bags in which it will keep for several days.

Nuts and grains are a good source of zinc. Men need zinc like women need iron. Which brings me to another point: take a multi-vitamin formulated for your gender daily. Whatever brand doesn't really matter, I get the store brand in the supermarket, or whatever drug store I'm in. One daily should do it.

Live long and prosper!

 

so! at least, how much you can spend in food out there weekly??? what is a good average and still eat healthy?? without hurting you wallet??

 

that crap tore my gut up more than eating in the truck stops. Felt like I had no energy to do anything and actually PUT weight on.

Try to stick to fresh foods that WILL go bad if you don't eat it soon enough.

Because if you can eat that Twinkie 9 months AFTER you opened it, is it REALLY that good for you?

 

So that is $70 a week, $280 a month! You can buy a car for that!!!

You can build that sammich with walmart fixins (or any grocery store) for about a quarter of that!

Mikeeee

 

Yes, it is possible to eat healthy while travelling, but it takes some preparation and planning. And yes, it is cheaper serving-per-serving to make your own food. Here are two websites I found tonight while thinking about canned and preserved food. Did you know that can of beef stew you so love to warm up in a microwave has a shelf life of three years (...actually longer, but the flavoring additives that have also been put in at the factory start to break down after three years)? Did you know there are primarily three ways of preserving foods to give them a marketable shelf life? And that all three are harmful to your health? The three are: added proprionic acid, nitrates and nitrites, and sodium benzoates. I hate to be a busybody, but if you're reading this thread you're concerned with your health--so I'm putting this out there in hopes it's a "teachable moment" which all nurses hope for. These sites are a public service, they're selling nothing, and they're there for the use of doctors, nurses, and dieticians and their clients who want to enjoy better health.

Here's a challenge: read food labels on dehydrated stuff, canned foods, and ready-to-eat dinners for a week. Then compare notes with these two websites.

Rather than try to give you information second hand and translated, I'll just put the websites out here and you can download them for some interesting reading before you start your trip, or when you have some time to kill on a layover. For lowering blood pressure, and generally healthy eating like weight control, there's the DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) and you can read all about it including recipes for a week.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/hbp/dash/new_dash.pdf

Here's another one I found called "Sustainable Table." It seems pretty factual and down to earth.

http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/additives/

PDF is "portable document format" and it is the universal language for moving information online. You can download a free Adobe Reader which takes up little space on your pc and enables you to download PDF documents and open them to read.

Live long, and prosper.

 

Even though I have a fridge on my truck I hardly buy food any more to put in it because i've somehow developed a habit of eating once day maybe 2 times and I just got tired of making sandwhiches. I either get a pizza sub from subway, eat a crream cheese bagel, or make me a cup (yes I said cup) of cereal. Most of the time it's cereal.

 

...and that's why you look like you lost weight... I can tell just by comparing your pictures...

 

I lost a extreme amount of weight in the past 3 months and it's not that i'm starving myself for a diet or anything like that but for some odd reason all of a sudden I have no appetite. I used to buy food and it would be in my frdge days and end up in the garbage so I only have juice, milk, yougurt and bagels in my fridge now.

 

I don't eat much.... I'm vegetarian... Have one hot meal a day (cook in the truck almost every day) + breakfast (granola, fruits and milk) + protein bars, nuts and fruits while driving... I know how much I spend every month cause I save all my receipts and do my bookkeeping (for income tax purposes). I spend between 280.00 and 480.00 per month with food (produce, fruits, vegetables, protein bars, granola, pasta, brown rice, can beans, milk, water...) I don't drink sodas of any kind, no candies, no sweets, no snacks or junk food. Also stopped eating pizzas because the tomato sauce they use has sugar and other chemicals that I don't want. I used to prepare sandwiches to eat while driving but it's so difficult to find bread without sugar.... I gave up on the sandwiches...

 

You maybe losing weight, but a more schooled dietician than I would be able to explain that what you are doing is bad.

Almost all diets say to eat four, five or even six small meals a day. You can easily burn off the calories of each meal that way. Instead of one meal right before sleeping.

When you don't eat, your body starts to burn muscle instead of fat. Your weight loss is probably what is considered bad weight loss.

Mikeeee