System drivers, what do you eat?

Only two sets of clothes for 5 days? Hell no. I sweat way too much breaking and hooking and wrestling dollys. Maybe I'm just OCD but I HAVE to have clean clothes EVERYDAY. Shower EVERyDAY. I just dont get these guys that have access to a shower on a daily basis but smell like they haven't showered in a week or two

 

I dont run extraboard anymore but when I did I started eating the chopped salads at subway. Load up on vegetables and protein. I usually get egg whites and steak.

You'll learn quickly that eating cheeseburgers and snak foods like chips and cookies will put weight on you quick and after a long enough period of time will lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes etc..Start down the right path early and you can avoid all that. I dont touch anything with lots of carbs and/or sugar.

For snacks I'll eat cheese, mixed nuts, beef jerky. I try to keep the overall food intake low. I'm driving a truck, not running a marathon. You dont need a ton of calories. Fasting for 14-16 hours can help also.

 

I've learn't not to eat to much and here's why ....... {a} Eating to much at the wrong time of the day tends to make one sleepy not good when your trying to average 650 miles per day {b} Eating alot when just sitting in a truck seat all day long tends to put on the lbs so i choose to go without till i get back home then have a nice big feed and go to sleep.

 

Man you brought back some memories. Eating cold soup out of a can in some dank hotel room outside Jersey City. Unfortunately, I didn't take the time to eat a meal at a restaurant. I was new on the job and didn't understand how drivers had time to sit down and eat. I always tried to end up in Providence, RI because the hotel we used there spoiled drivers with their own section of the hotel for peace and quiet, and they ran a breakfast buffet. Hot meal and hit the sack. It was the only time I ate a hot meal, unless I could nuke my soup at a hotel room that had a microwave. The gal at the front desk was the wife of a trucker and she spoiled us. I always ran into other linehaul guys from YRC and other outfits. Linehaul drivers liked that place. Some of our guys talked about taking coolers when they went up to Portland so they could come home with all this cheap, fresh seafood. I barely had time for a ####, shower and shave ... so I grew a beard.

When I stayed out at hotels as a system driver (we call them bag drivers here at ODFL), I packed a duffel bag with enough clothes for each day out, plus an extra day in case of an emergency, and included in that duffel bag was cans of soup, utensils, protein bars, peanut butter, and bread. Plus, a case of bottled water and 12 pack of red bull. I was making bank and living like a pauper. Of course if I had to bag out now, it would be a totally different experience. My whole approach was saving time and money. I would've rather slept another hour or two than gone to a place to sit down and eat.

To keep my sanity during those early days of trial by fire, I would tell myself that I didn't have to sleep in a truck in a truck stop, I had my own room with my own bed, shower, and toilet; I was getting home weekly, and I made more money as a rookie linehaul driver than pretty much any veteran OTR driver.

 

I'm a truck driver.
I eat asphalt and I drink diesel fuel.
The open road is my buffet.

 

P&D drivers from competing companies?....

 

You eat one UPS driver and everyone loses their mind.