They were on vacation and had loaded up the car with snacks of candy, chips, and cookies that they were snacking on between stopping for meals.  When preparing for a trip I used to bake cookies, pack snack bags, and have more than enough for a month of traveling.  Something to keep hands busy while driving and enjoying the trip.  As a former smoker, I still fight keeping my hands still and not constantly reaching for something. That snack thinking has to change when driving full time, we are not on vacation.

This is not to say we cannot snack when driving or do not need lots of drinks, I am saying make good choices.  When driving becomes a profession and done every day having cookies, chips, and candy will pack the weight on and also make it harder to stay alert for long stretches of time behind the wheel.  As a fulltime driver, we have a tendency to eat more then we exercise.

Most of us in trucking have the ability to keep food cold, either in a cooler or in a refrigerator.  Cut up vegetables work well such as carrots, bell peppers, radishes, and any other vegetable we enjoy or fruit.  Instead of sunflower seeds I order unsalted pumpkin seeds (nuts.com) to snack on as they are a little more difficult to eat and I do not get all of the salt that sunflower seeds have.  Bob likes to take a piece of lunch meat and wrap it around a cheese stick for his snack.  He also buys a variety of raw nuts from Target and mixes them together in a large baggie.  Next, he puts the mixed nuts back into one of the containers from Target to set beside him when he drives and leaves the rest of the nuts in the baggie.  Another awesome snack is the one serving size peanut butter, almond butter, or vanilla almond butter pouches and I have found these as various grocery stores.

Water is essential and often when we think we are tired we are really getting dehydrated.  Break the habit of using soda including diet soda to drink while driving.  I have always had a coffee pot in the truck and usually drink two cups of coffee a day.  I like hot coffee and have found that a Contigo coffee mug keeps my coffee hot for hours.  This also works for hot tea. We drink a lot of water and Bob has found he really likes his water flavored so he purchases little flavor packets that do not contain sugar to mix with the water.  We also use Contigo water bottles that we can reuse and keep our water cold. 

In closing remember that when we start driving for a living we are not on vacation and we have to practice healthy habits! Think before you munch.

Comment (1)

Linda Caffee

Bob and Linda started their driver careers after their children left home for college in 2000. Bob started as a driver for a large motor carrier with Linda as a rider. They decided to enter the Expedite industry as team drivers in 2005 and purchased their first Freightliner. Both, Bob and Linda have had their Class A licenses since the early 80's starting out driving in the oil field and hauling grain as fill in drivers where Bob worked as a diesel mechanic. Linda worked at the local country courthouse in data processing.

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Good ideas. I have tried to rid myself of the snack habit. Sometimes we all get bored when we drive. That can lead to snacking, when we are more bored than hungry - or we just don't feel full. Water can be the ideal "snack" in that situation. I do totally agree that if you're going to snack - snack healthy. My favorite snack is fruits and veggies- apples, oranges, melons, carrot sticks and celery sticks. I schedule my snacks. I struggle with my weight and scheduling snacks and always having water seems to help.

June 21, 2017 4:13:24 AM