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Healthy Trucking Kiosks Offer Innovative Advertising Opportunities

“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

 – Warren Buffett

My Point

Practicing What I Preach at 'Boot Camp'

By Marvin Shefsky

We’ve been talking a lot about health and wellness lately in this column and in our two driver recruitment magazines, Over the Road and Pro Trucker. We’ve also put our money where our mouth is by launching a Healthy Trucking Initiative and sponsoring HT kiosks at truck stops nationwide where truckers can check their blood pressure for free. I recently took yet another step down the road toward better health by literally practicing what I’ve been preaching all these many months. I spent the month of October in Durham, NC as a participant in the Rice Diet Program.

Like a lot of Americans, I had ignored my health for far too long. I put on nearly 50 pounds of unwanted weight. I saw my cholesterol and blood pressure numbers soar. I was on all kinds of meds. I tried a bunch of diet plans – Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, you name it. Nothing worked for me long term.

Then Pat Patrick, CEO of Kennesaw Transportation, suggested I try the Rice Diet Program. His advice definitely changed my life and might have saved it.

I liken my experience at Durham to “boot camp.” I was too spoiled and my bad habits were too ingrained to make other diet plans work. I needed a change in environment as well as attitude. I found both at Duke.

The program cost a lot of money, but it’s not because of the food. The menu was awful, unless you happen to be a hamster. For breakfast, you had fruit plus your choice of dry puffed rice, cream of wheat, cream of rye or oatmeal. No milk. No sugar. And definitely no salt. For the first two weeks, that was also the menu for lunch and dinner.

The average American ingests about 4,000 to 5,000 milligrams of sodium a day. For my first two weeks on the Rice Diet, I consumed 50 milligrams of sodium a day. A super low-sodium diet runs the water out of you, which in turn reduces your blood pressure.

When I wasn’t “dining,” I was working out in the fitness center or attending classes on nutrition and how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It’s true what every person intuitively knows: The key to losing weight and enjoying a healthier life can be summed up in two words: diet and exercise.

I returned home minus 28 pounds of excess baggage. That was how much weight I lost. My blood pressure went down to 104/58, my total cholesterol went from 270 to 135 (175 is considered good) and I was off 80 percent of my meds.  Perhaps best of all, I had a bounce to my step. I had gone from a waddle to a bounce.

My stay at Durham was greatly enhanced by the opportunity to meet people and make friends from all walks of life from all over the world, including a farmer from New Zealand and a former vice president of Ecuador (who wanted to lose 18 pounds while training for a marathon).

While many trucking executives have the time and the means to attend the Rice Diet Program (and I encourage you to do so), over-the-road professionals generally do not. That’s why we’ve been encouraging trucking companies to set up health and wellness in their organizations. It may be the best driver retention tool you’ll ever find. Certainly it tells your drivers that the company cares about them – not just as “meat in the seat,” but as human beings deserving of healthy, happy lives.

Twenty-five or 30 years ago, truck drivers probably had the same eating habits that they have today, yet obesity among truckers is far more prevalent today. The difference is, trucks weren’t air conditioned back then, they didn’t have power steering and drivers had to load and unload freight. They got plenty of exercise. Now the trucks are like RVs, drivers don’t have to load and unload, and they don’t get any exercise. That’s where company-sponsored health and wellness plans, including driver fitness centers, need to come into play.

This issue of Inside Trucking includes several “healthy trucking” stories and highlights just a few of the many health and wellness initiatives some trucking companies have launched. Again, we encourage every company to jump on the “health” bandwagon. It’s good for your drivers and it’s good for your business. If you need ideas on how to get started, give us a call.

As I learned in boot camp, losing weight isn’t a quick, one-day trip. It’s a long journey full of ups and downs. Sounds like a perfect task for an over-the-road professional. As an industry, we owe it to drivers to at least present the challenge of living healthier lives, and then provide them with the information, equipment, encouragement and incentives they need to meet that challenge.

-- Marvin Shefsky, Publisher/CEO
(Marvin@otrprotrucker.com)

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