Having a healthy lifestyle today pays many dividends over a lifetime. Specifically within the professional transportation industry good health is the difference between being able to provide food for your family or not.
A healthy lifestyle provides a livelihood. There is a myth out there that good food has to cost a lot. Yes, if you're looking to enjoy fine dining with the best steak and atmosphere you will pay a premium, but for your day-to-day food needs they don't have to be so expensive that they become a road block for you to get on the road to better health. The cost of good health is a lot less than what one would think. Have you ever added up how much you spend on food in one day? How about one week, one month, or one year?
Here are a few tips to help you begin trimming your food budget and trimming your waistline at the same time:
- Order Water! You immediately cut 160 calories from your day. Do that for a year, and you've rescued yourself from gaining 12 pounds. If you were holding a steady weight before those 12 pounds could actually be lost.
- By ordering water you instead of soda, you lower your sodium intake. The American Heart Association website (americanheart.org) states that Americans tend to consume about 3,436 mg of sodium daily. That's more than double what is recommended (1,500 mg or less). According to dietbites.com, cutting soda means reducing sodium by 40-50 mg. Even 'healthy' diet soda has around 55 mg of sodium. A single cup of soda can hold 3% of your recommended daily sodium intake. Those kinds of numbers add up quickly over the course of a day.
- Keep a Set of Happy Teeth! Soda is corrosive. Not only does it weaken tooth enamel and contribute to cavities, it can discolor your teeth too. Rather than spending money on more tooth-whitening products, you can keep your whites pearly and strong by drinking water.
- Soda, like other artificially made drinks, can be expensive. Even when bought at discount, soda-money adds up. Soda from a machine costs around $1.50. Multiply that by five days a week and that's $7.50. Not sounding like much? Multiply that by 52 and that's $390 a year you can be saving for something great - like new pants to show off your 12-pound slimmer body.
- Avoid Diet Sodas! Did you know diet drinks might actually cause weight gain? Containing 5 calories or less per serving, many diet drinks lead us to believe we are choosing a healthy beverage. Wrong! Diet soda contains artificial ingredients including sweeteners that appear to increase cravings in the human body for other sweet things, so in the end you consume more calories, sweeter foods and desserts.
Here are some additional healthy lifestyle tips:
- The next time you order a sandwich at Subway order a foot long and save half for later.
- When dining in a restaurant have them box up half your meal to eat later. Most portions are for two people and could easily provide you with two meals instead of one. If you are dining with a friend share the calories.
- If you don't add the extra cheese it won't cost you extra money or calories.
- Find ways to supplement your meals with light snacks between meals. Purchase bulk snack items in large quantities and package them in small Ziplocs to control portion size.
- When you are on the road to better health don't let prescriptions weigh your rig down and zap the budget. The healthier you are the less you will need to spend on prescriptions putting more money in your pocket. Now that's an incentive!
Rolling Strong has many other tips to help you on the road to better health. Visit us at www.rollingstrong.com or follow us www.twitter.com/truckertrainer or www.facebook.com/rollingstrong.