If you made a New Year’s resolution to have a healthier life in 2015 than you did last year, good for you.
If you already broke that resolution, so what? Now’s the time to start over.
Siphiwe BalekaEither way, Trucker’s News is giving you a little bit of help. To help become Fit In ’15, we’ve asked some experts for their best advice. We asked them all the same six questions, and you’ll see their answers here for the next several days.
These are folks who know healthy living, wellness, fitness, exercise and proper eating. And, most importantly they know and work with truck drivers like yourself. They understand the demands of your job and the limits it imposes on your ability to get and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Today Siphiwe Baleka offers health and wellness insights. In 2011, he became “The Fittest Truck Driver in America”. He is the Founder of Fitness Trucking LLC, the Driver Health Editor at Road King magazine in the United States and The Trucking Network in Canada, and is the Driver Health and Fitness Coach at Prime, Inc.
If you could get America’s truck drivers to take one positive step towards improving their health and wellness in 2015, what would that be and what should they do to accomplish it?
I believe so strongly in what I am about to say that my consulting company, Fitness Trucking, has partnered with another company to provide a solution to the most important problem confronting truck driver health and fitness. And that’s the problem of nutritional deficiencies. 90% of Americans are deficient in potassium. 80% are deficient in vitamin E and Omega 3 Fats. 70% are deficient in calcium, zinc and iodine. 50% are deficient in vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D and magnesium. According to four-time New York Times bestselling author Dr. Mark Human, “a whopping 92 percent of us are deficient in one or more nutrients at the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) level.” If that is the case with the average American who has access to a kitchen and can cook food, store food, go to farmers markets and get locally grown organic vegetables and go to specialty stores to get grass fed, hormone free meat, can you imagine the nutritional deficiencies of truck drivers who do not have these things? Experts will now admit, like the 74th USA Congressional Record admitted in 1936, that reaching the recommended daily intake of all of the essential micronutrients can not be done through food alone. That means that everyone should be using nutritional supplements. Fitness Trucking is now a distributor of the IsaGenix nutritional system because it provides 75% of the US RDA of all 60 essential nutrients. That’s the highest that I know of. And at the risk of sounding self-promoting, I would say that the single most important step a driver could make in 2015 is to go to www.fitnesstrucking.isagenix.com and start with the 30 Day System, because the bottom line is, you have to find a way to get adequate nutrition, or else you will suffer disease. Period. Fitness Trucking has been field testing health and fitness products to see which ones actually work in the unique environment of long haul trucking. As far as solving the problem of nutritional deficiencies, IsaGenix is the best solution regardless of what else you eat.
What should drivers do to create realistic health and wellness New Year’s resolutions, and achieve them in 2015?
Use smartphone apps that require you to take action every day. For example, at Prime we use the Skimble Workout Trainer app. You don’t have to think about what to do in your workout, you just open the app, select a workout, and then it coaches you through the workout. For nutrition, we use MyFitnessPal. When you start logging your food, you start to learn the nutritional content of the food you eat. You then start to make better choices automatically. Use the technology to stay active after the first few weeks when most people bail on their resolutions.
What is the best exercise/fitness step drivers can take in 2015 to maximize their wellness/weight loss goals?
As far as fitness is concerned, everyday, before you start driving, take four minutes to move with as much intensity as you possible can. It doesn’t matter what the movement is – jumping jacks, run in places, shadow box, do squat jumps –any multi-muscular body weight exercise will do. But the key is, you have to go with as much intensity as you can for four minutes. When you do that and then start driving, you metabolism will be burning fat at an accelerated rate for the next three hours while you drive.
What are the most important eating/dietary step drivers can take next year to achieve those goals?
If you did the four minute workout before driving, then all you have to do is eat something every three hours to keep fueling the metabolism like a burning fire. Actually, I should say “eat the right thing” every three hours – that’s any snack with 8g or more of protein and limit the carbohydrates to under 20g. For better results, limit the carbs to under 10g. So we are talking about almost all unsalted nuts, low fat string cheese, eggs any way you like them, Nature Valley Chewy Protein Bars (14g of carbs, 10g protein), Greek yogurt, tuna, smoked salmon. Stay away from crackers, breads, chips, all wheat and corn products.
What will you focus on in 2015 with the drivers and others you work with to help them have a healthy 2015?
Now that I have solved the problem of metabolic syndrome among truck drivers, in 2015 I am going to focus on the problem of nutritional deficiencies. I have already taken the SpectraCell Micronutrient lab test twice (http://telomere-micronutrient-testing-pps.com) and we have already started testing drivers to find out what their nutritional deficiencies are. According to one study, “A deficiency of any of the micronutrients: folic acid, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B6, niacin, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, iron, or zinc, mimics radiation in damaging DNA by causing single- and double-strand breaks, oxidative lesions, or both. . . . Remedying micronutrient deficiencies should lead to a major improvement in health and an increase in longevity at low cost.” So that is why the issue is so important, especially among truck drivers, and that’s why IsaGenix. Its nut just a multivitamin, or a protein shake, or a vitamin pack. It’s all that and more. It’s actually a complete nutritional system, from sleep support to brain support to nutritional support, to anti-aging and cellular health support, to skin support, to weight-loss support . . . . It’s a one-stop shop for providing easy to use, good tasting and convenient packaging for truck drivers’ nutritional needs.
What is (are) your own health/wellness goal(s) for 2015?
I currently have 4 nutritional deficiencies out of a total of 60 essential nutrients – Biotin, Oleic Acid, Zinc and Selenium. You can see my SpectraCell micronutrient tests results athttps://fitfortrucking.com/?p=306. My goal for 2015 is to eliminate any nutritional deficiencies.
