This has been a huge process for me.
December 2008 I made a commitment to lose 40lbs in 2009 and ended up losing 50lbs by walking and cutting out sweets and watching what I ate. I ended up walking 1000 miles by the time I reached my 40lb goal.
In 2010 I became involved with Bob Perry, President of Roadside Medical and also the Trucker Fitness Trainer and a Women in Trucking Health Challenge. Through Bob I have been learning about nutrition and how to keep the weight off and stay healthy.
I also became chairmen of the Drivers Health Council a subsidiary of our Trucking Solutions Group. Through that group we started the +61 Health Awareness Walk that was held at the major truck shows, MATS, GWTS, and GATS and we will be holding the walks again this year. Henry and I held an informal PJ walk two days at the Expo that we will be doing again this year I hope.
Our Health group has had on many guest speakers talking about nutrition and also exercise. We were invited to tour the Cooper Institute while attending the GATS truck show cooperinstitute.org and we were able to meet Dr. Cooper who is considered the father of aerobics.
In 2011 we have plans to expand from our walk and sponsor a few more ideas at the truck shows that we are working on. We are excited about these new ideas and will soon be advertising what we are doing to get participants. Those of you attending MATS will be hearing all about this soon and will be asked to participate!
Making the decision to become healthier has changed our lives in a huge way and for the better. Our last DOT checkups where amazing and our doctor was very impressed. Bob was on the point of having to go on cholesterol medicine and he now way below that level.
Through a healthy diet and exercise we continue to improve our health. We have seen a great improvement in our ability to drive our shifts and stay alert.
We now make time to get out and walk and have seen and found some amazing things around truck stops. It is easy to sit in the truck and make excuses to not get out and I have a whole list of them if anyone wants to borrow a few.
I finally made the decision that excuses where just that excuses and I needed to get off my butt if I was going to change.