How healthy do you think you are?

I ask this with great interest as I have been dealt a bad hand and would like to warn/assist others who are of the old school and carry on regardless! I have my story in T & D Jan 2018 edition (out now). I have thought long and hard before putting anything on here but decided if I help just one of you then I’ll be happy.

I was taken ill last year on holiday and haven’t worked since. I come on here every day and read so much meaningless and petty things that I sometimes have cried. I would love to be delayed in traffic, held up at an rdc, not get home on a Friday and the rest. You don’t know what you have got until it’s gone!!

I would like to thank Lucy for her help in everything she has done over the past 12 months, just a reassuring word goes a long way when in my position.

I would like a sensible debate as this is probably as serious as you can get.

I’m sorry to hear that bud. If you followed the fridge debate recently you’ll see how little many people regard their health. They seem content to fly in the face of extensive evidence as to the importance of a proper diet in maintaining good health, preferring to eat highly processed food such as you might get in a Wetherspoons or snack bar. Combined with a long hours culture that can make it difficult to find time to take a reasonable amount of exercise and you arrive at the conclusion, backed up by research, that the average truck driver is extremely unhealthy in body and mind.

I’ve followed numerous debates on here over the past 15 months…I have little all else to do at the moment. I thought I was eating sensibly and did exercise as much as possible. It’s the little things you don’t realise until it’s too late!

Best regards to you mate. It’s very true that the way that we abuse our bodies in our younger years most definitely comes back to haunt us in our later life.
(Also, if a doctor prescribes any medication to you, ask if it’s compatible with any others that you might be taking first, I’ve had a couple of times when it’s been a “Oh!, mmmm! yes, we’ll change it to ##### instead then” )

I myself along with probably a lot of others suffer with back pain,I had surgery in 2013 but alas it wasn’t the miracle cure,I go to work every day in some degree of pain but I would rather have it that way than stay at home,I find going to work and having something to do to take your mind off it and works best for me,I try to eat healthy without being obsessive about it,same with exercise,gym three times a week,walk rather than ride,I consider myself fortunate when I see and hear about other people’s problems there is always someone worse off,best of luck to you hope things improve

Typically truck drivers are an unhealthy bunch, many are part of a generation where obesity is seen as the norm.

peirre:
Typically truck drivers are an unhealthy bunch, many are part of a generation where obesity is seen as the norm.

True enough. Especially the last point, we tend to compare ourselves with those around us: if were living and working with others who are overweight or obese we dont see ourselves as being unhealthy. Same with wealth/money: we may have a nice house, car, holidays, but still get jealous of those with a bit more.
And going back to the point, how many of us chase the extra cash today, forgetting about the long term health costs?
The solution to this problem? So long as were humans, maybe there isnt one? We tend to look at short term gain and think the long term effects are for others, not us.

If MSA’s and truck stops did have gyms , drivers would vandalize them and spill a bucket of diet Coke all over the machines.

Brescia truck stop in Italy has a fully eequipped gym and the only one in the UK
is Ashford .
After a ten hour drive or a fifteen hour day, the gym idea won’t work but for being weekended on a 45 hour off , a good idea.

Before I was a driver a wiser man told me "your health is your wealth."I used to do a lot of over time .I don’t want it now ,been to too many funerals.

Drivers don’t portray themselves well as role models for the next generation who maybe are considering embarking down this career path. Setting aside the poor pay, excessive hours and tight deadlines, the younger generation are a more socially mobile bunch who see driving as a backwards step in career progression

peirre:
Drivers don’t portray themselves well as role models for the next generation who maybe are considering embarking down this career path. Setting aside the poor pay, excessive hours and tight deadlines, the younger generation are a more socially mobile bunch who see driving as a backwards step in career progression

Yeah, True.
But apart from the poor pay, excessive hours, enforced sitting down, bad public image, antisocial hours, pressure on time, its great aint it?

What have the Romans ever done for us?

dri-diddly-iver:
I was taken ill last year on holiday and haven’t worked since. I come on here every day and read so much meaningless and petty things that I sometimes have cried. I would love to be delayed in traffic, held up at an rdc, not get home on a Friday and the rest. You don’t know what you have got until it’s gone!!

You have my sympathy, I know how it feels.
I spent my last 2 years as a driver getting myself fit and healthy, sensible eating and exercise got me down to my ideal weight.

Yes you can eat properly and exercise while tramping.

I left driving in June 2015 and started to enjoy some proper me time, but in January 2016 from nowhere, I developed a condition that took my health and fitness away from me. 6 weeks in hospital virtually paralysed followed by a very slow and not very successful recovery period and I’ve now been disabled and unable to work for getting on 2 years.
Even though I left driving voluntarily, I like yourself would give anything to be able to get back behind the wheel and work again, and again just like yourself, I sometimes despair at the petty moaning that goes on here. I would love to swap my life of never knowing if I’ll have the energy and stamina to make it out of bed and to a hospital appointment for a life where my biggest problem is a delay at an RDC.
I don’t know what your prognosis is, I hope it’s encouraging for you. Apparently statistically I have a whopping great big 30% chance of surviving more than 10 years, but getting back to any kind of meaningful working life in that time is “unlikely”.

To my mind it’s not just a question of getting fit and healthy to increase your life quality, it’s also realising that whatever you do, you are not immune from being completely blindsided by something totally outside of your control at any moment.

As the old saying goes, live every day as if it were your last, because one day you’ll be right.

I feel for you old Pal, I to became ill very suddenly and nearly died, now six yrs later I still haven’t driven a truck for a job, it took five yrs before some part time doc in Swansea said he would POSSIBLY allow me to drive hgv again, but with cpc and the like not to mention another inhanced medical I didn’t bother at 55 yrs old. I went back to Engineering and earned far more …I do miss driving as I did mainly Continental.However due to some luck I am retiring totally and setting sail in a tag axle camper next yr on a big long trip around Europe and beyond.
There is life after driving, it does take some adjusting to however the memories cannot be erased, and as you say reading posts from some here really do make us all chuckle.
Look forward to not having to put up with a spotty office schoolboy planner and running in on a Saturday with the missus on your case and the dreaded RDC’s !
Something to fill the days will appear you just need to broaden the search and take a bit of a chance sometimes. Always look for something that makes you smile daily as laughter definitely helps.

There’s a generational thing at work here too.
Some of us were sole breadwinners whilst our wives (usually but not always) raised any children.

Its never been easy running a comfortable solvent home on one working persons wages, so the sole breadwinner often took it upon themselves to earn the money of two well paid people, hence where 70/100 hour weeks became the norm for many working class breadwinners who worked in the real world, not just lorry drivers lots of working people have worked themselves into early graves over the years, many of us here come from the last years of that era, and the work was in most cases a hell of a lot harder than today and working two or more jobs common.
That generational thing also included being net earners, taking a (foolish? well to some it might appear so) pride in not asking the state for any help.

We all carry the scars aches and long term issues, that our work has tolled on our bodies and minds.

Unfortunately lorry driving has now gone backwards, the huge strides in the 80’s in particular, where drivers could earn very decent money without having to work all hours God sent have taken a gradual dive back to previous days, the move away from own account to contact haulage bears a lot of responsibility for this, hire and reward is always going to be pared to the bone extracting as much work as possible from your tools (vehicles and bums on seats) as possible for as little cost as possible.
The actual work isn’t usually as physically hard any more except for one or two sides of the industry (usually at the better paid end but not always), but the hours in reality have gone up, remember pre about 1979 we had a 12.5 hour working day, then we got safer european parity and went for a 15 hour day.

I’ve been there lads, worked all hours, near enough become part of the bloody machine, if the present Lady J a woman far too good for me hadn’t stopped me and thanks to her intervention getting me away from the car transporters (not a game for old men) i’m not sure i’d be in the reasonably if a bit overweight rude state of health i find myself now in, touch wood, not being melodramatic here i hadn’t seen where i was going cos all i did was work and sleep the sleep of the dead but she had seen it

Thats why i often pipe up when i hear of ■■■■ poor pay schemes and obvious shark infested waters where you can see young and new drivers heading or being led by the dishonest down those same endless roads and not even being paid decently for it, cos i’ve been there as have many others and have the bloody T shirts the scars the aches and the damaged lives, and have at long last found something better, hence why i try to encourage others to seek the same.

All the best DDi, a worthy thread indeed, worth thinking about deeply.

toby1234abc:
If MSA’s and truck stops did have gyms , drivers would vandalize them and spill a bucket of diet Coke all over the machines.

Brescia truck stop in Italy has a fully eequipped gym and the only one in the UK
is Ashford .
After a ten hour drive or a fifteen hour day, the gym idea won’t work but for being weekended on a 45 hour off , a good idea.

After a ten hour drive that’s probably a very good time to get some exercise. !5 hour days don’t give you enough time.

Juddian:
There’s a generational thing at work here too.
Some of us were sole breadwinners whilst our wives (usually but not always) raised any children.

Its never been easy running a comfortable solvent home on one working persons wages, so the sole breadwinner often took it upon themselves to earn the money of two well paid people, hence where 70/100 hour weeks became the norm for many working class breadwinners who worked in the real world, not just lorry drivers lots of working people have worked themselves into early graves over the years, many of us here come from the last years of that era, and the work was in most cases a hell of a lot harder than today and working two or more jobs common.
That generational thing also included being net earners, taking a (foolish? well to some it might appear so) pride in not asking the state for any help.

We all carry the scars aches and long term issues, that our work has tolled on our bodies and minds.

Unfortunately lorry driving has now gone backwards, the huge strides in the 80’s in particular, where drivers could earn very decent money without having to work all hours God sent have taken a gradual dive back to previous days, the move away from own account to contact haulage bears a lot of responsibility for this, hire and reward is always going to be pared to the bone extracting as much work as possible from your tools (vehicles and bums on seats) as possible for as little cost as possible.
The actual work isn’t usually as physically hard any more except for one or two sides of the industry (usually at the better paid end but not always), but the hours in reality have gone up, remember pre about 1979 we had a 12.5 hour working day, then we got safer european parity and went for a 15 hour day.

I’ve been there lads, worked all hours, near enough become part of the bloody machine, if the present Lady J a woman far too good for me hadn’t stopped me and thanks to her intervention getting me away from the car transporters (not a game for old men) i’m not sure i’d be in the reasonably if a bit overweight rude state of health i find myself now in, touch wood, not being melodramatic here i hadn’t seen where i was going cos all i did was work and sleep the sleep of the dead but she had seen it

Thats why i often pipe up when i hear of ■■■■ poor pay schemes and obvious shark infested waters where you can see young and new drivers heading or being led by the dishonest down those same endless roads and not even being paid decently for it, cos i’ve been there as have many others and have the bloody T shirts the scars the aches and the damaged lives, and have at long last found something better, hence why i try to encourage others to seek the same.

All the best DDi, a worthy thread indeed, worth thinking about deeply.

Kinda makes me feel guilty for working those 15 hour days, 70+ hour weeks.

Yeah, don’t get me wrong Radar, i did it for years cos bills to pay all the usual, but i earned some serious money doing so.

What concerns me is that, as we see on here regularly, there are drivers still doing 2 weeks work in one but only being paid what should be the earnings for a 40 hour week, this seems to be regarded as normal and highlights the absurdity of the so called 48 hour week being by-passed by the POA fiddle, which everyone, including VOSA or whatever they are called this week, knows about and is openly ignored.

Unless you’re a twist lock monkey its actually surprising how much of a work out you do get on this job. I got a Gear Fit 2 watch free with my phone last year. It can count the number of steps you do, monitor your heartrate, once you’ve set your weight in the phone app it’ll work out roughly how many calories you use etc.

I do night trunking so strap down load, drive to point B, swap trailers, strap down return load, get back to yard, fuel up, wash truck etc. All the time I’m spending coupling up, strapping down the load, shutting curtains etc the level of work apparently is enough that the watch thinks I’m doing a workout. Every day I’m working I’ll do well over 7,000 steps and burn off over 2700 calories. The days I’m not at work even though I think I’m being active I do fewer steps and burn off fewer calories. You can look at the last 2 weeks history it stores and be pretty accurate in working out what days I was working.

So why are many of us overweight? Quite simply long hours meaning poor sleep, not having regular sleep patterns and boredom munching as you drive down the road.

Conor:
Unless you’re a twist lock monkey its actually surprising how much of a work out you do get on this job. I got a Gear Fit 2 watch free with my phone last year. It can count the number of steps you do, monitor your heartrate, once you’ve set your weight in the phone app it’ll work out roughly how many calories you use etc.

I do night trunking so strap down load, drive to point B, swap trailers, strap down return load, get back to yard, fuel up, wash truck etc. All the time I’m spending coupling up, strapping down the load, shutting curtains etc the level of work apparently is enough that the watch thinks I’m doing a workout. Every day I’m working I’ll do well over 7,000 steps and burn off over 2700 calories. The days I’m not at work even though I think I’m being active I do fewer steps and burn off fewer calories. You can look at the last 2 weeks history it stores and be pretty accurate in working out what days I was working.

So why are many of us overweight? Quite simply long hours meaning poor sleep, not having regular sleep patterns and boredom munching as you drive down the road.

Good point.
nhs.uk/Livewell/tiredness-a … risks.aspx
NHS Choices.
Lack of sleep doesnt result in us burning more calories and so losing weight; counter intuitively we gain weight by sleeping less. Feeling tired we may eat sugary foods for an energy boost, when it isnt calories we need, it`s sleep.

EDIT and tiredness doesn`t just cause slowed reactions on the road. Tired people are more short tempered. Tired drivers are not only slow to react in an emergency they are more likely to be short tempered and so aggressive on the road.

And all these things are well known but as long as you have your PPE on that’s HEALTH and safety covered…