Take care of yourself with diet, exercise: You’ll be better able to enjoy the fruits of your labor

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Updated Jan 24, 2025

Previously in this series: Why do you want to be an owner-operator? 

There are many options for setting up a retirement savings account, or more than just one such account. Traditional IRA, Simple IRA, SEP IRA, Roth IRA and more. A Roth is funded with after-tax dollars, so when you withdraw money from this account you do so tax-free. I think that’s a big deal for retirement planning. Talk to your financial advisor for more details on retirement plans, or research them online. I have had an account with R.W. Baird since 1998, the year I purchased the Kenworth I have been driving since 1995.

Having an advisor has been very valuable. I’d recommend contributing at least 10% of your income – 15%-20% would be even better. I make the same contribution every month and I stay invested. My financial advisor has a saying that I really like: “It’s not market timing but time in the market that grows your portfolio.”

Set up a Health Savings Account and maximize your contributions. The money contributed to this account is tax-deductible, and if used for medical expenses is entirely tax-free. I think that is a big deal!

Success as an owner-operator over the long-term requires addressing the business areas I noted in Part 1, yet you also need to make sure you take care of you, not just the trucking business. There’s no point in doing all the right things to be successful only to be in poor health and not be able to enjoy the fruits of it.

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Aside from your DOT physical, I recommend seeing your primary doctor for a more thorough physical. I can speak from experience on this. I did go to the doctor for regular physicals and got all the blood work done and other important tests. Everything looked good on paper, but a physical exam and a biopsy revealed I had prostate cancer. This past year early on in the year, I had surgery, and the blood tests I have done following the surgery show that the cancer is gone. I’m very thankful for that.

If I hadn’t been proactive about health, this could have all turned out much differently.

[Related: Qualified retirement plans: Know your options for investments to maximize returns]

Be diligent with diet and exercise, just as you are with maintenance

With the possible exception of many of the flatbedders among you, truck driving is most likely a pretty sedentary job. It can easily result in weight gain and generally poor physical fitness. I recommend staying away from processed foods as much as possible. I believe a diet centered around whole foods is your best bet. Protein, vegetables, fruits and grains. It can be a challenge when you’re on the road. I prepare meals when I’m at home and bring them along when I’m on the road. I use a microwave in the truck to heat them up. Not everyone has a microwave, and maybe you're gone for several weeks at a time. If that is the case, start by finding out how many calories your body needs.

There are a multitude of diet plans out there. Most all of them work to some degree. The one common thread they have is calorie restriction. Use this Mayo Clinic calculator to help determine your needed calories according to your age, height, activity level and desired weight. Once you know how many calories are right for you (and it’s usually a lot less than you think), you can make better decisions on what and how much to eat.

Many restaurants tell you the calories of their meals. Some fast-food restaurants have this information available online. These fast-food restaurants, of course, are the ones most commonly available to us. If you can start keeping track of calories, it won’t take long before you’re able to look at a menu item and have a pretty good idea of what the calorie content is. You can easily use your smartphone and search tools to estimate calories and nutritional content of just about any food item.

There is no magic diet or pill for weight loss. Unless you are the exception, it’s really simple: if you consume more calories than you burn you will gain weight. Counting calories is the first step to weight control.

[Related: Owner-op Garrett Steenblik's 200-lb. weight-loss journey, and efforts to give back]

The importance of staying in good physical shape just cannot be overstated. When I got into my late 50s, I developed aches and pains, mainly in my back and shoulders. I have 40 acres of land that I want to build a house on when I retire. The way I was feeling, I questioned whether that was ever going to happen. I knew I needed to do something, so I started doing some research -- Google searches and YouTube, mostly.

I found a multitude of people out there offering their idea of an exercise program, or exercises you should do. What program or exercises you choose, I learned, depends on what your goals are. My goal was very simple (functional fitness). I tried several different exercises, different programs. Then I found, in my opinion, the best one for that functional fitness. It’s very simple, and very comprehensive. It’s just a matter of working the five pillars of human movement. I do one set of seven difference exercises to failure or near-failure to address the five pillars. It takes about 20 minutes two or three times a week. I like to keep my exercises in the 10-12-rep range. If you can do more than 10-12 reps, consider making that exercise a little more difficult.

The results have been great over the years I’ve been in this routine. No more shoulder or back pain. At my last physical, the doc made a note in his records that said, simply, “Very Healthy Man.” All test results were in the normal range.  

I can live with that.

Below find a list of the seven exercises. If you go to YouTube, you will find people demonstrating most of these exercises. Below I will list examples of these exercises. All you need to do is pick an exercise that works that muscle group. As you gain strength, you can make the exercise more difficult to increase your strength. Your body doesn’t know if it’s latex tubes, dumbbells or body weight, so how you work the muscle group isn’t all that important. Just work it.

  1. Vertical push = overhead press, pike push-up
  2. Vertical pull = pull-ups
  3. Horizontal push = bench press, push-up
  4. Horizontal pull = Australian push-up or inverted row
  5. Hinge = dead lift
  6. Squat = Squat
  7. Core = sit-ups or crunches

I wanted to develop an exercise program that I could do in my truck. That way, no matter the weather, time of day or neighborhood, I could do a workout. There are a number of ways to exercise your body in the comfort of your truck that are very effective. It will probably require a little imagination and trial and error. Latex tubes and bands, isometrics, timed static contractions and calisthenics are all great ways to improve your strength while in the comfort of your truck.

Pull-up bar in Kitzhaber's T600's sleeperIn the sleeper, I installed this horizontal bar (an old load lock cut down and supported by the storage compartments on either side of the sleeper).

This allows me to do pull-ups and the inverted row.

I do pike push-ups for the overhead press. I also use latex tubes with handles from GoFit to do overhead press, and I use them to aid in pull-ups.

I use a piece of three-quarter-inch plywood 26 inches wide and 72 inches long topped with a yoga mat to do push-ups, core and hinge exercises. I store the plywood between the back wall of the sleeper and the mattress. I do push-ups marine-style with hands close to the body, touching my chest to the mat with each rep. For core, I wrap a strap around the board to stick my feet under it and I do crunches. I then get on my knees with the strap over my heels and lean forward and then back to vertical to do the hinge exercise. This works the posterior muscle chain, with a real focus on my lower back.

For the squat I do body-weight squats, lowering my body down as low as I can go, then leaning back to the point that I almost fall over backwards, then up. It’s a lot harder to do when done that way. I did that to keep my rep count in that 10-12 range.

I hope you find the information I’ve shared helpful, and best of luck in your journey toward becoming an owner-operator.

The author of this two-part feature is Alan Kitzhaber, this week was named Overdrive's Trucker of the Year for 2024.

Trucker of the Year logoOverdrive's 2025 Trucker of the Year program, sponsored by Commercial Vehicle Group and Bostrom Seating, recognizes clear business acumen and unique or time-honored recipes for success among owner-operators. Through October, we're naming Truckers of the Month to contend for this year's Trucker of the Year honor. Finalists will be named in December, and a winner crowned early next year. Enter your business or that of a fellow owner (up to three trucks) at this link.

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