Profile For 💝ForbiddenFruitTart💝

I lost upwards of 60 pounds while driving OTR. I can share the things that I did, but I do not expect them to be followed. Everyone seems to be chasing after some "magic" secret.

-There was a large electric cooler whose plug was modified to fit into one of the cigar lighters. Filled with fresh foods at all times, including produce.

- There was a lunchbox stove, and a plug-in electric skillet to prepare hot meals.

- A huge stash of tea, and an xl Stanley thermos (hot water at trucks stops is always free).

- a mini stepper (look up "sunny health twist mini stepper"). Resistance bands.

- I followed isometrics, isometrics are a miracle worker for those who live in a cramped space of a truck.

I also changed my eating habits to fit the inactivity of the job. Driving has you rotting in a seat for upwards of 11 hours a day. THEN, after your shift, you remain sitting on your azz, maybe walk over to someplace new to plant your azz down some more, until it's time to haul it back in and lay down for sleep. Yet, the typical driver eats like a lumberjack. So I tapered off snacks and employed intermittent fasting. At first, that 1-2 meals a day were whatever I wanted. Then, I gradually switched to a keto diet, and the intermittent fasting extended to where I had just one meal a day. That is where I had the fastest results. It seems really counterintuitive: you often hear nothing but having at least 3 meals a day, breakfast is important, fat is bad. A keto diet is based on huge amounts of fat. Fat by itself is not only very satisfying but it's also naturally self limiting. I can bet you love bacon, but I could also bet that you could not eat an entire pack of crispy bacon swimming in it's own drippings. You may want to or think you can. I challenge you if you don't believe me.

Little known fact: babies are naturally in a state of ketosis while living on the boob, ketosis is broken when they are introduced to foods with sugar and carbs. Too much protein can cause just as much of a glucose raise as eating too many carbs. Yeah, I didn't like hearing that news, either.

If you must have a snack, favorable options are hard boiled eggs with single serve packs of mayo, celery sticks, cracklins (NOT pork rinds. Cracklins!), pickles, single serve block of cheese, cups of broccoli florets, a single serve pack of sunflower kernels like the frito lay or lance brand. Bacon jerky (bass pro shop is the best brand) but check for sugar. The pepperoni & cheese cups. All of these can be found at any truck stop except the pepperoni & cheese cups which are only at flying j/pilot. Sipping tea is great to feel full. Buddhist monks who'd fast would tie warm rocks to their abdomen to trick the stomach into feeling they have food. I recommend tea instead.

But diet is futile without the proper mindset: One of the pitfalls of this work is just how easy it is to fall into boredom eating. To fill time. Or eating for strictly mental or emotional reasons that aren't even real hunger. Or making choices based on emotions (craving "comfort food", wanting the apple pie at the diner as a way to express missing the home you're far from and the "family recipe" apple pie you can't have. Needing or feeling you want a "reward"). Or that your real reasons for wanting to change is ONLY because YOU THINK YOU SHOULD, not because you really desire to. This needs to be addressed first or your efforts will be doomed.

Sorry for being so blunt: I think getting rewarded for this is asinine and it does more to enable the wrong motives and the wrong mode of thought.

Would it sound ridiculous to you to hear of a reward incentive program for brushing your teeth? It does to me, and I find both equally on the level of "hell no". That might be good for training to instill proper habits for preschoolers. Adults are expected to do the right thing for it's own sake. Grow up and get isht done.

That's part of the problem with this world: there should not be a reward for following through on your own responsibilities. It's bad enough that there was once a time where one was awarded with a "participation trophy". It's gotten even worse: today, we live in a world where one gets commendation for merely SHOWING UP. What is next? Awards for not going through life dirty and smelly? How much lower will you allow that bar to stoop? Our forefathers would probably vomit in their mouths if they were to see what's become of the world today.

Holy crap, I registered onto this forum just for this topic. I don't know what to be more disappointed over: what was so conveniently glossed over or the praise of "telling it like it is". I remember reading an article from the free Petro trucking magazine, praising that the "female presence" in the trucking world is at an all time high.

Big whoop.

There are many females on the road in trucks, it doesn't mean they are drivers. I first learned of the road term of these types of females in school: "the in-cab (rhymes with switch)". "The Bunk (rhymes with wussy)". I will refer to them here on out as ICB's. Classmates bragged about getting one when they graduated like a status symbol, as if they were just another "custom accessory" for their truck.

The more experience I earned, the more irritating it became to be mistaken for an ICB simply for the fact that I am a female.

I studied and worked WAY too hard to be just assumed as another "real life Peg Bundy." That is essentially what ICB's are. They are literally rolling couch potatoes who do nothing all day and serve no other purpose than to serve as a valet and "entertainment" to the driver. Which, it's their prerogative to choose that "life" (if you can call it that). As hard as I have worked and as hard towards being the best, and as I have worked to prove being taken seriously as a driver, the generalization can't help but chap my azz. But I am forced to abide by that. At the same time, it's these very women who choose to be ICB's who make it that much harder for me to be taken seriously as a driver, and I feel that THEY should have to abide by THAT.

I have been interrupted while fueling by male drivers who remark the equivalent of what a well behaved, attentive and helpful ICB I am to fuel the truck and wash the windows "for my man." I ask which man, the dude who signs my check? They reply no, the driver. I reply "I am the driver, this is my shift, why wouldn't I fuel the truck?" And they retreat like holy water to a vampire🙄. There are parts of the country where I get stares of sheer bewilderment and confusion, by both the driver AND their ICB's, just by being a female in the driver's seat. I have literally heard it being referred to as "the man's seat" and was asked what I was doing there, by both driver and his ICB. I replied "last I checked, the truck ignition is operated by a KEY, not a pea niss." They looked at me like I had spoken Martian and my hair was on fire. One of the first instances of this that I had ever witnessed pretty much ticked on down the list of every possible stereotype: the driver had billy bob teeth, greasy clothes (sleeves torn off) and trucker cap to match. Blond mullet. And spoke like Mater with a foul mouth. As he stepped out to fuel, he stepped up to yell into the window apparently barking orders at his ICB as if he were a drill sergeant "Woman! Git yer azz up and be useful! Fetch me mah coffee! Warsh mah winders! Fluff mah pillers!" And she popped out of the truck as he asked, with the speed that suggested that if she went any slower, she might get smacked. I have visited all but 6 states out of our 50, take it from me, sexism is BAKED IN to the "culture" of trucking. These women who choose the ICB lifestyle help perpetuate it.

Shockingly, I have learned over the years that women themselves help enable and perpetuate sexism. I say shockingly because, most of the time, these are the women who say with their mouths words like "equality" and "fairness". Yet, in deed, they either vamp or play the damsel act just to get by, or to even trick their way out of doing the same amount of work! I have more oilfield experience than I do OTR. I have seen it so much, it's like clockwork: the woman will put up a front about wanting to be treated equally, yet when it comes to actually doing the same work, they either vamp (flirt, throw head back/toss hair, bat eyelashes, wiggle butt, etc) or play damsel in distress to play upon the hard wired male instinct to "swoop in" and "rescue". As the male coworker "helps", the female then retreats into the shadows and plays on her phone while the male coworker is now doing the work of both. How is this equality? And when I bring this up to these females, more often than not, they rear up on their hind legs refuting that it's not true when I literally have witnessed firsthand that it is. I know I may not be a 10, but I know I'm further away from being barker. Though I downplay it for work, I know I've got bombshell measurements. I know full well that, if I really wanted to, I could out-vamp every one of those females easily. But that's not what I'm here for. I know that, though it's the easier way to get through the day, the greater cost is that I am perpetuating the very problem.

And her advising to pull into a fuel lane for NON FUELING PURPOSES? It's adding to the ALREADY RAMPANT (and getting worse) problem of inconsiderate, selfish drivers camping out in the fuel lane, taking up and abusing the most valuable real estate that truck stop has. Using any and every possible (sometimes even no) excuse to HOG UP AND OCCUPY the very place you need to be when you have to fuel! If you're that scared to be spotted alone, find other, more efficient, less selfish and inconsiderate measures. Or find a new trade 😤