A little by-way-of-comparison for you...I am a locomotive engineer and on-call 24/7, 365, and when called may be on the train for 8, 10, or 12 hours depending on how the trip is going. I pack enough food and snacks to feed myself for in excess of 12 hours, just in case we're out there that long and they don't have a crew handy to relieve me, and my journey to work usually starts with a trip to Burger King (original chicken sandwich, plain, and large fries and Diet Coke, as well as an additional plain hamburger) or another fast-food restaurant (broken by the occasional Subway).
My train food consists of 2 apples (usually eat one going one direction, and the other on the return trip), a baggie of baby carrots, enough bread for two sandwiches each direction (keep a jar of peanut butter in my grip [luggage], and sometimes a package of Oscar Mayer bologna in my cooler for variety), as well as an assortment of saltine crackers, Ritz crackers, and a small Rubbermaid container full of candy bars. I also drink 4-6 cans of Diet Pepsi (caffeine-free) daily, but drink tons of water (mostly out of fear of kidney stones, but also for health).
No, I have never tallied up my calories consumed per trip. I should, though, and share the results with you. If you'd like that information, let me know.
It's not constant snacking, but I do keep the edge off the hunger. When I get to my destination, I usually eat a big meal, stay awake an hour to digest a bit while reading or watching a DVD, then sleep. The meal isn't usually very healthy for me, as I have an affinity for buffets (especially KFC) and truck-stop-restaurant fare.
When I get home from a trip, I am usually lined up to get out in another 8-10 hours, so I usually bring my grips in, have a bowl of ice cream, check the Trek boards, then off to bed, frequently to start the whole cycle all over again.
Health-wise, according to my doctor, I'm on a downward spiral towards oblivion. I'm 42, vacillitate between 255-265 pounds, and my cholesterol is a tad high (but my good cholesterol is also high), as are my triglicerides. I've have to dig to get you some actual numbers (think it's about 250-ish), but recently had my annual physical, so have recent figures. I don't exercise on a regular basis, but walk briskly 2-3 times a week for a half-hour or 45 minutes. I don't have any significant health problems, though I get winded fairly easily when walking briskly.
I did experiment with the Strength For Life diet for three weeks after the Super Bowl, where I went cold-turkey on pop and chocolate and fast foods, eating only lean meats and fruits and vegetables, and drinking tons of water. It was quite a challenge, for I had to make sure to run to the store and get fresh meat to cook up in a George Foreman grill and put in containers for my trips.
I started out at 264 pounds, and by the time I caved in to my cravings three weeks later, I had dropped to 248 pounds...the first time in 10 years that I've seen the underside of 250. I felt great, physically; slept better, had more energy and freedom of movement in my body, was beginning to work out daily, felt sharper in mind, was more regular; in short, a vast physical improvement in every way.
But mentally, every day was a significant challenge. It was hard to resist the siren call of the Whopper or the McFish Fillet or Godfather's meat-lover's pizza, as well as the whispers of the candy and cookie aisle at the store ("Get thee behind me, Oreos!").
I finally caved in when working a train dumping ballast outside of town and I was getting ready to tuck into some steamed veggies that I had nuked in the yard office microwave, whien my crewmates brought Wendy's hamburgers and fries to the locomotive cab. I smelled the tasty burgers, looked into my celery and broccoli and califlower, and had a diet epiphany...I realized that if I wanted to get healthy and stay healthy, I was going to have to eat this crap every day for several months, denying myself the pleasures of chocolate and fast food.
I pitched the shit out the window, and called the crew van back to run me through the drive-through. And it tasted glorious. Glorious, I tell you!
After the day's work, filled with shame and self-loathing for surrendering to my cravings (not hunger, mind you, but cravings...there is a difference), I went to the store to get good and healthy food, intending to overcome the momentary weakness and get back on-track. Sad to say, I doing fine until I got within whispering distance of the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, who said, "Psst! Fat boy! Bet you can't eat five us in the parking lot!". I said, "I'll take that bet!"...and I won!
When I walked in the door with three grocery bags full of starchy, sugary snacks, Mrs. SicOne looked at the bags, then looked at me, and said, "How's that diet going?" I said, "Let me share an epiphany I've had with you..." We both tucked into bowls of Blue Bunny Bunny Tracks ice cream (gets the SicOne Seal Of Approval), and it felt great to be back. This was on a Saturday.
An interesting post-script to this story...when I fell off the wagon, so to speak, I was feeling a lot of pain in my right side, like someone had been kicking me repeatedly in the ribs. No pain on the left, just the right. No discernible cause or reason for the pain. It was affecting my ability to sleep and stretch and exercise. I went to the doctor the Monday following the end of my attempt at dieting two days earlier, and described it; he asked me a series of questions, and diagnosed me with shingles. When you're under a great deal of stress (which I was, trying to adhere to a strict diet under my work conditions and times, as described above), your immune system can become depressed, and he suggested that I consider my stress and lay off my diet until I recover. I told him I did that two days earlier, and very soon with the help of fast food, chocolate, Diet Pepsi, and Valtrex, I felt much, much better.
Sadly, I have yet to attempt a reduced version of the diet, eating more healthy foods while reducing greatly my junk food and pop, and I have ballooned back up to my previous weight, completely negating all of the hard three weeks I spent.
I guess the long-winded moral of the story is, don't take on a strict diet that you're not fully prepared to see through to the end. Find a diet that gives you a happy medium. If you begin to see good results and feel more healthy and fit, then you can look into a more strict regimen, but if you try and do too much, you're more likely to fail and not get back on the horse. If Strength For Life is a diet thoroughbred, then I guess I'm looking more for an old paint I can mosey along on, on my schedule (or, more specifically, lack thereof).
Hope this helps, and happy trails, cowboys.
