Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 254. Avoiding Unhealthy Habits As A Service Technician

Transcript

Episode 254. Avoiding Unhealthy Habits As A Service Technician · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker: I'm going to be diving into a few things that a lot of people message me on. I want to dive into really our, our health as. A service technician, we're out crushing it day in, day out, on the road, by ourselves a lot of the time and we want to be healthy, we want to feel healthy, we don't want to be climb up the ladders and we get to the top and we're just huffing and puffing because I've been there, I, I was there multiple times, not only once, multiple times, multiple times, multiple times, multiple times.
• 0:01
  It's when you make the shift and it's up to you. You, you can do it or not, because I remember when I first started out and I was doing construction, I was doing nights, always start the night off with coffee and maybe donuts or something like that. We would go to the Tim Hortons. Or A& W or McDonald's, whatever, we'll all get a coffee and we'll have our toolbox talk and we'll have this big, massive coffee.
• 0:02
  And I used to get something that was called a double double here in Canada. Don't drink them anymore, but that was, that's the, that was the big thing, I'm sure. Lots of people still drink them. But it's like two massive sugars and two massive milks in my coffee. Now I just drink black coffee. So I'd start my night off with that. I would not bring a lunch a lot of the time. I might bring an apple or something if I was lucky or something that was quick, but we'd get to the middle of the night and then we would drive to whatever was open at two o'clock in the morning.
• 0:03
  So now think of what kind of healthy food you can buy at two o'clock in the morning anywhere. It doesn't matter where you're at, what food are you getting at two o'clock in the morning? Usually hamburger, fries, if you're lucky, whatever. It's fast food, and it's not, it's thousands of calories in one bite, and not good calories.
• 0:04
  We would just have meat and the potatoes. I think that was the daily routine. That's what we would eat and drink beer every day. And we did that for months. And I, I remember coming home and my wife was like, you just gained 30 pounds. Where, who are you? She was like, where's Trevor at? You know what I mean? So I gained a pile of weight and it was all because of my eating habits and my exercise habits and probably my drinking habits as well. Those three combination is something that really will affect you. And it's, and it's difficult in a service shop because we've got to get up early.
• 0:05
  We're up at five 30 or six and we're out the door, usually probably by six 30. And then you're on the road all day. Okay. And then you get home at five or six o'clock at night. We're eating in the, in the van. We're stopping at fast food joints. We're picking up burgers. We're picking up what's easy. Oh, it's quick. And I can just smash it down. It'll satisfy my food craving. And then I can go to the next job. The problem with that, it's not good for you. And things and tips to really get you out of that habit is you starting to make a plan.
• 0:06
  Planning to tackle stuff and planning your health. This is one, one of those key pillars in your life. It should be a key pillar because if you're not healthy, you cannot work. You can't put out vibe for your family. You cannot do anything.
• 0:07
  You gotta be healthy. And so how do you stay healthy? Well, the first step is starting to prepare. And plan your meals in advance.
• 0:08
  And a lot of, a lot of the stuff you can prepare most of it on the weekend. You can have all the snacks prepared. Even the main meals, a lot of it. I like for me, I love lots of different food. I love different cultured food. I love eating Mexican, Indian, Japanese, Canadian, everything.
• 0:09
  There's so many foods. But I'm okay with eating the same thing every day. Like if I could have a chicken breast every day, and some vegetables and some rice, I could eat that every day, day in for four months.
• 0:10
  Will I get bored of it? Sure. But I still will eat it and you can plan that each week. So, and when you start doing that, this is hard. , but I've seen it when I was. When I was at some of these sites back in the day, and I seen some guys that I work with that were always working out, they were staying healthy, they were at the jobsite, they didn't come, they didn't order the coffees when we ordered coffees, or they did, it was just a straight up black coffee, they also bring big lunch bags, like a massive, it was the size of a tool bag full of food.
• 0:11
  And that's what they would eat. They wouldn't, they wouldn't buy any of the junk food that we were buying. They would just eat their own food. And I think a lot of people in that sense will feel like they're missing out. Or they'll feel like that someone's making fun of them or think differently of them because they're bringing their own food and it's a healthy snacks.
• 0:12
  And I've even seen times people comment about it. Oh, it must be nice that you have someone that'll make your meals for you. And for sure, they were making their own meals. The thing is though, if you got to plan that stuff, and it's like, Oh, it's hard to plan. It's not hard to plan. You can go online right now and say, I want a 15 day meal plan.
• 0:13
  The thing is, is that that first step is taking initiative to say, okay, I want to be healthy.
• 0:14
  And so that first step is, is the planning. So this will really reduce like going to eat now. So right now, if you're eating out five days a week. The first challenge is, is okay, don't just cold turkey stop because it's going to be so tough. Just say, okay, I'm only going to eat out four days a week and I'm going to plan my meal one day a week.
• 0:15
  Start with that to make it easy on yourself. Because if you make it hard and you try to overwhelm yourself with all this planning and 15 day meal plan, and I got to do all this, you're not going to, it's going to be real tough. So you gotta do it in small, simple steps.
• 0:16
  Just like Jim Quick says. Good book that you should get is Limitless from Jim Quick. Next step is hydration. You gotta be drinking lots of water.
• 0:17
  We are outside. It's really hot all the time You need to be drinking lots of water get your reusable bottle So you can drink them and you can go fill them up or you gotta drink lots of water day One two, three four liters, whatever you drink.
• 0:18
  Put a water beside your bed every night When you get up, you smash that thing. That's a, that's a start of the day. That's your habit. You're getting some water and you're getting your hydration in you.
• 0:19
  And when you do that, it's going to make things easier. You're not going to be feeling dehydrated. You're not going to be too full of sugary drinks. That's another one. You got to get rid of sugary drinks. So a lot of you may be drinking like the Red Bull and the Monster's Energy and all these other, got to get rid of that stuff.
• 0:20
  You got to stop drinking that stuff. You look at the side of it and super sugary. And then somebody, Oh, I drink the one that has a zero sugar. Well, then there's a ton of aspartame and then there's a ton of crap in those drinks you do not see any athletes drinking 10 sugary energy drinks every day. . Not a big thing is choosing healthy snacks.
• 0:21
  So instead of grabbing a bag of chips or some bars or candy or things like that, that's easy to grab you can get some peanuts. You get almonds. Apples are super easy. You can just go, you work at the supermarkets. A lot of you can just buy them on your way out, buy a bag of apples and just have an, every time you get hungry, have an apple.
• 0:22
  Cause that's really what I do. I smash lots of apples in a day. Fruit, a lot of fruit, a lot of vegetables, like carrots. It takes, I give my kids carrots every day in their lunch or a cucumber or raspberries or blackberries, I know food can be expensive, but your health is more important than the cost of those expensive food.
• 0:23
  And yes, it is ridiculous out there today for the cost of food and stuff, but you just buy the stuff that's going to keep you healthy. Don't, don't complain and don't worry about it at this point because if you're not healthy, you can't work and make the money to buy anything anyway, so make sure you get on it so you can peel up some carrots, cut them up, you can even use healthy dips with that stuff, and that could be a quick snack, you know, even a pretzel, if you like something salty, you can get some low sodium pretzels.
• 0:24
  Another thing is to help you with that is have smaller meals. Smaller frequent meals. I usually eat six or seven meals a day when I was working on quite a bit. And I was forcing food into me because I needed to keep the weight on.
• 0:25
  Because I was working all day. I was exercising a lot, a couple hours a day and at least an hour a day, almost six days a week at one point. So I had to keep eating and eating and eating a lot. So I was using smaller meals, but if you're not working out all the time, a lot of people will at work work is a work.
• 0:26
  It's not it. Yes. You're walking that 10, 000, 15, 000 and you're carrying some stuff, but you're not physically working out those same muscles, pushing them to the limits. That's being active, but that's not actually working out. That's not like going for a half an hour run. That's not going to do biceps for 20 minutes and lift in different levels of weights.
• 0:27
  I don't know anyone who has, like I said, got ripped from just doing service work. I don't, if you know those, those technicians are probably, they're curling up the compressor before they put it in or doing 10, 20 reps at a time.
• 0:28
  Like that, it's just the way it is. They're doing chin ups on the ladders or whatever they're doing. And so frequent meals, smaller portions is another big thing. So if you eat to the point, like it's out at like most of the time, and you feel like it's a turkey dinner after a turkey dinner, that's way too much, way too much. You don't need to eat that much. When I go to Europe and hang out there, you never see the amount of food on the plates there that I see here in North America, not even close and I, then I eat there and I just, I feel fine.
• 0:29
  And the thing is, is that you think you need all that food, but honestly, as you start to, to reduce the portions, you, you start to fill yourself up and you start to get right. Cause you're, it's a habit. You're hungry because you build a habit. It's just like eating candy all the time or eating chips all the time.
• 0:30
  It's a habit. You got to break out of that habit if you don't want it. So it's really important to do that. Get, get protein. And it's another thing, get protein, have fish once a week. If you can have chicken,
• 0:31
  a lot of people think they're exhausted because they're, they're working 10 hours a day. But a lot of the times they're just not eating right. And they're not feeling healthy for this morning. I got up before my alarm. I know for sure. If I was drinking all the time, eating poorly all the time, I would not get up before my alarm, even if I was trying to get in a routine.
• 0:32
  So that's the big thing. You got to get into these routines and these habits of eating healthy and feeling healthy because the more you exercise, which is, which is difficult to fit in, or is it difficult to fit in, you tell me. That's up to you at the end of the day. If you tell yourself it's difficult to fit in, it's going to be difficult to fit in.
• 0:33
  If you tell yourself, no, I'm going to fit this in. No, I'm going to fit this in. So you fit in your, your exercise and you fit in your healthy eating habits. Get, just start with apples, see, bring apples in the bag, apples in your truck.
• 0:34
  Cause the funny thing is, is that for us that work in the supermarket industry, you've got it all there every day.
• 0:35
  You're at a store with healthy food. So there's no excuse that you can't buy something on your way out. It's not against the law that you service a store and on your way out, you can't purchase something. So, so the big thing is, is that you just got to do it.
• 0:36
  So think about your health, think about your future, think about your family because it's so important. All these things that I talked about leads to that next step. Being healthy, thinking healthy. Feeling healthy is super awesome, and when you get to that point, you're gonna feel so much better. I promise you.
• 0:37
  Take your health into your own hands and see what you can do over the next three weeks, three months, three years. My name is Troy Matthews. Let's get a conversation going. We'll