How do I eat right on the road??

Hey guys (sorry if its the wrong forum for this topic)

Im a new hire on BNSF and I start my road training in a week and Im worried Im just gonna eat absolute junk on trips. Ive already noticed a slight weight gain already. My question is how do you guys stay fit and not pig out. Like what kind of food do you make and bring? How much food do you bring? Do you guys heat it up at all? Pretty much I need to figure out a routine here and not get absolutely HUGE.

(I have a wedding to go to later in the year so thats another huge reason) Hahah

Also if anyone had any advice on quitting cigarettes that would be fantastic too.

Thanks

Don't eat white foods, or foods which can be made white. That means: no sugar, no flour, no rice, no corn, no potatoes (not even the whole grain). Also, no beer and no fruit (fruit is for putting on fat for the winter starving time -- that's why there's so much of it in the fall). No dairy either (unless you're a baby cow, you don't need cow's milk.) Eat beans, veggies, and meat, in some combination, for all three meals. After six days on the diet, it's time for cheat day. Eat anything you want on cheat day, the idea being to spike your calories so your body doesn't slow down your metabolism. Last cheat day I ate two doughnuts, five eclairs, a bag of peanut M&Ms, a small chocolate cake, and a bowl of ice cream.

Mexican foods are your best bet.

Nice Thanks.

Also looking for examples on what you guys actually bring?

If you have something like beef stew or chili, and put it in a heavy-duty Baggie, you can seal it up good and lay it on the water tank back by the load regulator. This will keep it hot. Remember, if you keep food hot, that is as safe as refrigerating it.

Don't forget about it, or you will be giving the Mechanical Dept. boys a free lunch!

Been there, done that.

Les

Desertdweller wrote:If you have something like beef stew or chili, and put it in a heavy-duty Baggie, you can seal it up good and lay it on the water tank back by the load regulator. This will keep it hot. Remember, if you keep food hot, that is as safe as refrigerating it.

Don't forget about it, or you will be giving the Mechanical Dept. boys a free lunch!

Been there, done that.

Les

Ever bring a plate lunch and sit it on the stove top back in the caboose? That's a nice hot meal. We used to do that on work trains, unloading ballast.

That sounds good!

By the time I got into engine service, cabooses were pretty much a thing of the past.

Les

If you want to eat good on the road, pack your lunch everyday. Bring your food from home and not buy it at your local convienent store or diner. The best way to keep food warm/hot is by putting it on the the water/expansion tank in the engine compartment. If it needs to stay chilled hopefully the RR supplies you with ice and an cooler. If not bring your own. Where I work the railroaders basically live off wawa! Best advice, pack your own healthy Lunch. Sidewall heaters really aren't good for much except warming a can of soup or water. My RR is installing new seats that don't allow you to "rest" things on the heater. Put it on the water tank.. Works great!

Lots of great info here.......I'm going to send this over to Employment Forum, though. That seems
to be where most actual railroaders hang out.

Good luck with your career and keep it safe.

Charlie

Buy a cooler and some freeze packs that way you won't have to ice it down adding extra weight. Fruits, vegitable sticks, meals in individual packs, healthy snacks in your grip. I know we had an agreement with the hotel lodging each room would have a refrigerator & microwave. Eating right is difficult on the road it's do the best you can with what you got. Every trip is different pack for a 24 hour run gone 48 hrs. It's alright to eat one junk food meal not every meal. When I changed runs my last 8 years on the road at the away terminal nothing was open except 7-11 after midnight. Funny you have a agreement that guarentees food service 24 hours a day and they think 7-11 is exceptable. That's when I started carrying a cooler. Another piece of advice find some kind of can goods that usually you wouldn't eat put in in your grip for emergencies. They'll be times you get stuck out there on the hog (broken rails, snow storms, flooding, derailments ect...) times when it might take hours to get picked up off the train in the middle of nowhere. That can of sardines, spagettio's ect....becomes mighty handy in these situations.

Good advice.

What I did was to freeze a bottle of water and put it in a soft-side cooler with my lunch. It would keep my lunch cold. Then later, I could take the bottle out (by then thawed) and drink it.

Always carry lots of water! I worked many summers in non-air conditioned locomotives where the cab temperatures had to have exceeded 120F. As long as you keep drinking water at a slow place, you will not get sick. If you ever run out of water, you are in trouble. If you stop sweating, get help quick! Don't even think about starting out in hot weather without water, even if you have to buy it yourself.

Be careful what you pack in your lunch. Avoid anything apt to poison you if it gets too warm, especially things like egg salad sandwiches.

What was popular when I worked in the Deep South was Lipton sugar-free ice tea. I would stop at a convenience store on the way to work and buy a couple bottles of the stuff and a bottle of V8 juice.

I don't agree with the advice on not to eat anything white. Sandwiches were a staple in my lunch (although I prefer whole-wheat bread).

I once worked on a short line that served a company that shipped popcorn. A lot of it was sent out in bags (unpopped) in boxcars for overseas shipment. This same company sold popcorn popped in bags to convenience stores in the area. My conductor moonlighted for this company selling popcorn on a route.
This company popped a large (feed bag sized) bag of popcorn every day as a quality control test. They would give us the test bag and we would have free popcorn to eat for a week! And, yes, it was white.

In addition to using the water expansion tank as a food heater, canned food like pork and beans can be heated in the can if you make a little hole in the top of he can and rest it atop the engine in the space between the cylinder banks. Be careful you don't spill it!

If your train is to be stopped for awhile, like for a meet, see if the DS will let you tie it down for a quick trip for fast food. If they think you will have time, many of them will let you do this. Don't be the one to screw it up for the rest by taking too long.

When I worked in Pierre, SD, train crews would often have to wait on the passing track for air tests to be completed, or to meet other trains (it was a single-track main line). The people at the local Pizza Hut learned where to find the locomotive and would deliver pizza to the train crews if they phoned an order in.

Les

ZeebraX wrote:Hey guys (sorry if its the wrong forum for this topic)

Im a new hire on BNSF and I start my road training in a week and Im worried Im just gonna eat absolute junk on trips. Ive already noticed a slight weight gain already. My question is how do you guys stay fit and not pig out. Like what kind of food do you make and bring? How much food do you bring? Do you guys heat it up at all? Pretty much I need to figure out a routine here and not get absolutely HUGE.

(I have a wedding to go to later in the year so thats another huge reason) Hahah

Also if anyone had any advice on quitting cigarettes that would be fantastic too.

Thanks

Don't eat out of boredom. When sitting at a stop signal for a few hours, find something else to do. Read (your rule book, of course, wink wink nudge nudge), walk around outside a little, draw a picture - anything but eat.

It can be hard to carry lots of food with all the other crap you have to carry, and you will relent and patronize the local 7-11 in time. Can't eat beans and Mexican all the time - and if you do, the engineer is going to lock you out of the cab real fast.

Eating / health is one of the major factors that cause some guys to gravitate to yard/local service (if they can hold it).

Great question and good advise from a number of respondents on a topic near-and-dear to all railroaders: food. I remember sitting around the shanty with my crew one night and discussing food; what to pack, when to eat, etc. I remember the conductor doing his paperwork and not really participating in the conversation until towards the end, when he put in his two-cents thusly:

"The first thing I do when I go on duty is eat everything I got, otherwise it justs worries me to death the whole trip."

While I thought that was pretty funny, I always held something in reserve, myself. If I had a pair of dogs, I thought I'd name 'em Nipchee and Toastchee, after my favorite NABS!

I'll weigh in on the subject of coffee. Glass lined thermos' have the best thermal qualities, but they're fragile. No matter how you take your coffee, make it black. It's easier to clean the thermos later and you can share coffee with your crew and then everyone can mix it to taste (keep individual creamers from restaurants to use; let 'em warm to room temperature before adding to keep them from cooling coffee).

Good luck on, what to me was, a great career!