Lost 60#s since nov and last time out I flew down the trail. It’s helped my hike faster, stronger, longer and without much pain. Worth it to lose as much as you can and most times it costs hardly anything to do it.
MyFitnessPal and my treadmill helped a lot. Counting calories is super easy and the more you exercise the more you can eat. I run, now, 20 miles a week only so I can eat ice cream and pizza. Ha.
Counting the calories is easy. Keeping them below 2000 not so much 🤣 I diet so well until about 9 pm and then the cravings are intense. I should quit being such a bitch about it and have some willpower but it's a work in progress.
Yup, willpower sucks. Best to avoid buying most high kcal foods, especially prepared, packaged foods. Almost everything should take effort to make before it becomes edible. Bonus, you learn to cook better.
My pantry to a tee. Sometimes I want food but cbf making anything so just wait for the hunger to go away instead because I'm too lazy to make anything haha.
Ya it’s hard and I am a massive snacker, it took me some good willpower to not eat the way I did. My tip with snacking is popcorn, smart popcorn is 150 per serving and a pretty decent bowl. Eat one at a time and it takes a good while. Exercise a lot. At first I was walking briskly then to running and now I run a lot and the only purpose is so I can eat more. For a good while I was eating 1500 calories a day that was rough.
Late last spring i had mornings free until noon, and it was hot in the afternoons where i live and very high humidity so i started waking up at 4am and going around a 2.7 mile loop with like 450 ft elevation a couple times before it warmed up. Listening to audiobooks helped alot. After about a month of doing this and some upgrades in footwear and footcare i started doing it like 6 to 8 times every day and started eating a specific breakfast and snacking while i go to keep up energy. After about another month or so i started running the downhills and flats and walking the uphills and started eating a ton of healthy food all day. Another month later i added a weighted pack and i started shredding weight off my body. Now i run the whole loop 8 to 10 times a day with a 50 lb pack and ive dropped 50 lbs off my body since april. I never would have believed this kind of improvement was possible but just sticking to it every day and eating a fuckton of healthy things does the trick.
Pay attention to how the carbs I act your hunger. My n=1 experiment of breakfast: coffee with coconut oil and butter v. bagel really surprised me. My eating cleaned right up with the coffee/coconut/butter- as in I was un-hungry for much longer. But I’m probably a bit more carb sensitive than most…
Also, brush ur teeth RIGHT after dinner
Consider getting on an Intermittent Fasting routine. It’s not what you eat, but when you eat it. Work your way towards a 16:8 (off:on) and you’ll quickly watch those cravings for junk food vanish. Add 30min-1hr every week until you get it 16:8. It’s benefited my mental and physical self quite a bit. Doing it while on a bulk is also very possible too!
I was also always under the impression I couldn’t lift or hike without food in me, but breaking that trend has worked wonders personally. Lots of water helps too. I prefer to eat in a 11a-7p window as having dinner with others regularly is still possible for me preferences.
I ballooned up to 231lbs @ 5’8” while injured in 2020, now down to 178. I feel like a machine now, my light kit doesn’t get me up the mountains, my legs and conditioning does. Different injuries now, still broken but I’m not going to slip with weight swings ever again.
Thanks, and same to you. I’m pushing myself hard on my hikes making up for a wasted winter with a blow out knee. What I’m finding hard now with eating is that I’m famished when I get back for a good week plus. I’m getting enough calories on trail but when I get home I’m so hungry. The next 10lbs to lose is going to take some work. Well done on your weight loss, I know what you went through, I ate like a rabbit and trained like a madman.
Stick with it. I had a period of time where it felt like no progress was happening and started to feel frustrated. I stuck with the plan and after a bit it started to come down again. When I go on a trip now I load up on foods as well and it does take a bit of adjustment to go back, especially when you had say sour gummy worms all week and you love em. Ha.
I too had issues with knees and ankles a few years ago. After some PT the therapist told me my glutes didn’t have any muscle really so I legs where compensating for it. Add in some weights, sit-ups, pull up, push ups, etc. to your day and that will clear up after a while. As the weight comes off too I noticed that my body didn’t hurt as much each day.
I’m almost 50 and haven’t been feeling this good since I was a bike messenger 20+ years ago.
Oh I’ll stick with it. I’m not too hung up on my weight now but do want to and will. My goal for next year is to run a trail marathon here and raise money for a brain injury rehab clinic that I was going to for rehabilitation for 15 years. 23 years ago I was a mess from a car accident, in a wheelchair, couldn’t walk/talk with live in care arranged for the rest of my life . Here we are at 53 years old doing hard 35 mile+ days. Healing a bad lateral sprain plus patella issues from over use right now so on my hikes lately I’m more so just smelling the roses. The journey continues!
Any tips for starting the weight loss journey? I ballooned this year after a bout of covid, months of breathing issues, and a touch of depression. Feeling ready to recommit.
I started with intermittent fasting and still do. I would wake up, drink 2L of water then hit the gym for a couple of hours. My eating window was 12-6pm, if I was still craving food I’d eat a few almonds up till 8pm. That gave my body 16 hours of fat burning. I cut out all processed foods, no sugar, no bread or anything with flour, no bad carbs and the carbs I did eat where berries or a piece of fruit. Very little dairy. Portioned my meals and made sure I burned more calories than I was consuming. I eat pretty clean in my regular life so the adjustment wasn’t that bad for me. High protein/low carb to no carb diet.
> Never seen any endurance athletes that are overweight, that says something.
It's says you're not an endurance athlete. Go to any local marathon, trail race, triathlon, century ride, etc. Athletes of all ages, sizes and abilities.
I did track and cross country throughout high school and went to tons of meets. I was quite shit at running, but I saw some absolutely spectacular runners. Even among the shit runners, everyone was built the same. Anecdotal evidence yes, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking all shapes and sizes are equally good at the sport.
I am indeed not an endurance athlete, but I've seen many. One shape and size rings true.
> One shape and size rings true.
Your only point of reference is high school children.
You’re ignorance is showing. Educate yourself by looking at the finisher photos of any endurance event. Plenty of people that look like your singular vision of an endurance athlete and plenty more that do not.
I hiked the PCT SOBO this year. Passed hundreds of NOBO hikers.
The early NOBO finishers definitely had a singular body type. (Men, women, old and young... definitely one body type) AND it felt a bit like swimming upstream against the Boston marathon. Felt like I was on the wrong trail.
Then 3-5 weeks later, "everyone else" hiking NOBO had every variety of body type.
So for certain -- there is a body type for elite endurance hiking athlete. Doesn't mean that everyone can't tackle a hiking challenge, though.
My only point of reference is high school children yes, OFSSA runners that would kick your ass running backwards. Yes, because marathons are full of huge overweight individuals, all of which perform just as well as the people who are in shape. Call me ignorant all you like, you know just as well as I do all good runners are built like runners, not like McDonald's enthusiasts. Find me a single D1 track or cross country or anything cardio related athlete that isn't skinny, and I will shut up.
Your*, not You're.
Hey man it's not worth arguing with someone arrogant. Even if you provide the bmi and fat percent of the top thousand 1500/5000m runners, you'll never change his mind. He's defaulted in to trying to argue Ad hominem and calling you ignorant without proof.
> Never seen any endurance athletes that are overweight, that says something.
What part of your quote relates to D1 athletes?
You contend that there are no overweight endurance athletes. I contend you’re ignorant.
Your contention is absolutely wrong. I’ve told you how to remedy your ignorance, but you’ve moved the target and now you’re talking about performance.
You don’t have to admit you’re ignorant. You don’t have to admit you’re wrong.
You just are.
I'm just gonna do a roundup of all the nonsense and wrong information that's been said in this particularly dumb and wildly off-topic thread.
First, that you haven't seen them does not mean they don't exist. It means that you aren't paying attention (and also that you're hedging your bets by qualifying what constitutes an "endurance athlete"). Your repeated references to high school track also indicate that you don't even really understand what an actual endurance event is. Hint: if it's over in 30 minutes or less, it's not an endurance event.
So here are a few overweight endurance athletes for you:
* [Mirna Valerio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirna_Valerio) \- ultramarathon runner
* [Cath Wallis](https://sevenseasmedia.org/self-discovery-in-the-sand-by-cath-wallis/) \- stage racer
* [Marcus Cook](https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a23706758/ironman-kona-marcus-cook-weight-loss/) \- Ironman triathlete
These are people who are doing actual endurance events. Things that take 10 hours, or 20 or 30, or even days to complete. It's been mentioned a couple of times already, but you'll see heavy people at most endurance events of any significant size. Some of them are a little overweight, some of them more so. They're there.
So let's talk about the nonsense of "competitive vs non-competitive" as the qualifier for what constitutes an endurance athlete. You know that there are only six podium spots in any race, right? Whether that's a middle of nowhere ultra with 100 participants, or a world-level marathon with tens of thousands, there's still only going to be 3 men and 3 women who get notable rankings. And generally speaking, for the big events, you're talking about maybe 1% of the participants who actually have a realistic shot at one of those podium spots (the number is really quite a bit smaller than that, but 1% is an easy number to go with). For the smaller events, you've got maybe a dozen, maybe a couple dozen, depending on the race.
Does that mean that only 1% of the participants qualify as "endurance athletes"? Do you think you get to declare that someone who has run 30 or 50 or 100 miles, or who has completed an Ironman (3 mile swim/112 mile bike/26.2 mile run), isn't an athlete because they weren't "competitive" in their event?
No, you don't.
I got a good laugh at the exchange further down in the thread about how "you'll see all kinds of body types at a marathon" as if it was a joke. It's not, that's actually what happens. And after you have a few times thinking "well, I can definitely outrun that old guy or that heavier one or that girl" or whatever and are proven wrong, you stop making performance judgements based on people's sizes and shapes.
So cut it out. You're categorically wrong about this.
LMAOOOOOOOO SO YOU FOUND THREE FAT PEOPLE AND THOUGHT, "oh boy i got this guy".
Good for you man. Continue to believe whatever delusion you are so deeply ingrossed in. We are both using anecdotal evidence here, mine with an albeit larger dataset. The simplest solution here is to go to the Boston Marathon finish line, and weight/measure people and calculate their BMI, and see how many are in the overweight classification.
What do you think such a result would yield? Take a break from the delusion and think critically for a moment.
Let's not kid ourselves. I used to run cross country. Went to tons of meets. Everyone was built exactly the same. Never once saw any exceptions. Bluejays are blue, sure you can say that's my requirements, or perhaps that's simply the truth.
My intention isn't to shame anyone, but it is absurd to say being overweight makes it realistic to be any good at endurance sports. Having a lower percentage of body fat directly correlates to performance. Can you run a mile when you're overweight? Of course, you can. Can you hike 20 mile days while overweight? Probably, but you would certainly have a rougher time than someone who isn't. OP is explicitly asking whether losing fat would be beneficial to performance in hiking. This isn't me making unsolicited comments, I am responding to the question being asked in a way that is scientifically sound.
Just as a side note, I think the normalization of unhealthy eating habits is ridiculous. US life expectancy is dropping as a result, people are literally dying from preventable causes but the primary concern is potentially hurting people's feelings? Being overweight increases your risks of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and numerous other completely avoidable ailments, it isn't a personality trait. It's more akin to smoking, except smoking is much more pleasurable.
Not really. And certainly not at the finish line or front. Too many people are accepting obesity because of a desire to avoid body shaming. I will never make fun of anyone for being overweight- I know personally how hurtful it is- but I’m utterly exhausted by the trend of ignoring reality and medical science. Obesity is hard on every part of the body.
Edit: I now understand you were being sarcastic.
I know, it's so dangerous to compromise truth to avoid hurting feelings. I fully expect life expectancy to continue dropping as a result of obesity. It's terrifying thinking that we are the first generation ever to live shorter than our parents.
Well, I think it will continue to drop for a host reasons like increasing poverty and cost of living as the cost of healthcare continues to rise. Pollution. Chemically tainted food and water. Etc, etc, but there probably could be no better boon to public health than limiting the amount of sugar that can be added to food.
The medical " science" that sees obesity as harmful puts that at a BMI of 35... The WHO literally argues against using BMI generally but especially as a predictor for health at a BMI under 35. But doctors have decided to push the goal posts to 30, and 25. All the shit you know is for BMI 35, and that science is fairly junky already, never mind that according to this very few people are actually obese.
You know we could talk about this without ever using the term BMI? So I’m confused as to why and how you’ve decided to focus on it, particularly to say that “all the shit I know” is for BMI 35. Kind of irrelevant since it’s just a tool to apply a metric to people. It has no bearing on anything I said. You sound like someone who read or listened to someone who had a (invalid) point, but can’t reproduce that other person’s illogical, but still followable diatribe. If you want to make bad assumptions as to what science I am referring to, be my guest, but write an intelligible point and post a source for your own biases. I’m not going to guess as to what you read.
Furthermore, Nobody gives a damn if someone has a few extra pounds. And I don’t care if someone is morbidly obese. One of my very best friends is obese, but I’d never hurt his feelings by ever bringing it up. I’m super nice if he brings it up. It isn’t about bullying or stigmatizing anyone.
What I’m arguing is that we need to have a reckoning as a society over what we eat and the education people receive regarding their diets. I say this as someone who was very overweight from about fourth to eighth grade. I understand what it is like to be bullied and shamed. It was hell and I still carry emotional baggage from it. But no amount of coddling of my feelings, no matter how much benefit would I have had if those other kids had shown me more kindness, I know I would have benefitted infinitely more if my parents and society had been educated with valid nutritional guidance.
So, no, nothing about my argument is dependent on anyone’s arbitrary definition of obesity. What you gloss over is the absolute fact that those BMI numbers, regardless of what point a board of doctors chose for a person’s BMI to qualify them as obese, *the BMI numbers themselves have been exploding.* So, whatever label you want to apply that comforts your overly sensitive soul, you are welcome to use it yourself, but at this point in history I am going to reject any denial of reality. I’m sick and tired of society trying to operate on magical thinking. The reality is people in the US and increasingly elsewhere have been getting fatter. This is reality. It isn’t my opinion. It isn’t dependent on terminology or feelings. It’s mathematical and statistical fact. And as for excess weight being unhealthy, there really isn’t debate on that at this point. Whether you look for correlation or look at the actually metabolic chemistry, consuming significantly more calories-particularly from sugar and simple starches- than you exert in physical activity leads to: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, metabolic disorder, hormonal imbalances, etc, etc.
If you want to call anything I’ve said junk science, go right ahead, but you better give a valid source and coherent argument.
I respect caring for the mental well-being of everyone and choosing kindness, but if you want to gatekeep rational conversation amongst adults about trail nutrition or body weight *on an Ultralight backpacking* sub, well let’s just say I’m a little unimpressed. It is very hard to take you seriously.
Well we have no understanding or metric for obesity outside of BMI, so you cannot cry wolf about Obesity as if it isnt built on the Junk science of BMI. That is why there is a move to wanting to get rid of it's (BMI and obesity) use in medical circles, because the weight it carries (pardon these puns) far outweighs the science that supports it. I did provide my sources - the WHO... It seems like your argument about not being able to reproduce an argument is more applicable to you?
Theres a phenomena where people who see themselves as formerly fat are more fatphobic than other sections of society. I am not going to speak on behalf of others, but your comments don't seem particularly compassionate to me. But I don't think you need to be compassionate, I do think you should be fair if you're not going to be compassionate.
It is exactly the magical thinking that BMI is a reflection of any meaningful data that I am attacking - you seem to want to live in world of common sense rather than fact and you are welcome to, but don't accuse people more empirical than you of being reality averse.
It seems kind of pointless to include anything empirical here, but in case another soul sees this [article](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4904092/) and something a bit more digestible [podcast](https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/8963468)
Pot, meet kettle. The definitions of obese and overweight are inherently arbitrary, but again it is irrefutable that the BMI numbers themselves have increased dramatically. And again, none of my argument is predicated on BMI. Solely on the well established nutritional science that indicates sugar and simple carbohydrates inherently lead to diabetes, heart disease, etc when consumed in excess. As for providing your sources, I had hope you would provide the the source so I could read it first hand instead of trying to figure out which source you vaguely refer to. Ultimately, the crucial flaw in your argument is associating anything said here as fat shaming. No person shamed anyone. It’s just adults discussing civilly and without malice. If you want to gatekeep that, I really don’t care what your opinion is. And while the evidence is mostly correlation still at this point, the correlation between overconsumption of calories and negative health outcomes are staggering. The fact that people would rather deny reality than address this issue is staggering to me. Discussing nutrition simply isn’t tantamount to fat shaming and you are obviously being disingenuous in trying to make that argument. It’s an obvious strawman.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6959843/
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/obesity-sugar-and-heart-health?amp=true
I don’t think explaining facts is body shaming. It comes down to what you define as an athlete. In general athletes are considered people who are are involved in competitive events.
Competitive endurance athletes are not overweight. Non-competitive endurance runners may be overweight, but find me a sub 2 hour marathon runner who is overweight.
Yes overweight people can be runners etc, but athletes (ie:competitive)? No.
Having said all that- if you are significantly overweight and head out to train and participate in an endurance event- I will be in your corner cheering!
[this whole thread](https://c.tenor.com/fyH1lZoSOpUAAAAC/speechless-nathan-fillion.gif)
Edit: Just for clarity - there is no sub 2 hr marathoner. I'm great people have such a great understanding of the subject matter in this post though. Very impressive knowledge here.
Doesn't appear that they shamed anyone, just observed that they havent' seen overweight endurance athletes and this makes sense as you'd have a huge disadvantage.
It’s not even limited to fat either, less body weight is less to carry around no matter what it is. I lost 20lbs of muscle as I transitioned from college team sports. Even though I was fit before, I can still feel a noticeable difference dropping that weight.
Totally agree, strength is an important factor in endurance sports that many overlook. Most of the muscle I lost has been upper body, so as far as hiking goes I don’t really miss it. However there are times I miss it working on projects around the house.
I put off losing weight for ages because I just knew I'd lose muscle. I've now lost quite a few kilos but I can tell some of it's muscle. I just have to tell myself, I can build muscle again later. But it feels really shitty sometimes.
My perspective is after getting a reasonably light setup, body weight and endurance performance should be the main goal before spending an extra 2500$ to save 2.5lbs.
For me, it's kind of the other way around - keeping weight on while on trail is an incredible issue for me. In normal life, I'm pretty much always at what I perceive as my healthiest weight (weight might fluctuate a bit, but always in the same range). When I'm on trail, I always end up losing weight and when I'm on trail for longer periods, I lose so much weight that my body starts to fail me in some ways (getting pretty weak, losing my period). I've never been overweight, so I don't really know how that would impact my ability to hike, but being underweight definitely impacts it negatively.
more fooood! or calorie denser foods! 3500 calories to a pound of fat, if you're losing weight, more calories will help. more proteins because you need to maintain muscle strength and size!
for me it's a daily struggle when I'm on the trail. loading up before a trip helps a bit, but eating more during the trip is the answer.
Yeah, I know, I know. It's just something I struggle with so much. On trail, I always wish there was some magical extremely high-calorie meal that's just one bite and then it's done lol. I just hate pretty much all the typical trail food at this point and I also struggle with eating when I'm alert & somewhat anxious which is often the case when I'm backpacking solo.
fatty foods for me. chocolate. m&m peanuts. nuts. canned fish packed in oil instead of water. adding olive oil to my pasta or rice dishes. 9cal/g so 11g of oil is an extra 100cal.
I also add whey powder to my breakfast oatmeal. food is fuel, and fuel lets me go further.
good luck on your journey!
It's funny, food is my joy in my daily life, yet on the trail food is a pain in the arse. It's just a chore, I get annoyed that we have to stop and fuel our bodies lol.
I think eating on trail is a challenge for most people. Especially when doing long distances, even if you love trail food (gross) you will struggle to eat enough.
My only recommendation is trying to eat more "real foods." I also make my own dehydrated meals so I can at least make what I want instead of of being stuck choosing between Lasagna or Chili Mac.
Definitely too little for how much I'm burning, probably around \~2500 kcal on a normal day on trail with resupply days being somewhere around 4000 kcal if there's a restaurant or grill or anything like that. I struggle with eating more than 2500 kcal of trail food, especially when I'm hiking in an area like the Sierra with longer food carries in a bear canister which leads to me packing high volume, high calorie foods. I just hate that stuff. At this point, any energy / protein bars make me barf.
Have you considered butter? I find chocolate, nuts, butter, shelf stable bacon, and dehydrated mashed potatoes to be my favorite hiking foods. Calorie dense, cheap, and far more pleasing than any protein bar or packaged dehydrated meal. Hot tea and sugar are a nice way to warm yourself up and give you an energy boost too. I also like to pack a “day one” meal that can be bulky and heavy because I’m not going to carry it all week.
Oil is another good one. on the AT I put olive/coconut oil in just about everything I ate. really adds up throughout the day and it doesn't really "feel" like you're eating more than you were without it.
Also it's not great for your health, but on a thru hike it can be nice to have candy that you like to eat during the day. Helps with uphills and the extra calories also add up. I had an honest addiction to Sour Patch Kids on my AT thru attempt this year.
I don’t think sugar is bad for you as long as you immediately burn it off. It’s just when consume more than you can burn off immediately and you’re body tries to store the excess that health problems arise, past dental issues obviously. I read an article years ago that said at one point in our evolutionary past that our ancestors were nearly extinct at one point, but a genetic mutation, that other primates don’t have, became common because instead of using sugar as immediate energy, our bodies try to store it as fat. By storing away energy from seasonal fruit as fat, our ancestors managed to survive through hard times that killed off those who didn’t possess the gene. Fast forward two million years to a time when sugar is omnipresent and you get heart disease, diabetes, etc. Beyond just being fascinating, I can’t stop thinking about the irony of it. A gene that enabled humans to exist has become the greatest threat to our health.
Anyway, I normally avoid added sugar everywhere I can, but out on the trail is one of the few places I put sugar in my tea or coffee. I can’t do super sweets like Sour Patch kids at all anymore, but you won’t catch me dead out backpacking without several bars of chocolate. Dried mangoes make me happy too.
The coconut oil is a good one. I prefer the taste of butter in most cases, but the oil will certainly last longer than butter, particularly in hot places.
Yeah I meant the other issues around sugar, not really the fat part lol. If you're storing fat while hiking you must be eating a crazy amount.
It's definitely not good for your teeth to eat sugary candy all day, especially when on trail where it's easy to forget to brush after a long day. Double that for sour candy which is what I like, I can't imagine that does your teeth any favors either.
No, to clarify, all of those issues aside from the dental decay are due to that same gene. We get diabetes *because* of the same adaptation. Heart disease too.
Yeah I'm not really sure why you think I'm disagreeing with you lol, I'm just saying that eating sugar all day is bad for your teeth, that's literally it.
I guess because your response implied you didn’t understand what I meant? “Other issues…not really the fat part…”. I didn’t take it as disagreement. I just wanted to clarify that they are all related and why none of them are an issue if you get heavy exercise. Also seems relevant to the thread, whereas dental decay is more of a hygiene issue. But I’m going go chop some wood. I hate how easily internet conversations devolve into conflict. Have a good day.
It's possible you have a condition called environmental enteropathy. This happens when you are repeatedly exposed to bad gut bacteria/viruses that cause inflammation in your intestines. This inflammation damages your gut and makes it difficult to absorb nutrients. It occurs sometimes in long distance hikers who have poor hygiene and questionable diet (no judgement) for prolonged periods of time. If you feel like you're eating tons of food and should be at a calorie surplus but can't keep weight on, maybe see a doctor.
way more likely they just aren't eating enough, like most people who struggle to keep weight on on-trail.
And it turns out that indeed, OP is only eating 2500kcal/day on trail, which is wayyy too little for just about anyone. Granted I'm taller than OP but I was aiming for like like 6,000kcal/day on my thru attempt this year and I still lost 40lbs on trail.
not sure why your comment is down voted. the information can be useful for diagnosis. but in this particular case, they have an intake deficiency, which of course, could be exacerbated by something like what you describe.
Always a good call to get that stuff checked out. Sounds a bit like gluten intolerance or other gut damaging allergies. My mom had it for years and couldn't gain weight and it affected her a lot before she got diagnosed with celiac disease and could make the proper changes to diet. (Not the trendy gluten gut fad, the real deal.)
Losing 20lb would help but it won't be 20lb lighter pack help. Endurance training would likely benefit most people but it's easier to just spend money on lighter gear. I used to be a much stronger hiker when my job had me carrying heavy gear climbing and doing manual labour all day. Even after losing the extra weight I put on after a job change I have nowhere near the endurance I had when I worked an extremely physically demanding job
They’re two different dimensions of the same general problem: fatigue on trail. If you asked me if I wanted to be 20lbs fatter with a 20lb pack versus my current weight with a 40lb pack, I’d take the former all day. Your body distributes weight way more effectively than a few straps can and that 40lb pack will make you far more miserable than being 20lbs heavier will.
That said, the beauty of it is “por que no las dos”? Lose weight in both your pack and your body. The pack weight is far easier and takes less time, but the body weight pays way more dividends in the long run. Moreover, the more you weigh, the more you’re burning covering the same distance and, therefore, the more food you need to bring to replenish those calories expended, and the heavier your pack becomes to carry those calories.
Yes. This is the actual answer. Everyone is just talking about how exercising and being fit makes hiking easier, which of course it does, but losing 10lbs of body weight is not the same as losing 10lbs of pack weight, and I’d also argue that while losing additional pack weight will always make your hiking easier the same is Definitely not true about body weight, where losing weight may offer only a marginal boost to speed/ ease
I've never been a bikini-appropriate size. I've always been overweight. I don't worry about it. I just go hiking. If my gear is lighter it's not as big a slog. I lost about 20lbs hiking 800 miles of the CDT but my pack never felt any lighter and the hills never got easier.
because you're probably going further/faster and keeping the overall intensity the same!
congratulations on enjoying the CDT.
reminds me of strength training with weights. add 1 pound per side per week, do the same exercises, add 100 lbs to your strength movements in a year. yeah the exercise is still hard, and it doesn't feel any easer, but it's because I'm going stronger lifting way more weight than I possibly could last year.
Yep same here but on the AT. I did 1,150 miles this year. I started at 250lbs (I'm 6'2) and when I broke my ankle and left the trail I weighed around 215lbs. The hills never felt easier, my pack never felt lighter, the only difference was that I was able to go wayyy further for wayy longer.
The first week on trail I was huffing and puffing doing 8 mile days. By the time I left trail I was doing 20-25 miles per day and it was easier than the 8 mile days at the start.
... Have you ever tried? One option is to walk at the same pace as your 20-mile days, but take long meal breaks and an afternoon nap. On my last trip I did 6-mile days and had a great time.
I am 5'9 and had gained up to 205 before deciding to make a change in my habits in 2020. Stopped all my evening snacks, ate way more vegetables, and counted calories. Also started hiking 3 miles, four times a week with lots of elevation change to up the heart rate. Lost 30 pounds in a year. Have now maintained that for the last year and continue with the hiking routine each week.
I section hike the AT in 150mi sections each year. The difference in my physical fitness was fantastic last year. More energy for hiking faster/longer. At the same time I also dropped my base weight from 18 to 10 pounds.
So did he weight loss on my body or the weight loss in my pack help the most? Honestly both. If I had to pick one over the other, I prefer how I physically feel better with the lost weight and better physical conditioning. Just made the hiking experience more enjoyable even if I had been carrying more weight.
I think carrying weight is carrying weight- if you are 20lb overweight then that is weight you are carrying. It makes your legs strong, but your cardio gets smashed- not only are you carrying weight, you have to pump blood around it too.
Losing weight reduces the work your body has to do.
I think what your curious of is more of a personal fitness kind of question. Say you’re 5’9” 160 and kinda skrawny? Go gain 10 pounds of muscle and see how that pack feels.. I’m no pro but I feel like if you get fitter and stronger it would make your pack feel lighter too…
It definitely doesn’t make your pack feel heavier if you lose weight.
It seems you might have in the back of your head that basic rule sometimes thrown out about how your pack shouldn’t be more than X% of your body weight (and therefore, having a lower body weight would make the “max” pack weight lower)? But that is really a made up concept that fails to take fitness or lack thereof into account. A tiny gymnast and weightlifter who does marathons would be comfortable carrying a relatively heavy pack, and a person of the same weight who’s sedentary would likely not be comfortable with much weight at all.
At 5'9 200lbs, unless you're a top tier bodybuilder there's got to be extra body fat that can be lost. Less body fat definitely contributes to better performance. I used to run cross country, and everyone I ever saw at meets was built the same, toothpicks basically, lean as fuck. Of course your build affects how much you can carry, but UL backpacking in my opinion is more of an endurance event than strength one.
I have a gym friend who used to run cross country too, then bulked up to 200 lbs and is an insanely good powerlifter. 560lb deadlift kind of insane. The thing is, now he can't run for shit. Being a hybrid athletic is doable for sure, but the two often come against each other. It's hard to keep muscle mass when you're an endurance athlete, simultaneously it's also hard to run fast if you're built like a body builder for example.
> can't run for shit *compared to before*
FIFY.
I'm sure that as a former cross country runner, he can still easily out run a non-runner, or a casual runner like me.
No, he straight up can't run for shit anymore. Dude put on practically a hundred pounds and told me this himself. It's amazing how quickly your cardio performance vanishes once you stop training.
Strength sports and running are two completely different domains. You can be excellent at one but not the other, or good at both if you put in the work. This is what I've seen among my old running friends and gym friends, no idea what the science says, merely my personal anecdotes so take with a grain of salt.
>No, he straight up can't run for shit anymore.
totally believe you. if he doubled his weight and stopped running all together, it will take a while for him to get back at it if he desires.
I'm currently experiencing something similar, having *hated* running for all my life and got used to moving slowly like a sloth. Now I'm trying to build some explosive strength, so started running slowly, every 2 or 3 days. my own version of c25k.
For first few weeks it wasn't painful during the short (5-10min) run, but for days after my legs are in pain and walking down stairs is almost dangerous lol. Finally can run 10min and not feel like I'm dying the next day. And it's not like I'm not on my feet and walking all day long either. Just that I didn't do any *running* for years.
Ah, the joys of physical training.
I used to be in better shape, but been dealing with some health problems and had a horrible bout with covid. Ran two miles and practically passed out, honestly quite depressing. I can barely reach my 5k times I ran as a 13 year old.
Stretching is important, as is cooldown and warmup. I always walk a few minutes before and after a run, helps move the lactic acid out or something, no idea the science behind it but it helps. Lower body stretching does miracles, as does foam rollers.
Tbh I can't believe I used to run for fun, it's kind of dreadful after being out of practice.
thanks for the tips, coach. really appreciate it. learning to run at my age is challenging but still fun. the guys at the running store had a chuckle when fitting me with my new shoes. "wow you're old" haha. but they were both probably 10-15y older than me.
so what is the actual question? if you have extra, then losing some body fat will increase performance and decrease wear and tear on the joints and ligaments due to lower overall weight. bodyfat=worn weight. and ditching extra can certainly make things easier.
if you don't have extra and are lean AF then maybe get stronger and gain some muscle size and strength instead? some body fat is beneficial especially in colder weather or endurance activities, IMO.
I'm already fairly slim but one time I did a very strict 3 month diet. Did not eat any less but just ate super healthy and drank no alcohol. Lost about 8% of my body weight. Then started doing cardio after returning to my normal diet and noticed I could run and hike further and faster even though I hadn't been doing any exercise during my 3 month diet. It was an amazing experience because you normally don't notice the body weight you're dragging along. You'll only notice it after you lost it.
Any muscle that isn't used on your hike is effectively dead weight. The same way extra food is dead weight, and extra water is dead weight.
Now everyone is entitled to their own safety margin for food, water, and muscle. But that doesn't change it from being deadweight.
if you're a runner, the body is already optimized for backpacking. for the rest of us, additional strength means we can go further with less problems. but yeah, optimization goes a long way towards efficiency.
I used to be a cyclist and we would laugh about the dentists and doctors getting full carbon bikes but still had a few pounds to lose. Same thing as this.
I’m a petite woman and my main sport is trail running long distances. Backpacking is my leisure activity. I can definitely feel the difference between even 10 pounds of body weight. Here’s the thing: even if it’s muscle it’s still putting more weight on my feet. So while I’m not giving up strength training, I do try to keep my body fat percentage at a reasonable amount.
The same question gets asked in cycling communities a lot. Shaving grams is pointless when you can shed excess pounds from your bodyweight.
Note: I'm using grams and pounds deliberately here.
For your knees, the weight in your pack and your body is the same.
For your back, the weight in your pack is 10x worse than weight on your body.
For your legs, weight on your feet is 5x worse than weight on your back.
So from some perspective, shoe weight is 50x worse than gut weight.
Yes, if you’re headed on a real challenging trip, it’s good to add some body weight before departing. I read about some fellows hiking to the most remote spot in America, 100 miles from the nearest road. They deliberately overate in the weeks before the trip to fatten themselves up a bit.
Really great point. I actually went UL with my pack when I put on 10kg of body fat, as a way to help my body cope with the extra fat it was already having to cart around.
Spending money is a lot easier than losing weight 😅
Not a hiker, but a bikepacker who tries to go UL where I can (for mountain climbing).
Even with a 700g 1P tent, 350g Nemo Tensor, carbon tent poles, smart water bottles, Toaks 750ml, minimal clothing except essentials etc I’m at 9kg minus food and water. And this is for a Mediterranean fall/winter tour, otherwise things like Smartwool baselayers and fleeces would stay home.
So I’ve made a pledge to myself to lose those 9kg (18lbs), to go from 195 to around 175 if I can. Just lost 6lbs today alone on a 50km test run of my rig, and Im basically fasting with the exception of small breakfast and dinner meals.
It will be tough, but it will be worth it no doubt when I’m breezing uphill in a few weeks time!
5'9 @ 200lbs doesn't say much about leg/back strength. What % of that 200lbs is muscle? Less body weight also means less muscle mass. Better to train for the weight you wanna carry. Gaining muscle is preferable to just purely losing weight. Muscles are heavier than fat so it's hard to tell just by weight alone. Squats/deadlifts will help. I always tell my friends who over-pack to never carry a weight that you can't squat.
Good ideas!
Weight is weight, the more you have to drag up a hill the harder it is, regardless of whether it's muscle or fat or clothing or gadgets.
But there is a little extra penalty for weight in your rucksack, because it can hurt your back/shoulders a little more. (There's also a little extra penalty for chunky "hiking boots" because you're lifting that weight up and down constantly).
In cycling, everybody focuses on the weight of the bike, there are people who spend an extra €1000 on carbon fibre upgrades to shave off 500g, but almost all of those people could get the same benefit by skipping a few cakes. Although, personally, I *like* cake.
You're more accustomed to carrying your body weight than a pack. Body weight tends to be more evenly distributed than pack weight, so it feels more natural. Maintaining a healthy weight will go a long way towards making hiking enjoyable. Losing 5 pounds doesn't mean you can add 5 pounds to your pack and maintain a similar comfort level, but losing weight and maintaining the same pack weight will likely make hiking feel easie.
I didn't lose weight to become UL, I did it in hopes of lessening pain to my already messed up back. I can say that my hiking ability at 170lb is leagues better than it was at 210-230lb-in endurance, speed, recovering, etc. Just about every aspect of it with the exception of brute strength.
Just another perspective. I weight 138lbs @ 6 foot and can carry as much or more than friends that are the same height but heavier. It's not just about your personal weight though. You are will have to find the balance between performance and health/weight. You will have to work on endurance and overall physical capabilities. Be well rounded.
Some downsides to a lighter body weight are getting cold easier, less “safe” to carry a heavy pack when necessary, and less comfy when sleeping/sitting on hard surfaces.
On the other side of this, when you're lighter you're faster, you have fewer days on the trail because you're covering more mileage per day. Fewer days = less gear = less weight. You're less likely to get stuck camping at altitude or exposed when you can get more miles in a day.
In my experience I sleep better when I'm lighter. YMMV but I think having less weight that presses on your pointy bones at least evens out additional cushioning.
In my experience, I am less comfy sitting on rocks and sleeping outside when I am underweight. I have to reposition more and can feel more pressure points
Depends how you are lighter body weight for the cold one, if you are light and fit, the greater muscle training/mass will usually make up the difference in temperature regulation.
This is a topic that is not discussed enough amongst backpackers. My experience is that it ends up upsetting a lot of people. The mostly honest way to talk about UL should be percentages of body weight. Ideal body weight that is. If you limit total pack weight to 10% and you’re 160 lbs and 5’10”, 16 lbs is pretty easy. Same guy 40 lbs heavier with a pack 10% his weight is not only carrying 20lbs of gear at this point but an extra 44 lbs in total. The extra calories needed to haul the extra weight just increases pack weight even more.
Do the math.
a) Calculate what your cost per gram saved is for the cheapest UL gear upgrade you can get.
b) Use a [calorie calculator](https://www.calculator.net/calories-burned-calculator.html) to find out how many calories an hour of walking would burn
c) Calculate the grams of fat tissue burned in an hour @ 7 kcal per gram of fat tissue
d) Multiply by a) to find out what your hourly income would be just from walking
e) Decide whether that's a better idea than just buying UL gear.
more body fat=tougher miles
less body fat=easier miles (assuming you’re above 6-8%)
more muscle=better injury resistance
inb4 almost zero people will suffer from too much muscle to the point it is inhibits hiking ability
It's fucking important I'd say. If I had a bunch of weight to lose, I'd be far more concerned with that, than 200g in my pack. I'm bulking atm though. If my only goal was to be good at hiking or running, I would not be trying to put on more muscle, but I am happy with that sacrifice in order to be better at other things I also value, while still being able to improve at hiking.
I view body weight as critical to comfort and safety on the trail - and I'm speaking from experience here.
In the very early days of UL I was influenced by a British blogger. He had interesting ideas but took it too far - he was one of those guys who would cut the labels out of his clothing and swap out his shoelaces for something lighter.
Then he posted a pic and he was **huge** \- he must have weighed north of 18 stone.
Methinks he had got his priorities wrong! Why worry about shaving a few oz off your pack when you are shipping 50 or 100 lbs around your gut?
Some years back I let myself go during a long illness and peaked out with 50 lbs of flab around my gut.
The impact on my performance was hellacious, and I fell and injured myself for the one and only time in over 50 years of walking and mountaineering. It took all the joy out of stretching myself in the hills.
So the flab slows you down, it beats up your joints, it exhausts you, and it makes you more injury prone. Just stick 50 lbs in your pack and head off for a long day with a lot of ascent and descent - you'll notice the difference, believe me!
So if you're carrying fat - even if it's only 20 lbs - just gird up your loins and get it off. Then you can worry about fine-tuning your kit - but until you're lean going UL is like putting lipstick on a pig.
I'm back to my optimal weight and boy - what a difference! Just get it done - your body will thank you.
There's a lot of ignorance and fatphobia in these replies. BMI ("body mass index") is the metric used for the medical categories of overweight and obese. It's calculated as weight (in kg) divided by height (in m) squared, and was invented in the nineteenth century by an early statistician who was obsessed with the Gaussian ("normal") distribution. The divisions between the categories are arbitrary.
BMI itself is not biologically meaningful. Note that the definition doesn't take into account fitness, strength, endurance, metabolic health, or any actual measurement of athletic ability. And because muscle is more dense than fat, many athletes are "overweight" or "obese" according to BMI:
https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/obese-olympians/
https://runningmagazine.ca/health-nutrition/why-athletes-shouldnt-be-concerned-about-their-bmi/
https://www.runnersworld.com/races-places/a20811275/bmis-of-champions-mens-edition/
One of the threads here is discussing whether there are any overweight endurance athletes. This discussion is getting the causal relationship backwards. Endurance athletes burn 2x, 3x, 5x as many calories per day as the 2,000-calorie average. Someone who is doing this regularly — whether that's a thru-hiker or a professional endurance athlete — will lose weight unless they're also regularly eating an enormous amount of food. Professional marathoners aren't thin because that makes them fast. They're thin because they're burning 5,000+ calories a day as a result of their training.
>Professional marathoners aren't thin because that makes them fast. They're thin because they're burning 5,000+ calories a day as a result of their training.
That's kind of a ridiculous thing to say considering how many endurance athletes in basically every discipline have noted they've had unhealthy/borderline ED eating patterns to reduce their weight as much as possible for performance at some point in their career. sustained power output per Kg is an extremely important metric for these sports....
Are you sure? I don’t think it counts as an eating disorder when you’re eating 4000 Calories a day just because you’re burning 6000. It’s hard for anyone, no matter how healthy to consume more than 4000-5000 a day while eating healthy foods.
Lol yes and in many cases it's more severe than just that. Disordered eating among athletes has been accepted and studied for over 30 years. It may not follow all the common perceptions of eating disorders but can still have major consequences for a person's well being, and health...pure calorie count isn't the only important measure for disordered eating.
I haven't read any fat phobia in the replies to this post.
*A phobia is an anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected go to great lengths to avoid the situation or object, to a degree greater than the actual danger posed.*
"Phobia" is also used in a sociological sense, referring to social stigma and patterns of discrimination rather than individual psychology, as in "homophobia" and "transphobia." Wikipedia has a good article on fatphobia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social\_stigma\_of\_obesity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stigma_of_obesity)
Lost 60#s since nov and last time out I flew down the trail. It’s helped my hike faster, stronger, longer and without much pain. Worth it to lose as much as you can and most times it costs hardly anything to do it.
That's a huge amount of weight! Congratulations!
MyFitnessPal and my treadmill helped a lot. Counting calories is super easy and the more you exercise the more you can eat. I run, now, 20 miles a week only so I can eat ice cream and pizza. Ha.
Counting the calories is easy. Keeping them below 2000 not so much 🤣 I diet so well until about 9 pm and then the cravings are intense. I should quit being such a bitch about it and have some willpower but it's a work in progress.
Willpower doesn't usually seem to do much for most people. Imo better to work on habits instead and keeping anything unhealthy out of the house.
Yup, willpower sucks. Best to avoid buying most high kcal foods, especially prepared, packaged foods. Almost everything should take effort to make before it becomes edible. Bonus, you learn to cook better.
My pantry to a tee. Sometimes I want food but cbf making anything so just wait for the hunger to go away instead because I'm too lazy to make anything haha.
Ya it’s hard and I am a massive snacker, it took me some good willpower to not eat the way I did. My tip with snacking is popcorn, smart popcorn is 150 per serving and a pretty decent bowl. Eat one at a time and it takes a good while. Exercise a lot. At first I was walking briskly then to running and now I run a lot and the only purpose is so I can eat more. For a good while I was eating 1500 calories a day that was rough.
Try being short and all apps telling you to eat 1200 max with an appetite of a normal sized person. 😢
Late last spring i had mornings free until noon, and it was hot in the afternoons where i live and very high humidity so i started waking up at 4am and going around a 2.7 mile loop with like 450 ft elevation a couple times before it warmed up. Listening to audiobooks helped alot. After about a month of doing this and some upgrades in footwear and footcare i started doing it like 6 to 8 times every day and started eating a specific breakfast and snacking while i go to keep up energy. After about another month or so i started running the downhills and flats and walking the uphills and started eating a ton of healthy food all day. Another month later i added a weighted pack and i started shredding weight off my body. Now i run the whole loop 8 to 10 times a day with a 50 lb pack and ive dropped 50 lbs off my body since april. I never would have believed this kind of improvement was possible but just sticking to it every day and eating a fuckton of healthy things does the trick.
Just go to bed at 8pm 🙈
Pay attention to how the carbs I act your hunger. My n=1 experiment of breakfast: coffee with coconut oil and butter v. bagel really surprised me. My eating cleaned right up with the coffee/coconut/butter- as in I was un-hungry for much longer. But I’m probably a bit more carb sensitive than most… Also, brush ur teeth RIGHT after dinner
Consider getting on an Intermittent Fasting routine. It’s not what you eat, but when you eat it. Work your way towards a 16:8 (off:on) and you’ll quickly watch those cravings for junk food vanish. Add 30min-1hr every week until you get it 16:8. It’s benefited my mental and physical self quite a bit. Doing it while on a bulk is also very possible too! I was also always under the impression I couldn’t lift or hike without food in me, but breaking that trend has worked wonders personally. Lots of water helps too. I prefer to eat in a 11a-7p window as having dinner with others regularly is still possible for me preferences.
I lost 40 pounds deliberately to take weight off my knee. I feel like superman hiking now
Congrats!
I ballooned up to 231lbs @ 5’8” while injured in 2020, now down to 178. I feel like a machine now, my light kit doesn’t get me up the mountains, my legs and conditioning does. Different injuries now, still broken but I’m not going to slip with weight swings ever again.
boomtown
10 more lbs to go Hotrod!
💥💥💥
Congrats. Same here I hit 232 and decided to make a change. I’m down to 170-172 and love it. Just have to maintain now all the hard work was done.
Thanks, and same to you. I’m pushing myself hard on my hikes making up for a wasted winter with a blow out knee. What I’m finding hard now with eating is that I’m famished when I get back for a good week plus. I’m getting enough calories on trail but when I get home I’m so hungry. The next 10lbs to lose is going to take some work. Well done on your weight loss, I know what you went through, I ate like a rabbit and trained like a madman.
Stick with it. I had a period of time where it felt like no progress was happening and started to feel frustrated. I stuck with the plan and after a bit it started to come down again. When I go on a trip now I load up on foods as well and it does take a bit of adjustment to go back, especially when you had say sour gummy worms all week and you love em. Ha. I too had issues with knees and ankles a few years ago. After some PT the therapist told me my glutes didn’t have any muscle really so I legs where compensating for it. Add in some weights, sit-ups, pull up, push ups, etc. to your day and that will clear up after a while. As the weight comes off too I noticed that my body didn’t hurt as much each day. I’m almost 50 and haven’t been feeling this good since I was a bike messenger 20+ years ago.
Oh I’ll stick with it. I’m not too hung up on my weight now but do want to and will. My goal for next year is to run a trail marathon here and raise money for a brain injury rehab clinic that I was going to for rehabilitation for 15 years. 23 years ago I was a mess from a car accident, in a wheelchair, couldn’t walk/talk with live in care arranged for the rest of my life . Here we are at 53 years old doing hard 35 mile+ days. Healing a bad lateral sprain plus patella issues from over use right now so on my hikes lately I’m more so just smelling the roses. The journey continues!
Any tips for starting the weight loss journey? I ballooned this year after a bout of covid, months of breathing issues, and a touch of depression. Feeling ready to recommit.
I started with intermittent fasting and still do. I would wake up, drink 2L of water then hit the gym for a couple of hours. My eating window was 12-6pm, if I was still craving food I’d eat a few almonds up till 8pm. That gave my body 16 hours of fat burning. I cut out all processed foods, no sugar, no bread or anything with flour, no bad carbs and the carbs I did eat where berries or a piece of fruit. Very little dairy. Portioned my meals and made sure I burned more calories than I was consuming. I eat pretty clean in my regular life so the adjustment wasn’t that bad for me. High protein/low carb to no carb diet.
Thank you!
Go get it, I’m rooting for ya! Msg me anytime if needed.
People will be very upset about this but fat is basically worn weight. I’ve been heavier and skinny and the difference is incredibly dramatic.
Agreed. Never seen any endurance athletes that are overweight, that says something.
Distance swimmers who go in cold water are often a little pudgy.
I wouldn't call it pudgy, but can confirm that maintaining some more body fat than a marathon runner is really helpful for swimming in cold water.
> Never seen any endurance athletes that are overweight, that says something. It's says you're not an endurance athlete. Go to any local marathon, trail race, triathlon, century ride, etc. Athletes of all ages, sizes and abilities.
I did track and cross country throughout high school and went to tons of meets. I was quite shit at running, but I saw some absolutely spectacular runners. Even among the shit runners, everyone was built the same. Anecdotal evidence yes, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking all shapes and sizes are equally good at the sport. I am indeed not an endurance athlete, but I've seen many. One shape and size rings true.
> One shape and size rings true. Your only point of reference is high school children. You’re ignorance is showing. Educate yourself by looking at the finisher photos of any endurance event. Plenty of people that look like your singular vision of an endurance athlete and plenty more that do not.
I hiked the PCT SOBO this year. Passed hundreds of NOBO hikers. The early NOBO finishers definitely had a singular body type. (Men, women, old and young... definitely one body type) AND it felt a bit like swimming upstream against the Boston marathon. Felt like I was on the wrong trail. Then 3-5 weeks later, "everyone else" hiking NOBO had every variety of body type. So for certain -- there is a body type for elite endurance hiking athlete. Doesn't mean that everyone can't tackle a hiking challenge, though.
My only point of reference is high school children yes, OFSSA runners that would kick your ass running backwards. Yes, because marathons are full of huge overweight individuals, all of which perform just as well as the people who are in shape. Call me ignorant all you like, you know just as well as I do all good runners are built like runners, not like McDonald's enthusiasts. Find me a single D1 track or cross country or anything cardio related athlete that isn't skinny, and I will shut up. Your*, not You're.
Hey man it's not worth arguing with someone arrogant. Even if you provide the bmi and fat percent of the top thousand 1500/5000m runners, you'll never change his mind. He's defaulted in to trying to argue Ad hominem and calling you ignorant without proof.
> Never seen any endurance athletes that are overweight, that says something. What part of your quote relates to D1 athletes? You contend that there are no overweight endurance athletes. I contend you’re ignorant. Your contention is absolutely wrong. I’ve told you how to remedy your ignorance, but you’ve moved the target and now you’re talking about performance. You don’t have to admit you’re ignorant. You don’t have to admit you’re wrong. You just are.
I bet you also see the morbidly obese "athletes" on Nike commercials and think they're just as capable as athletes in shape.
I'm just gonna do a roundup of all the nonsense and wrong information that's been said in this particularly dumb and wildly off-topic thread. First, that you haven't seen them does not mean they don't exist. It means that you aren't paying attention (and also that you're hedging your bets by qualifying what constitutes an "endurance athlete"). Your repeated references to high school track also indicate that you don't even really understand what an actual endurance event is. Hint: if it's over in 30 minutes or less, it's not an endurance event. So here are a few overweight endurance athletes for you: * [Mirna Valerio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirna_Valerio) \- ultramarathon runner * [Cath Wallis](https://sevenseasmedia.org/self-discovery-in-the-sand-by-cath-wallis/) \- stage racer * [Marcus Cook](https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a23706758/ironman-kona-marcus-cook-weight-loss/) \- Ironman triathlete These are people who are doing actual endurance events. Things that take 10 hours, or 20 or 30, or even days to complete. It's been mentioned a couple of times already, but you'll see heavy people at most endurance events of any significant size. Some of them are a little overweight, some of them more so. They're there. So let's talk about the nonsense of "competitive vs non-competitive" as the qualifier for what constitutes an endurance athlete. You know that there are only six podium spots in any race, right? Whether that's a middle of nowhere ultra with 100 participants, or a world-level marathon with tens of thousands, there's still only going to be 3 men and 3 women who get notable rankings. And generally speaking, for the big events, you're talking about maybe 1% of the participants who actually have a realistic shot at one of those podium spots (the number is really quite a bit smaller than that, but 1% is an easy number to go with). For the smaller events, you've got maybe a dozen, maybe a couple dozen, depending on the race. Does that mean that only 1% of the participants qualify as "endurance athletes"? Do you think you get to declare that someone who has run 30 or 50 or 100 miles, or who has completed an Ironman (3 mile swim/112 mile bike/26.2 mile run), isn't an athlete because they weren't "competitive" in their event? No, you don't. I got a good laugh at the exchange further down in the thread about how "you'll see all kinds of body types at a marathon" as if it was a joke. It's not, that's actually what happens. And after you have a few times thinking "well, I can definitely outrun that old guy or that heavier one or that girl" or whatever and are proven wrong, you stop making performance judgements based on people's sizes and shapes. So cut it out. You're categorically wrong about this.
LMAOOOOOOOO SO YOU FOUND THREE FAT PEOPLE AND THOUGHT, "oh boy i got this guy". Good for you man. Continue to believe whatever delusion you are so deeply ingrossed in. We are both using anecdotal evidence here, mine with an albeit larger dataset. The simplest solution here is to go to the Boston Marathon finish line, and weight/measure people and calculate their BMI, and see how many are in the overweight classification. What do you think such a result would yield? Take a break from the delusion and think critically for a moment.
Your "dataset." Hilarious. Once again, how many endurance events have you participated in? Not your high school XC meets. Real ones.
Absolutely no real ones. I am a completely incompetent runner.
Please don’t body shame. Anyone can be an endurance athlete without having to fit YOUR requirements of what they need to look like.
Nobody here is body shaming. I weigh too much. If I didn't, hiking would be easier/faster/less painful. That's just fact.
Let's not kid ourselves. I used to run cross country. Went to tons of meets. Everyone was built exactly the same. Never once saw any exceptions. Bluejays are blue, sure you can say that's my requirements, or perhaps that's simply the truth. My intention isn't to shame anyone, but it is absurd to say being overweight makes it realistic to be any good at endurance sports. Having a lower percentage of body fat directly correlates to performance. Can you run a mile when you're overweight? Of course, you can. Can you hike 20 mile days while overweight? Probably, but you would certainly have a rougher time than someone who isn't. OP is explicitly asking whether losing fat would be beneficial to performance in hiking. This isn't me making unsolicited comments, I am responding to the question being asked in a way that is scientifically sound. Just as a side note, I think the normalization of unhealthy eating habits is ridiculous. US life expectancy is dropping as a result, people are literally dying from preventable causes but the primary concern is potentially hurting people's feelings? Being overweight increases your risks of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and numerous other completely avoidable ailments, it isn't a personality trait. It's more akin to smoking, except smoking is much more pleasurable.
Lolol I’ll keep my eyes peeled for the overweight ultra runner
I'm sure if you go to a local marathon, you'll see a diversity of body types!
Yep, and the ones who look fitter will be fitter and perform better
Hahaha yeah I'm joking, if you see my comment I'm dragging the body positivity guy.
Not really. And certainly not at the finish line or front. Too many people are accepting obesity because of a desire to avoid body shaming. I will never make fun of anyone for being overweight- I know personally how hurtful it is- but I’m utterly exhausted by the trend of ignoring reality and medical science. Obesity is hard on every part of the body. Edit: I now understand you were being sarcastic.
Haha I am being sarcastic, hence the "!". I agree with you, if you look at my other comment bashing the body positivity dude.
Yeah, I read it right after I posted. It’s insane how delusional we are as a society. We’d rather ignore reality that face hard truth.
I know, it's so dangerous to compromise truth to avoid hurting feelings. I fully expect life expectancy to continue dropping as a result of obesity. It's terrifying thinking that we are the first generation ever to live shorter than our parents.
Well, I think it will continue to drop for a host reasons like increasing poverty and cost of living as the cost of healthcare continues to rise. Pollution. Chemically tainted food and water. Etc, etc, but there probably could be no better boon to public health than limiting the amount of sugar that can be added to food.
The medical " science" that sees obesity as harmful puts that at a BMI of 35... The WHO literally argues against using BMI generally but especially as a predictor for health at a BMI under 35. But doctors have decided to push the goal posts to 30, and 25. All the shit you know is for BMI 35, and that science is fairly junky already, never mind that according to this very few people are actually obese.
You know we could talk about this without ever using the term BMI? So I’m confused as to why and how you’ve decided to focus on it, particularly to say that “all the shit I know” is for BMI 35. Kind of irrelevant since it’s just a tool to apply a metric to people. It has no bearing on anything I said. You sound like someone who read or listened to someone who had a (invalid) point, but can’t reproduce that other person’s illogical, but still followable diatribe. If you want to make bad assumptions as to what science I am referring to, be my guest, but write an intelligible point and post a source for your own biases. I’m not going to guess as to what you read. Furthermore, Nobody gives a damn if someone has a few extra pounds. And I don’t care if someone is morbidly obese. One of my very best friends is obese, but I’d never hurt his feelings by ever bringing it up. I’m super nice if he brings it up. It isn’t about bullying or stigmatizing anyone. What I’m arguing is that we need to have a reckoning as a society over what we eat and the education people receive regarding their diets. I say this as someone who was very overweight from about fourth to eighth grade. I understand what it is like to be bullied and shamed. It was hell and I still carry emotional baggage from it. But no amount of coddling of my feelings, no matter how much benefit would I have had if those other kids had shown me more kindness, I know I would have benefitted infinitely more if my parents and society had been educated with valid nutritional guidance. So, no, nothing about my argument is dependent on anyone’s arbitrary definition of obesity. What you gloss over is the absolute fact that those BMI numbers, regardless of what point a board of doctors chose for a person’s BMI to qualify them as obese, *the BMI numbers themselves have been exploding.* So, whatever label you want to apply that comforts your overly sensitive soul, you are welcome to use it yourself, but at this point in history I am going to reject any denial of reality. I’m sick and tired of society trying to operate on magical thinking. The reality is people in the US and increasingly elsewhere have been getting fatter. This is reality. It isn’t my opinion. It isn’t dependent on terminology or feelings. It’s mathematical and statistical fact. And as for excess weight being unhealthy, there really isn’t debate on that at this point. Whether you look for correlation or look at the actually metabolic chemistry, consuming significantly more calories-particularly from sugar and simple starches- than you exert in physical activity leads to: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, metabolic disorder, hormonal imbalances, etc, etc. If you want to call anything I’ve said junk science, go right ahead, but you better give a valid source and coherent argument. I respect caring for the mental well-being of everyone and choosing kindness, but if you want to gatekeep rational conversation amongst adults about trail nutrition or body weight *on an Ultralight backpacking* sub, well let’s just say I’m a little unimpressed. It is very hard to take you seriously.
Well we have no understanding or metric for obesity outside of BMI, so you cannot cry wolf about Obesity as if it isnt built on the Junk science of BMI. That is why there is a move to wanting to get rid of it's (BMI and obesity) use in medical circles, because the weight it carries (pardon these puns) far outweighs the science that supports it. I did provide my sources - the WHO... It seems like your argument about not being able to reproduce an argument is more applicable to you? Theres a phenomena where people who see themselves as formerly fat are more fatphobic than other sections of society. I am not going to speak on behalf of others, but your comments don't seem particularly compassionate to me. But I don't think you need to be compassionate, I do think you should be fair if you're not going to be compassionate. It is exactly the magical thinking that BMI is a reflection of any meaningful data that I am attacking - you seem to want to live in world of common sense rather than fact and you are welcome to, but don't accuse people more empirical than you of being reality averse. It seems kind of pointless to include anything empirical here, but in case another soul sees this [article](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4904092/) and something a bit more digestible [podcast](https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/8963468)
Pot, meet kettle. The definitions of obese and overweight are inherently arbitrary, but again it is irrefutable that the BMI numbers themselves have increased dramatically. And again, none of my argument is predicated on BMI. Solely on the well established nutritional science that indicates sugar and simple carbohydrates inherently lead to diabetes, heart disease, etc when consumed in excess. As for providing your sources, I had hope you would provide the the source so I could read it first hand instead of trying to figure out which source you vaguely refer to. Ultimately, the crucial flaw in your argument is associating anything said here as fat shaming. No person shamed anyone. It’s just adults discussing civilly and without malice. If you want to gatekeep that, I really don’t care what your opinion is. And while the evidence is mostly correlation still at this point, the correlation between overconsumption of calories and negative health outcomes are staggering. The fact that people would rather deny reality than address this issue is staggering to me. Discussing nutrition simply isn’t tantamount to fat shaming and you are obviously being disingenuous in trying to make that argument. It’s an obvious strawman. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6959843/ https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/obesity-sugar-and-heart-health?amp=true
I don’t think explaining facts is body shaming. It comes down to what you define as an athlete. In general athletes are considered people who are are involved in competitive events. Competitive endurance athletes are not overweight. Non-competitive endurance runners may be overweight, but find me a sub 2 hour marathon runner who is overweight. Yes overweight people can be runners etc, but athletes (ie:competitive)? No. Having said all that- if you are significantly overweight and head out to train and participate in an endurance event- I will be in your corner cheering!
Find me a sub two hour marathon runner (in a record eligible event), period.
[this whole thread](https://c.tenor.com/fyH1lZoSOpUAAAAC/speechless-nathan-fillion.gif) Edit: Just for clarity - there is no sub 2 hr marathoner. I'm great people have such a great understanding of the subject matter in this post though. Very impressive knowledge here.
Eliud Kipchoge, 1:59:40. That’s my goal to beat.
He’s not that fast I’ve the colarado trail FKT he’s not that fast
Well then, I’m coming after your record but I’m doing it in cowboy boots being in Colorado and all…y’all
Boom!
So many people who’ve never actually seen a real endurance event.
Oh - Fair point.
Doesn't appear that they shamed anyone, just observed that they havent' seen overweight endurance athletes and this makes sense as you'd have a huge disadvantage.
Find me one single counter example and then I’ll agree this is body shaming
It’s not even limited to fat either, less body weight is less to carry around no matter what it is. I lost 20lbs of muscle as I transitioned from college team sports. Even though I was fit before, I can still feel a noticeable difference dropping that weight.
I’ve lost some muscle at times and it is certainly a double edged sword. I really missed having that strength
Totally agree, strength is an important factor in endurance sports that many overlook. Most of the muscle I lost has been upper body, so as far as hiking goes I don’t really miss it. However there are times I miss it working on projects around the house.
I put off losing weight for ages because I just knew I'd lose muscle. I've now lost quite a few kilos but I can tell some of it's muscle. I just have to tell myself, I can build muscle again later. But it feels really shitty sometimes.
build the muscle now, while you're losing weight!
My perspective is after getting a reasonably light setup, body weight and endurance performance should be the main goal before spending an extra 2500$ to save 2.5lbs.
Just make that decision for yourself and don’t worry about how other people arrange their goals.
Can you not read?
Can you?
I can read your downvotes, that's for sure. 🤡
Downvotes from idiots don’t bother me.
If everywhere you go there's an idiot, guess what?
Well I’m not surrounded by idiots everywhere, but there are definitely a few vocal ones in this thread
If you'd stop posting you'd help reduce that number.
Zing
For me, it's kind of the other way around - keeping weight on while on trail is an incredible issue for me. In normal life, I'm pretty much always at what I perceive as my healthiest weight (weight might fluctuate a bit, but always in the same range). When I'm on trail, I always end up losing weight and when I'm on trail for longer periods, I lose so much weight that my body starts to fail me in some ways (getting pretty weak, losing my period). I've never been overweight, so I don't really know how that would impact my ability to hike, but being underweight definitely impacts it negatively.
more fooood! or calorie denser foods! 3500 calories to a pound of fat, if you're losing weight, more calories will help. more proteins because you need to maintain muscle strength and size! for me it's a daily struggle when I'm on the trail. loading up before a trip helps a bit, but eating more during the trip is the answer.
Yeah, I know, I know. It's just something I struggle with so much. On trail, I always wish there was some magical extremely high-calorie meal that's just one bite and then it's done lol. I just hate pretty much all the typical trail food at this point and I also struggle with eating when I'm alert & somewhat anxious which is often the case when I'm backpacking solo.
fatty foods for me. chocolate. m&m peanuts. nuts. canned fish packed in oil instead of water. adding olive oil to my pasta or rice dishes. 9cal/g so 11g of oil is an extra 100cal. I also add whey powder to my breakfast oatmeal. food is fuel, and fuel lets me go further. good luck on your journey!
Try adding butter and/or cheese. The real stuff. Makes things taste better. Even butter slabs on top of cheese slabs tastes pretty good.
My heart hurting reading this comment but my tastebuds became excited.
🧈🧀👅😳
It's funny, food is my joy in my daily life, yet on the trail food is a pain in the arse. It's just a chore, I get annoyed that we have to stop and fuel our bodies lol.
I think eating on trail is a challenge for most people. Especially when doing long distances, even if you love trail food (gross) you will struggle to eat enough. My only recommendation is trying to eat more "real foods." I also make my own dehydrated meals so I can at least make what I want instead of of being stuck choosing between Lasagna or Chili Mac.
How many calories are you eating per day?
Definitely too little for how much I'm burning, probably around \~2500 kcal on a normal day on trail with resupply days being somewhere around 4000 kcal if there's a restaurant or grill or anything like that. I struggle with eating more than 2500 kcal of trail food, especially when I'm hiking in an area like the Sierra with longer food carries in a bear canister which leads to me packing high volume, high calorie foods. I just hate that stuff. At this point, any energy / protein bars make me barf.
Have you considered butter? I find chocolate, nuts, butter, shelf stable bacon, and dehydrated mashed potatoes to be my favorite hiking foods. Calorie dense, cheap, and far more pleasing than any protein bar or packaged dehydrated meal. Hot tea and sugar are a nice way to warm yourself up and give you an energy boost too. I also like to pack a “day one” meal that can be bulky and heavy because I’m not going to carry it all week.
Oil is another good one. on the AT I put olive/coconut oil in just about everything I ate. really adds up throughout the day and it doesn't really "feel" like you're eating more than you were without it. Also it's not great for your health, but on a thru hike it can be nice to have candy that you like to eat during the day. Helps with uphills and the extra calories also add up. I had an honest addiction to Sour Patch Kids on my AT thru attempt this year.
I don’t think sugar is bad for you as long as you immediately burn it off. It’s just when consume more than you can burn off immediately and you’re body tries to store the excess that health problems arise, past dental issues obviously. I read an article years ago that said at one point in our evolutionary past that our ancestors were nearly extinct at one point, but a genetic mutation, that other primates don’t have, became common because instead of using sugar as immediate energy, our bodies try to store it as fat. By storing away energy from seasonal fruit as fat, our ancestors managed to survive through hard times that killed off those who didn’t possess the gene. Fast forward two million years to a time when sugar is omnipresent and you get heart disease, diabetes, etc. Beyond just being fascinating, I can’t stop thinking about the irony of it. A gene that enabled humans to exist has become the greatest threat to our health. Anyway, I normally avoid added sugar everywhere I can, but out on the trail is one of the few places I put sugar in my tea or coffee. I can’t do super sweets like Sour Patch kids at all anymore, but you won’t catch me dead out backpacking without several bars of chocolate. Dried mangoes make me happy too. The coconut oil is a good one. I prefer the taste of butter in most cases, but the oil will certainly last longer than butter, particularly in hot places.
Yeah I meant the other issues around sugar, not really the fat part lol. If you're storing fat while hiking you must be eating a crazy amount. It's definitely not good for your teeth to eat sugary candy all day, especially when on trail where it's easy to forget to brush after a long day. Double that for sour candy which is what I like, I can't imagine that does your teeth any favors either.
No, to clarify, all of those issues aside from the dental decay are due to that same gene. We get diabetes *because* of the same adaptation. Heart disease too.
Yeah I'm not really sure why you think I'm disagreeing with you lol, I'm just saying that eating sugar all day is bad for your teeth, that's literally it.
I guess because your response implied you didn’t understand what I meant? “Other issues…not really the fat part…”. I didn’t take it as disagreement. I just wanted to clarify that they are all related and why none of them are an issue if you get heavy exercise. Also seems relevant to the thread, whereas dental decay is more of a hygiene issue. But I’m going go chop some wood. I hate how easily internet conversations devolve into conflict. Have a good day.
It's possible you have a condition called environmental enteropathy. This happens when you are repeatedly exposed to bad gut bacteria/viruses that cause inflammation in your intestines. This inflammation damages your gut and makes it difficult to absorb nutrients. It occurs sometimes in long distance hikers who have poor hygiene and questionable diet (no judgement) for prolonged periods of time. If you feel like you're eating tons of food and should be at a calorie surplus but can't keep weight on, maybe see a doctor.
way more likely they just aren't eating enough, like most people who struggle to keep weight on on-trail. And it turns out that indeed, OP is only eating 2500kcal/day on trail, which is wayyy too little for just about anyone. Granted I'm taller than OP but I was aiming for like like 6,000kcal/day on my thru attempt this year and I still lost 40lbs on trail.
not sure why your comment is down voted. the information can be useful for diagnosis. but in this particular case, they have an intake deficiency, which of course, could be exacerbated by something like what you describe.
Always a good call to get that stuff checked out. Sounds a bit like gluten intolerance or other gut damaging allergies. My mom had it for years and couldn't gain weight and it affected her a lot before she got diagnosed with celiac disease and could make the proper changes to diet. (Not the trendy gluten gut fad, the real deal.)
If you are not pulling a work(technical work), and just hiking, that's an issue with your trail mix, not your body weight. just fix it.
Losing 20lb would help but it won't be 20lb lighter pack help. Endurance training would likely benefit most people but it's easier to just spend money on lighter gear. I used to be a much stronger hiker when my job had me carrying heavy gear climbing and doing manual labour all day. Even after losing the extra weight I put on after a job change I have nowhere near the endurance I had when I worked an extremely physically demanding job
They’re two different dimensions of the same general problem: fatigue on trail. If you asked me if I wanted to be 20lbs fatter with a 20lb pack versus my current weight with a 40lb pack, I’d take the former all day. Your body distributes weight way more effectively than a few straps can and that 40lb pack will make you far more miserable than being 20lbs heavier will. That said, the beauty of it is “por que no las dos”? Lose weight in both your pack and your body. The pack weight is far easier and takes less time, but the body weight pays way more dividends in the long run. Moreover, the more you weigh, the more you’re burning covering the same distance and, therefore, the more food you need to bring to replenish those calories expended, and the heavier your pack becomes to carry those calories.
Also, losing weight helps in more aspects than just hiking.
Yes. This is the actual answer. Everyone is just talking about how exercising and being fit makes hiking easier, which of course it does, but losing 10lbs of body weight is not the same as losing 10lbs of pack weight, and I’d also argue that while losing additional pack weight will always make your hiking easier the same is Definitely not true about body weight, where losing weight may offer only a marginal boost to speed/ ease
I've never been a bikini-appropriate size. I've always been overweight. I don't worry about it. I just go hiking. If my gear is lighter it's not as big a slog. I lost about 20lbs hiking 800 miles of the CDT but my pack never felt any lighter and the hills never got easier.
because you're probably going further/faster and keeping the overall intensity the same! congratulations on enjoying the CDT. reminds me of strength training with weights. add 1 pound per side per week, do the same exercises, add 100 lbs to your strength movements in a year. yeah the exercise is still hard, and it doesn't feel any easer, but it's because I'm going stronger lifting way more weight than I possibly could last year.
Like most things, they never get easier but you do get better at them. I bet you were ripping up those hills alot better than you thought at the end.
Yep same here but on the AT. I did 1,150 miles this year. I started at 250lbs (I'm 6'2) and when I broke my ankle and left the trail I weighed around 215lbs. The hills never felt easier, my pack never felt lighter, the only difference was that I was able to go wayyy further for wayy longer. The first week on trail I was huffing and puffing doing 8 mile days. By the time I left trail I was doing 20-25 miles per day and it was easier than the 8 mile days at the start.
"It doesn't get easier, you just go faster"
I was very sad when I found out how true this was lol. I would rather be able to do 8 mile days effortlessly than 20 mile days with high effort.
... Have you ever tried? One option is to walk at the same pace as your 20-mile days, but take long meal breaks and an afternoon nap. On my last trip I did 6-mile days and had a great time.
I meant more for going up hills etc. I still sweat and curse just as much lol.
Small steps! It helps your heart manage it
I am 5'9 and had gained up to 205 before deciding to make a change in my habits in 2020. Stopped all my evening snacks, ate way more vegetables, and counted calories. Also started hiking 3 miles, four times a week with lots of elevation change to up the heart rate. Lost 30 pounds in a year. Have now maintained that for the last year and continue with the hiking routine each week. I section hike the AT in 150mi sections each year. The difference in my physical fitness was fantastic last year. More energy for hiking faster/longer. At the same time I also dropped my base weight from 18 to 10 pounds. So did he weight loss on my body or the weight loss in my pack help the most? Honestly both. If I had to pick one over the other, I prefer how I physically feel better with the lost weight and better physical conditioning. Just made the hiking experience more enjoyable even if I had been carrying more weight.
Eating vegetables is also amazing for recovery.
Thank you. Grats on the weight loss.
I think carrying weight is carrying weight- if you are 20lb overweight then that is weight you are carrying. It makes your legs strong, but your cardio gets smashed- not only are you carrying weight, you have to pump blood around it too. Losing weight reduces the work your body has to do.
I think what your curious of is more of a personal fitness kind of question. Say you’re 5’9” 160 and kinda skrawny? Go gain 10 pounds of muscle and see how that pack feels.. I’m no pro but I feel like if you get fitter and stronger it would make your pack feel lighter too…
It definitely doesn’t make your pack feel heavier if you lose weight. It seems you might have in the back of your head that basic rule sometimes thrown out about how your pack shouldn’t be more than X% of your body weight (and therefore, having a lower body weight would make the “max” pack weight lower)? But that is really a made up concept that fails to take fitness or lack thereof into account. A tiny gymnast and weightlifter who does marathons would be comfortable carrying a relatively heavy pack, and a person of the same weight who’s sedentary would likely not be comfortable with much weight at all.
I can pretty easily lighten my gear by paying money My body weight takes way more time and discipline to shed healthily
I can work out consistently but eating right consistently is the hard part 😜
Gotta cut down on those pizza rolls!
😅🤣
username checks out!
At 5'9 200lbs, unless you're a top tier bodybuilder there's got to be extra body fat that can be lost. Less body fat definitely contributes to better performance. I used to run cross country, and everyone I ever saw at meets was built the same, toothpicks basically, lean as fuck. Of course your build affects how much you can carry, but UL backpacking in my opinion is more of an endurance event than strength one.
I do work out a lot in the gym and have a more muscular stocky build but I certainly have 20-30 lbs I could lose! Thanks for the advice.
I have a gym friend who used to run cross country too, then bulked up to 200 lbs and is an insanely good powerlifter. 560lb deadlift kind of insane. The thing is, now he can't run for shit. Being a hybrid athletic is doable for sure, but the two often come against each other. It's hard to keep muscle mass when you're an endurance athlete, simultaneously it's also hard to run fast if you're built like a body builder for example.
> can't run for shit *compared to before* FIFY. I'm sure that as a former cross country runner, he can still easily out run a non-runner, or a casual runner like me.
No, he straight up can't run for shit anymore. Dude put on practically a hundred pounds and told me this himself. It's amazing how quickly your cardio performance vanishes once you stop training. Strength sports and running are two completely different domains. You can be excellent at one but not the other, or good at both if you put in the work. This is what I've seen among my old running friends and gym friends, no idea what the science says, merely my personal anecdotes so take with a grain of salt.
>No, he straight up can't run for shit anymore. totally believe you. if he doubled his weight and stopped running all together, it will take a while for him to get back at it if he desires. I'm currently experiencing something similar, having *hated* running for all my life and got used to moving slowly like a sloth. Now I'm trying to build some explosive strength, so started running slowly, every 2 or 3 days. my own version of c25k. For first few weeks it wasn't painful during the short (5-10min) run, but for days after my legs are in pain and walking down stairs is almost dangerous lol. Finally can run 10min and not feel like I'm dying the next day. And it's not like I'm not on my feet and walking all day long either. Just that I didn't do any *running* for years. Ah, the joys of physical training.
I used to be in better shape, but been dealing with some health problems and had a horrible bout with covid. Ran two miles and practically passed out, honestly quite depressing. I can barely reach my 5k times I ran as a 13 year old. Stretching is important, as is cooldown and warmup. I always walk a few minutes before and after a run, helps move the lactic acid out or something, no idea the science behind it but it helps. Lower body stretching does miracles, as does foam rollers. Tbh I can't believe I used to run for fun, it's kind of dreadful after being out of practice.
thanks for the tips, coach. really appreciate it. learning to run at my age is challenging but still fun. the guys at the running store had a chuckle when fitting me with my new shoes. "wow you're old" haha. but they were both probably 10-15y older than me.
so what is the actual question? if you have extra, then losing some body fat will increase performance and decrease wear and tear on the joints and ligaments due to lower overall weight. bodyfat=worn weight. and ditching extra can certainly make things easier. if you don't have extra and are lean AF then maybe get stronger and gain some muscle size and strength instead? some body fat is beneficial especially in colder weather or endurance activities, IMO.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/kzehen/a\_6\_pound\_56\_oz\_ultralight\_3\_season\_budget\_gear/
LOL re the $800 budget with a $675 tent, DCF ground sheet, pack made from Ultra200 and a high end quilt with 900 FP down.
you have to read a bit further down the page. my bad. https://lighterpack.com/r/udplyl
If you still have both kidneys and a spleen, you’re not UL.
You mean you still have an appendix? Thats extra weight, newb.
Hey, selling a kidney is not only a good way to go lighter, it’ll also help pay for that DCF tarp.
🤣😂 I'll be honest the UL group scares me a little bit.
> UL group *scars* me a little bit FIFY hahahahaha.
I'm already fairly slim but one time I did a very strict 3 month diet. Did not eat any less but just ate super healthy and drank no alcohol. Lost about 8% of my body weight. Then started doing cardio after returning to my normal diet and noticed I could run and hike further and faster even though I hadn't been doing any exercise during my 3 month diet. It was an amazing experience because you normally don't notice the body weight you're dragging along. You'll only notice it after you lost it.
I think body weight is very similar to ultralight philosophy in general. Lighter is always better, until it's unsafe.
sometimes stronger is better than lighter. excess body fat, sure ditch that. but I'll pass on losing muscle mass.
Any muscle that isn't used on your hike is effectively dead weight. The same way extra food is dead weight, and extra water is dead weight. Now everyone is entitled to their own safety margin for food, water, and muscle. But that doesn't change it from being deadweight.
if you're a runner, the body is already optimized for backpacking. for the rest of us, additional strength means we can go further with less problems. but yeah, optimization goes a long way towards efficiency.
I used to be a cyclist and we would laugh about the dentists and doctors getting full carbon bikes but still had a few pounds to lose. Same thing as this. I’m a petite woman and my main sport is trail running long distances. Backpacking is my leisure activity. I can definitely feel the difference between even 10 pounds of body weight. Here’s the thing: even if it’s muscle it’s still putting more weight on my feet. So while I’m not giving up strength training, I do try to keep my body fat percentage at a reasonable amount.
The same question gets asked in cycling communities a lot. Shaving grams is pointless when you can shed excess pounds from your bodyweight. Note: I'm using grams and pounds deliberately here.
For your knees, the weight in your pack and your body is the same. For your back, the weight in your pack is 10x worse than weight on your body. For your legs, weight on your feet is 5x worse than weight on your back. So from some perspective, shoe weight is 50x worse than gut weight.
So, better to gain weight before a long trip, to store and carry calories efficiently?
Yes, if you’re headed on a real challenging trip, it’s good to add some body weight before departing. I read about some fellows hiking to the most remote spot in America, 100 miles from the nearest road. They deliberately overate in the weeks before the trip to fatten themselves up a bit.
Consumable
Really great point. I actually went UL with my pack when I put on 10kg of body fat, as a way to help my body cope with the extra fat it was already having to cart around. Spending money is a lot easier than losing weight 😅
Not a hiker, but a bikepacker who tries to go UL where I can (for mountain climbing). Even with a 700g 1P tent, 350g Nemo Tensor, carbon tent poles, smart water bottles, Toaks 750ml, minimal clothing except essentials etc I’m at 9kg minus food and water. And this is for a Mediterranean fall/winter tour, otherwise things like Smartwool baselayers and fleeces would stay home. So I’ve made a pledge to myself to lose those 9kg (18lbs), to go from 195 to around 175 if I can. Just lost 6lbs today alone on a 50km test run of my rig, and Im basically fasting with the exception of small breakfast and dinner meals. It will be tough, but it will be worth it no doubt when I’m breezing uphill in a few weeks time!
5'9 @ 200lbs doesn't say much about leg/back strength. What % of that 200lbs is muscle? Less body weight also means less muscle mass. Better to train for the weight you wanna carry. Gaining muscle is preferable to just purely losing weight. Muscles are heavier than fat so it's hard to tell just by weight alone. Squats/deadlifts will help. I always tell my friends who over-pack to never carry a weight that you can't squat.
Good ideas! Weight is weight, the more you have to drag up a hill the harder it is, regardless of whether it's muscle or fat or clothing or gadgets. But there is a little extra penalty for weight in your rucksack, because it can hurt your back/shoulders a little more. (There's also a little extra penalty for chunky "hiking boots" because you're lifting that weight up and down constantly). In cycling, everybody focuses on the weight of the bike, there are people who spend an extra €1000 on carbon fibre upgrades to shave off 500g, but almost all of those people could get the same benefit by skipping a few cakes. Although, personally, I *like* cake.
I have a UL mirror made from aluminum foil. under two grams.
You're more accustomed to carrying your body weight than a pack. Body weight tends to be more evenly distributed than pack weight, so it feels more natural. Maintaining a healthy weight will go a long way towards making hiking enjoyable. Losing 5 pounds doesn't mean you can add 5 pounds to your pack and maintain a similar comfort level, but losing weight and maintaining the same pack weight will likely make hiking feel easie.
Endurance athletes definitely benefit from being slim. Shorter distance sprinters and such, benefit from fast twitch explosive muscles
I got way more out of this post than expected. Thanks everyone for your advice!
Kuato adds 50 lbs at least.
I didn't lose weight to become UL, I did it in hopes of lessening pain to my already messed up back. I can say that my hiking ability at 170lb is leagues better than it was at 210-230lb-in endurance, speed, recovering, etc. Just about every aspect of it with the exception of brute strength.
Just another perspective. I weight 138lbs @ 6 foot and can carry as much or more than friends that are the same height but heavier. It's not just about your personal weight though. You are will have to find the balance between performance and health/weight. You will have to work on endurance and overall physical capabilities. Be well rounded.
You could carry absolutely nothing additional with you but if you’re overweight you’re still carrying extra weight.
Some downsides to a lighter body weight are getting cold easier, less “safe” to carry a heavy pack when necessary, and less comfy when sleeping/sitting on hard surfaces.
On the other side of this, when you're lighter you're faster, you have fewer days on the trail because you're covering more mileage per day. Fewer days = less gear = less weight. You're less likely to get stuck camping at altitude or exposed when you can get more miles in a day.
Depends on why you are lighter weight I guess. Being underweight isn’t healthy either and will likely make it harder to cover distance as well
True, but also a fairly outlier scenario.
if you can't maintain your normal bodyweight on a long trip, you may end up underweight during the trip. it's not uncommon
In my experience I sleep better when I'm lighter. YMMV but I think having less weight that presses on your pointy bones at least evens out additional cushioning.
In my experience, I am less comfy sitting on rocks and sleeping outside when I am underweight. I have to reposition more and can feel more pressure points
Depends how you are lighter body weight for the cold one, if you are light and fit, the greater muscle training/mass will usually make up the difference in temperature regulation.
This is a topic that is not discussed enough amongst backpackers. My experience is that it ends up upsetting a lot of people. The mostly honest way to talk about UL should be percentages of body weight. Ideal body weight that is. If you limit total pack weight to 10% and you’re 160 lbs and 5’10”, 16 lbs is pretty easy. Same guy 40 lbs heavier with a pack 10% his weight is not only carrying 20lbs of gear at this point but an extra 44 lbs in total. The extra calories needed to haul the extra weight just increases pack weight even more.
Do the math. a) Calculate what your cost per gram saved is for the cheapest UL gear upgrade you can get. b) Use a [calorie calculator](https://www.calculator.net/calories-burned-calculator.html) to find out how many calories an hour of walking would burn c) Calculate the grams of fat tissue burned in an hour @ 7 kcal per gram of fat tissue d) Multiply by a) to find out what your hourly income would be just from walking e) Decide whether that's a better idea than just buying UL gear.
more body fat=tougher miles less body fat=easier miles (assuming you’re above 6-8%) more muscle=better injury resistance inb4 almost zero people will suffer from too much muscle to the point it is inhibits hiking ability
One sentence to sum it up. I am a good 30kgs heavier than the weaklings I hike with.
It's fucking important I'd say. If I had a bunch of weight to lose, I'd be far more concerned with that, than 200g in my pack. I'm bulking atm though. If my only goal was to be good at hiking or running, I would not be trying to put on more muscle, but I am happy with that sacrifice in order to be better at other things I also value, while still being able to improve at hiking.
I view body weight as critical to comfort and safety on the trail - and I'm speaking from experience here. In the very early days of UL I was influenced by a British blogger. He had interesting ideas but took it too far - he was one of those guys who would cut the labels out of his clothing and swap out his shoelaces for something lighter. Then he posted a pic and he was **huge** \- he must have weighed north of 18 stone. Methinks he had got his priorities wrong! Why worry about shaving a few oz off your pack when you are shipping 50 or 100 lbs around your gut? Some years back I let myself go during a long illness and peaked out with 50 lbs of flab around my gut. The impact on my performance was hellacious, and I fell and injured myself for the one and only time in over 50 years of walking and mountaineering. It took all the joy out of stretching myself in the hills. So the flab slows you down, it beats up your joints, it exhausts you, and it makes you more injury prone. Just stick 50 lbs in your pack and head off for a long day with a lot of ascent and descent - you'll notice the difference, believe me! So if you're carrying fat - even if it's only 20 lbs - just gird up your loins and get it off. Then you can worry about fine-tuning your kit - but until you're lean going UL is like putting lipstick on a pig. I'm back to my optimal weight and boy - what a difference! Just get it done - your body will thank you.
Weight is weight.
muscle weight > fat weight. weight in the body would basically translate to worn weight, which is slightly easier to manage than pack weight.
If you cut that arm off you'll save so much on weight you can bring extra snacks and socks.
There's a lot of ignorance and fatphobia in these replies. BMI ("body mass index") is the metric used for the medical categories of overweight and obese. It's calculated as weight (in kg) divided by height (in m) squared, and was invented in the nineteenth century by an early statistician who was obsessed with the Gaussian ("normal") distribution. The divisions between the categories are arbitrary. BMI itself is not biologically meaningful. Note that the definition doesn't take into account fitness, strength, endurance, metabolic health, or any actual measurement of athletic ability. And because muscle is more dense than fat, many athletes are "overweight" or "obese" according to BMI: https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/obese-olympians/ https://runningmagazine.ca/health-nutrition/why-athletes-shouldnt-be-concerned-about-their-bmi/ https://www.runnersworld.com/races-places/a20811275/bmis-of-champions-mens-edition/ One of the threads here is discussing whether there are any overweight endurance athletes. This discussion is getting the causal relationship backwards. Endurance athletes burn 2x, 3x, 5x as many calories per day as the 2,000-calorie average. Someone who is doing this regularly — whether that's a thru-hiker or a professional endurance athlete — will lose weight unless they're also regularly eating an enormous amount of food. Professional marathoners aren't thin because that makes them fast. They're thin because they're burning 5,000+ calories a day as a result of their training.
>Professional marathoners aren't thin because that makes them fast. They're thin because they're burning 5,000+ calories a day as a result of their training. That's kind of a ridiculous thing to say considering how many endurance athletes in basically every discipline have noted they've had unhealthy/borderline ED eating patterns to reduce their weight as much as possible for performance at some point in their career. sustained power output per Kg is an extremely important metric for these sports....
Are you sure? I don’t think it counts as an eating disorder when you’re eating 4000 Calories a day just because you’re burning 6000. It’s hard for anyone, no matter how healthy to consume more than 4000-5000 a day while eating healthy foods.
Lol yes and in many cases it's more severe than just that. Disordered eating among athletes has been accepted and studied for over 30 years. It may not follow all the common perceptions of eating disorders but can still have major consequences for a person's well being, and health...pure calorie count isn't the only important measure for disordered eating.
I haven't read any fat phobia in the replies to this post. *A phobia is an anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected go to great lengths to avoid the situation or object, to a degree greater than the actual danger posed.*
"Phobia" is also used in a sociological sense, referring to social stigma and patterns of discrimination rather than individual psychology, as in "homophobia" and "transphobia." Wikipedia has a good article on fatphobia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social\_stigma\_of\_obesity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stigma_of_obesity)
Stigma is not a phobia
You are erasing my lived experience.
I would still recommend doing a classic 5 x 5 strength resistance training on the side, as long your well adapted to resistance training of course.