Hello. I was wondering if anyone can give me some advice on keeping weight on the trail. I am a tall thin distnace runner,and have just decided to thru hike in a few weeks. I need info on weight gainers to take on the trail…email me back
Thanks! Jeremy
Jeremy
I used to be a big fan of peanut butter…that was OK for a month. Then I put squeeze Parkay margarine on everything I cooked. Now my favorite is to use Olive Oil. It tastes great and actually provides the “good” fat for your body.
JT
As before a long run. Carbo load. Except thru hiking is like doing a marathon EVERY DAY. Pig out in town and make sure to hit all the food groups so you don’t go vitamin low. Lots of bananas, pasta, portien. Your body should already be close to needing mass calories from running so it should take you less time to go into the “starvation hunger mode” of most thru hikers. Eat quality foods and lots of them, you’ll be fine.
Bushwhack
didn’t bother Earl none. most hikers gain weight these days. a “thru-hike” is filled with “trail magic feeds”, restaurants, plentiful hiker boxes and grocery stores galore. it ain’t a wilderness trail. weight maintenance is the least of your worries. boredom.
Lone Wolf
not me. 16,000 miles and i still love this shit. LOTS of hikers have had it by Harper’s Ferry. They keep going cuz they ain’t honest with themselves, hate failure, told tons of folks back home they would go to Maine, think the "big K’ will give em an orgasm, etc., etc., etc. it’s just a mountain. it’s just a trail. holy grail? not even close.
Lone Wolf
I met a number of hikers out there who hated what they were doing but like Lone Wolf said they felt they couldn’t go home with their tail between their legs. What a bunch of crap. If after 100-200-500-1000 miles you are no longer enjoyin it, go home. Go do something you do enjoy. – I’ve been force two years in a row to leave the trail without making the Big K. Life does go on. No one stand and points fingers. – For me, I’ll continue on because I love the hike.
HammockHanger
Hey Sue. Maybe if you don’t know why you’re trying to thru hike you shouldn’t. If you have a goal, to enjoy the woods and the motion, you’ll do all right. If you do it to, well, try something different, maybe not. It seems us die hard woodsy folk have no problem with the grit and grim. I for one was born to a outdoor family. I would say that most hikers we met last year that “didn’t have a clue”…didn’t. Bored, sore, hungry, not in thier comfort zone. Dancing isn’t my comfort zone so I don’t. Unless its dancing with wolves. Ha! Different strokes. I stroked a canoe paddle in the canoe my dad owned before I was born thirty-eight years ago. Its a blood thing, being comfortable in the woods. Gotta love it, or hate it. Bushwhack
B+B '01
Right on Sue,
If you’r not enjoying it you shouldn’t be out trying to do a thru.
I’m not saying that you have to enjoy every minute because I don’t think you can do a thru-hike without having some down time.
You just have to relize that you will get to the top of the mountain, the rain will stop, the bugs will go away and your ackes and pains will go away. It’s all part of the hike.
Gampie
How the hell did you all go from peanut butter to boredom on the trail? This poor man just wants to know some good stuff to eat and you’re giving him a lecture on motivation.
Anywho, on eating. Very few people gain weight on the trail. Unfortunately the stuff that you should eat either gives you horrible gas or it weighs a ton. Peanut butter, olive oil, dried fruits and nuts. All this is loaded with calories and probably the best thing for you to take. However, after 10 days I couldn’t stand it. I ended up losing 50 lobs on the trail, but I was still pretty well nourished. Here is what I ate:
Breakfast
Bagle/bread PB and J
Poptart
1 hour later
milk and cereal bar
11:00 or so
Luna Bar/CLif Bar
Lunch
Tuna sandwich
maybe some cheese
maybe some jerky
Pringles
Little Debbie Cakes (usually 2)
Candy Bar (Snickers)
Afternoon Snack
More Little Debbies
Dinner
Ramen
Mac N cheese/Pasta/Lipton rice/cous cous (our rotation)
Little Debbies
Candy Bar
Vitamen Supplement
This is what we ate almost everyday and then we gorged in town too. Most people we saw ate less on the trail. This stuff is pretty heavy. One girl we hiked with carried Ramen and Little Debbies, that’s all. A lot of it is trial and error with your own body. Learn to listen to what it craves for and then eat it.
Grimace
Worried about losing weight on the trail, huh? If you’ve got a quick metabolism, you have to “trick” your body into wanting more calories.
Here’s one way: eat your fill of whatever dinner you’re making (mac-n-cheese, Liptons, whatever). This is almost always a salty or spicy meal, and your belly will tell you when you’ve had enough.
But that doesn’t mean that you’re actually “full.” You’re just satiated with the type of food you’re eating. Now try switching over to something sweet–you’ll find that you have plenty more room to chow down. Pick up lots of extra calories/energy this way.
Teddy Roosevelt
maybe i am illiterate, but, i don’t think sue was saying that she didn’t enjoy it. she does enjoy it and that is why she keeps going back. she has had to leave the trail twice due to illness or injury, yet she doesn’t let the trail beat her. i think what she is saying is that if you do have to leave for some reason or another, it is nothing to be ashamed of. i too have left the trail twice. once because i was on my deathbed with viral pneumonia and once because i decided i would rather do other things than hike through 95-97 degree heat with 90% humidity. i’ll return to the trail. i am not ashamed.
i don’t know sue, but i think you should back off of her. she’s just trying to do what she loves to do- hike.
as for the food- jello instant pudding became a main staple of my diet. lots of energy and lots of calories. i packet of jello instant pudding. 1/2 cup powdered milk. 1 1/2 cups of water. put it all in a ziplock bag, seal, and knead for 5 minutes, and hey- you have pudding. good stuff.
grizzly adam
Jeremy-I don’t anything specific about weight gainers myself, but if you went to your local health food/GNC type store, you could probably get the info you need.
I had a weight lifter friend of mine who was always downing some powdered drink mixture from GNC. Swore by it.
Hope this helps.
Pushing Up Daisies
Met-Rx makes some rapid gain stuff my coworkers uses. Something like 40% protien, 40% carb and other rocks. Make a Nalgene every day and look like Popeye on the your lower body half. :>)
Bushwhack
I was just replying to the post before me.
As for food and weight gain. I never really wanted to gain weight!!! Females do not seem to have as much weight loss as guys. To maintain weight or muscle I ate alot of that pre-cooked bacon for the grease and fat. Not bad to the taste buds either, also cheese & jerky. I really oinly ate one meal a day, dinner. The rest was more like snacking all day long. I ate alot of Snickers and near the end was gagging on them. I hiked off trail to any deli within .5 mile. Always one while there and onr to carry up the trail. I had no trail appetite, but did make up for it in town. I lost 30 pounds, gained 10 back as muscle and maintained that throughout the hike. NOTE: I was overweight at the begining of the hike and needed to lose some weight to get into excellent shape. HH
HammockHanger
Because we lost so much weight during the last two thru hikes, we tried extra hard to eat LOTS this year. We also got as much complex carbohydrate (mostly fruit/veggies), protein (nutrition bars, TVP, etc.) and fat (oil, PB, etc.) as we could. The result => we still lost weight (-20 pounds for me and -15 for Vster, and we were not overweight to begin with) and we were still often hungry. (We did, however, have more energy than last time, I think.) Different folks have different metabolisms, but I don’t think I can hike 10-14 hours a day and not lose weight, no matter what I eat in town. BTW-most hikers regain lots/most of the weight they lose after they get off the trail, but when I hiked in '99 I lost 30 pounds and have never gained it all back.
Old Man
Gained all eight, sorry, pounds back and now lost it again thanks to mega mile road bike rides. Made my post hike weight again. The wife hardly lost any. Women are weird about that. Okie, marathon running girl type, gained weight! Couldn’t catch her. Yeah eat alot and then some more. It’s hard not to over eat when thru hiking even if the plan was to get in shape and lose some. After a gorging you get hungry an hour later you’d never be non cranky. I tried to eat a tree after a foodless day going into Fontana.
Bushwhack