how much weight can an AT thru-hiker expect to lose, i am a bit overweight right now and was just curious. I have been told that people will be skin and bone when they finish, no matter what they look like when they start. All comments appreciated. Especially if you were overweight when you began your thru-hike.
babaganoosh
Dear babaganoosh:
My experience, in civilization,has been that if I walk 18 miles in a week, on level ground, I lose 10 pounds per month, which translates to 120 pounds in a year.
That’s just 3 miles per day in an hour’s time, for six days each week.
After walking the trail, you can expect to have massive calves and considerably bigger thighs, all muscle, which is good, as 98% of all the fat you burn is burned by your muscles, with everything else pretty much burning only glucose. If you eat a balanced diet, and hike the AT daily, you should lose only fat and build muscle.
Impossible to say what you will lose without more information as to your height and weight and how many miles a day you will walk.
But, having said that, the bottom line is this: The AT is the original weight loss clinic and you’ll lose as much as you want to lose. Within a few weeks, you’ll perceive changes in your body and from that point on, you can direct what happens.
Sincrely–Conan.
Conan
If you are overweight, really take it easy those first few weeks, allow both your muscles and joints to get used to the extra exertion, especially as those Georgia hills are brutal on many a knees.
Read Big Red’s journal, AT’03 or '02. He started out a big guy anf losts a lot of weight, plus it is an entertaining journal.
Don’t diet on trail, but do eat sensibly. The weight will come off, don’t think you need to do anything special, and by no means, take anything to help, i.e., weight loss pills, etc. Your exercise levels and fitness will probably be more then you have done in years, and as a big guy, as Baba— said, your legs and calves will grow something fierce (I have giant calves as is, they got massive giant cut up from my time on trail and sections later on)
Enjoy your hike
-xtn :boy
airferret
i am 5’8" and 265 pounds…which translates to very big! I wonder if i would be skinny if i reach mt. katahdin, hopefully taking 5 1/2 months to get there. I hope to average around 13 miles per day. Also, i think it was asked here by someone else a few weeks ago…would i have excess skin hanging from my body?
babaganoosh
Dear Babaganoosh,
At 5’11, 234 pounds, I once lost 40 pounds in 4 months, getting down to 194 pounds, and found my skin to be taut as a drum. From all appearances, another 40 pound (my goal), will yield the same result.
You’re a little shorter, and a little heavier, but I would expect similar results for you.
But, don’t wait! Start walking now! Walk like Conan!
Best of luck.
Alphonse Deluxe
Alphonse Deluxe
Dear Babaganoosh:
Two more questions please.
Are you male or female?
Have you got a lot of base muscle from sports and other athletic activity, or have you lived a sedentary life and therefore have very little base muscle? This is basically a body composition question. Have you by any chance had a hydrostatic immersion test that gave you your percentage of body fat vs. lean mass?
Sincerely–Conan.
Conan
me again. i am a male, and i have a fair amount of base muscle, nothing to write home about, but im not the weakest person around. and no i haven’t had a hydrostatic immersion test. but i know that i do have a good amount of body fat. i would like to lose about 100 pounds before i would be happy with my appearance.
babaganoosh
Dear babaganoosh:
Thank you for your frankness.
I would urge you to start walking immediately, prior to your hike, for whatever amount you can manage.
I’ve disclosed to you my method, and it absolutely works. That is, 18 miles per week, leads to 10 pounds of fat loss per month, or 120 pounds in a year.
Start now and you can be 20-30 pounds of fat lighter by April 1, 2006, a common start date on the AT. Then, on the AT, the weight loss should continue. And, if for some reason, your hike is delayed, your fat loss program will be well under way.
If your fitness level requires that you start out with less time and distance, like 1.0 mile in 20 minutes, that’s fine. Just start walking immediately and at least six days per week. If you miss a day, don’t fret, just start again the next day.
Good luck. You’ll make. The loss of 100 pounds of fat is absolutely do able.
You’ll be greatly aided if you can eliminate or greatly reduce the following substances from your food consumption, as a lifestyle change (as opposed to a short term diet):
Sincerely–Conan.
Conan
babaganoosh,
When I started my thru hike, I weighed 345lbs. I’m 6’4". I lost 40lbs in the first 50 days and 80lbs by the time I reached Katahdin.
At 265, I was definitely not skin and bones. I had no problem with excess skin.
Big Red
Big Red
I was 60 years old when I started my hike in '05, 5’6" and about 180 lbs. When finished I was still 60, still 5’6" but 149 lbs. I did have excess loose skin hanging around my abdomen, but I just trimmed it off, tanned it and made a cool lampshade. Not cooking after Hampton, Tn may have had something to do with it. I’ve been back for about 2.5 months and most of the weight is back. A lingering illness has kept me a little more sedentary than I’d like. The good news is that I’ll probably start walking some of the local NW Wisconsin trails today.
Nimblefoot
My height and weight was almost the same as yours when I started my hike. I was 53 yrs old,5’8" at 256lbs. I finished in 5 mos and 10 days. I lost 80lbs and felt great but according to my neighbor I looked like a lollypop because my body had shrunk but my head had not. But,as I am sure you know, it is very very hard to maintain that sort of weight loss when you are not hiking. That is another matter in its self. Even though I was well overweight for my height I was pretty strong from lifting weights.The advice to go slow at first is very good. End each day at the start feeling as if you could have gone further and don’t make the mistake of trying to keep up with other hikers, not at first.
Take care
Waterboy99
Waterboy 99
babaganoosh,
It is imperative that you begin and continue your journey optimistic and in high spirits appreciative of your surroundings, adventures, and newfound friends along the way. You cant “think” the weight off. Forget about your size, but remain cautious regarding safety, falling, etc. The pounds will come off naturally, and hopefully in a timely, healthy manner. Enjoy the freedom of the trail. Pace yourself wisely. I’m no expert but dont weigh yourself for several weeks into the trip. You should be pleasently suprised. Make the weight loss secondary to (perhaps) more important trail matters at hand. Approach everything as if you did not have a weight loss goals. Safe journeys. And by all means consult a doctor re: heart health.
dan
I agree with Dan. Weighing yourself isn’t important. You’ll know you’re losing weight by the length of belt that starts to dangle from your waist. Put the whole weight issue aside. You will lose it if you hike.
Nimblefoot
Just as a side note … go to www.Prevention.com and you can get the South Beach Diet for free … I lost 12 lbs the first week and my wife lost 10. It’s not a diet but a methodology for choosing the right types of food to eat for long term health. As Conan so aptly put it … stay away from denatured foods.
The Kraft foods website has GREAT recipies, we didn’t care for the ones in the Book. The Black Bean Turkey Chili is out of this world … I’m even going to try to dehydrate some for the trail!
Walk, walk, walk
captn
In my opinion the real issue is not how much you will lose on a thru-hike, but will you be able to keep it off (or at least not put on more than your starting weight) afterwards.
For six months you are going to eat whatever you want, as much fat as you want, as many calories as you want. Then, all of a sudden you will get back into a sedentary lifestyle. Do you think you will be able to cease your recent eating habits and manage your weight? Of course your can, but will you? It can be rough.
jaws
Okay, I am running a bit extra myself at the moment, and I’m shooting for a start date around Mar.1 rather than Apr.1. I expect to drop 30+ pounds as the trail goes on, and I’m actually kinda looking forward to that… Two things I’m wondering:
J.F.
i hiked about 900 miles in '03,quit smoking just before i started. when we hit Katahdin i gained 5 pounds.(with a 40# pack)
bump
babaganoosh, I disagree with Conan to some extent. I thru hiked in '03 and started at 150 pounds. I finished at 120, which is less than I weighed in high school! I was not meant to be that skinny. However, my legs were slim, trim, not bulky and definitely slimmer when I finished, but my upper body had atrophied. I was muscular underneath the 15 or 20 pounds I needed to lose, but I lost a lot of muscle and upper body strength.
You can lose a lot of weight, but I hiked with two guys who lost about 40 pounds each and then stopped. Neither got skinny, but they both looked good. You have be careful when you finish or you’ll gain it all right back also. Within a year and a half I was up to 160. I’ve since lost about 10 of that, so I’m right back where I started and I do not lead a sedintary lifestyle.
I am female, so obviously there is a difference in body chemistry. I did go through three pairs of shorts because of my weight loss and my hip belt was too big once I finished the White Mtns. There will be lots of ways you can tell you are losing weight and lots of things will become easier, but take it slow at first and get fitted for a good pair of shoes!
One more point, many women gain weight on the trail and women who don’t need to lose fat typically maintain or gain on the trail.
Good luck in your venture! Don’t hike the AT to lose weight. Hike it because you can. It will renew your spirit and your strength if you let it!
Tucson
I’ve heard that many people have atrophied muscles on their upper body. Does anyone have any thoughts on how diet might influence this?
In his body for life book, Bill Phillips suggests that you need to take in about 40% of your calories from protein to support muscle development when you are working out as hard as you are hiking the trail. Another 50% from Carbs, and the last 10% from fats.
I would guess that the bulk of most diets on the trail are composed of carbs and fat, with very little protein.
Thoughts?
Captn
Dear baganoosh, Tucson and Captn:
There are several reasons why one can lose upper body mass (or seem to) during a through hike.
First, during a through hike (or even during the walking program I described above), assuming a proper diet, you will be losing fat from all areas of your body, wherever it is stored. This includes the upper body and arms.
Second, during a through hike, you will gaining muscle in your legs (again assuming a proper diet) due to the tremendous amount of work they do. Moreso in the calves, but also in the thighs and buttocks.
But, in walkihng or hikihng, your upper body simply does not do the same amount of work as your lower body, and so does not build muscle to the same degree. Your stabilizing muscles get plenty of endurance work, like your abdominals, lower back, and so forth,your trunk basically, but it is more endurance work than strength building work. So, with respect to your upper body, your trunk muscles should gain an increased endurance capacity, but not necessarily get larger as you are not working your upper body with increasing amounts of weight. In fact, if you were lifting weights prior to hiking/walking, and then don’t lift weights while you are primarily hiking/walking, your upper body muscles should atrophy from a strenghth point of view, because you’re simply not lifing weights any more, not giving them the same amount of work. Meanwhile, your legs are carrying more weight (your pack), working all day, doing endless squats and toe raises. For the same thing to happen to your upper body, you’d have to lift weights or swim harder and harder each day for a time equal to the duration of your through-hike.
And finally…
Third, depending on your body composition (% of lean mass versus % of fat), a person can have much more fat stored in an apparently trim upper body than one might expect. This is because muscles themselves can store fat, and it is only when the muscles’ capacity to store fat is reached, that the body begins to store fat between the muscles and the outer layers of skin. This is why, for example, as people age and become more sedentary, they can, for a period of time, appear to be unchanged, while in fact their body composition is changing. That is, they appear unchanged, while in fact their muscles are atrophying, because the muscles are storing fat intramuscularly and thus appear to be the same size. But, everyone who has weight-trained at some point in his or her life, realizes the difference between “hard” muscle and “soft muscle”, the difference being of course that the “hard muscle” has little or no fat, while the “soft muscle” is maximizing its capacity to store fat and has in effect become a storage area for fat. The point here, is that even a person who appears to be slim, can have a high percentage of fat in his or her overall body weight (men should be no more than 15% fat, women no more than 24% fat). As such, the fat loss could appear to be muscle atrophy, when in fact much of the appearance of atrophy could in fact be the loss of substantial amounts of intramuscular fat.
To the person who now screams: “But my upper body got weaker!” I can only suggest to you that by changing the way you used your upper body during your through hike, you must have somehow acted in a manner that demanded less strength from your upper body. That’s the most likely explaination, as muscles grow or decrease in size based on one principle, the SAID principle, which means: Specific Adaptions to Imposed Demands. If you lift heavier weights regularly, you will increase the size of the muscle; if you lift less, or not at all, you muscle will decrease in size. If you begin doing more repetitions of a movement, your body will create new (more) blood vessels in the relevant muscles to allow for increased aerobic activity in the form of more repetitions. If you become inactive, over time, some of those new blood vessels will disappear.
With regards to diet, a quick word. You’ve got to have sufficient carbs to burn for fuel, along with your body fat, and sufficient protein to rebuild your muscles which are being torn down every day under your massive hiking workload. If you cheat yourself on carbohydrates, your body will use your dietary protein for fuel, with the result that your dietary protein won’t be available for muscle and tissue repair. If you get plenty of calories, but not enough dietary protein, you’ll develop the same problem. So, careful attention must be paid to what you are eating and what nutrients are contained therein. Basically, you want nutrient dense foods, not empty calorie foods. If you constantly work, work, work your body, as through hiking does, and you fail to consume the nutrients (including protein) to repair and rebuild your bodily parts, they will all eventually break down. You want to do all you can to avoid that. You want to stenghten, cruise comfortably, and glide into infinity.
Sorry to go on so long.
Sincerely–Conan.
Conan