How to lose weight while hiking (in the mountains)

In fact, you don’t need to do anything special to lose weight while hiking. Under the backpack, the weight loss process starts automatically. But there are a couple of mistakes that tourists sometimes make in an effort to quickly lose weight, and which I want to warn you about...

All these mistakes come precisely from impatience, from the desire to lose the maximum kilogram in the shortest possible time. So:

I won't have dinner

Refusing food during high physical activity is not such a good idea. The body already experiences constant stress, especially in the first days of the hike. After all, there are unusual activities and unusual conditions of rest (sleep), and those extra pounds have not yet gone away. And if, against the backdrop of all this, you also have to starve, then there is every chance that you won’t be able to stand it, lose your temper and generally “screw up” the event - go off the route and ruin the long-awaited weight loss.

The second danger of radically reducing the diet is the possibility of hunger fainting. Believe me, if you faint in the mountains, standing somewhere on a high rock, then there will be no one to lose weight.

You have to sweat a lot

There is a theory according to which a tightly packed body (for example, in cling film or too warm clothes) sweats a lot and therefore loses weight faster. Perhaps this is true. But please, do not try such experiments on your hike. Firstly, excessive overheating significantly increases the load on the heart. And, as you remember, it already works a lot during a hike. Secondly, in the mountains you don’t have a shower at hand to clean yourself up after your “workout”. Thirdly, a competent tourist, on the contrary, tries not to sweat on the route - in order to reduce the risk of catching a cold, so as not to dry out clothes later and so as not to waste precious moisture and minerals.

For men - how to gain weight while hiking?

If girls usually want to lose weight, then for guys an equally common dream is to gain muscle mass or, simply put, the desire to pump up. They usually pump up with the help of weights, and when hiking they go with a heavy backpack, which means they can pump up while hiking. Logical?

Not really. On average, a men's backpack weighs only 20 kg. And the nature of the exercises performed (thousands of repetitions with light weight) and dietary habits do not at all contribute to weight gain. Even the legs that constantly work while hiking do not grow from such loads, but rather dry out. Yes, biceps or even quadriceps do not grow while hiking. During a hike, the heart, lungs and blood vessels become stronger. On the contrary, the muscles contract in volume, although they become more resilient.

How many kilograms of weight can you lose on a hike?

This is a very individual question. I can only speak about my personal experience. I am 38 years old, height 179 cm and my “base” weight is approximately 80 kg, which is quite a lot and is apparently explained by “heavy bones” (and a good appetite). So, every winter, in 1-2 months of relative inactivity, I gain up to 5 kg of fat. At the end of February, my weight tends to reach 85 kg, although it rarely reaches this mark. But already in early March, spring treks in the Himalayas begin. I’m leaving for Nepal and already in the first 2 weeks I’m losing at least 3 kg there. This is clearly noticeable by how much looser the trousers become. If I don’t stop there and spend a couple more weeks hiking, then I become really “dry.” The weight drops to 77 kg, the thickness of the skin-fat fold at the waist is reduced to 8 mm (probably). At the same time, I don’t go on a diet, but on the contrary, I eat like crazy (regular food + a little protein). It turns out that in a month in the mountains I lose 7 kg without much effort. This seasonal cycle has been operating successfully for more than 10 years and I hope to continue to function in the future.
At first, I still entertained myself with the illusion that a hiker could “pump up” (before I became interested in tourism, I was a big fan of the “gym”). But then he admitted the obvious - all avid tourists and climbers are thin and wiry “trash”. Excess meat in the mountains is quickly utilized by the body and nothing can be done about it.

Dry facts about calories

According to the tourist guide “Food on a tourist trip” ( Alekseev A.A.) energy consumption on difficult hikes can reach 5-8 thousand kcal per day. My pedometer on a hike shows an average of 25-30 thousand steps per day. By the standards of the plain (or gym) this is not very much - no more than 2000 kcal. But in the mountains we walk over very rough terrain with very heavy backpacks. So it turns out that energy consumption reaches 5000 kcal. At the same time, the calorie intake on autonomous hiking rarely exceeds 3500 kcal per day (otherwise the weight of the backpack ceases to be feasible). And there is neither a refrigerator nor a store nearby. Those. there is a calorie deficit, which the body copes with in the simplest way - by absorbing its own fat and muscle reserves at a rate of 1500 to 3000 kilocalories per day. So consider how much you have enough))

Kirill Yasko, Kathmandu, April 2018.