Diet or Buy It?

I've lost 15# since Christmas by making a pretty major lifestyle change. Gone is the garbage food and lethargic inactivity during the week and present are daily exercise and healthy eating.

Yesterday my wife, dog and I went for a short winter day hike (3.5 miles and about 18 degree temperatures) at a local nature center near our home with lots of up's and downs. I was only carrying a waist pack with 2-24oz H20 bottles, snacks and a 16oz thermos of coffee instead of my normal ULA Conduit with about 16# of load.

I was absolutely, positively amazed with how great I felt. I was never once winded and felt great from start to finish. Obviously it was a short test, but one with results that I felt were very positive.

In conclusion in my case I am benefiting by cutting weight from my body and being more physically fit. The best part of all this is that in my case exercise is free and eating better is actually less expensive too.

Disclaimer: I'm all for super-cool, light weight gear….I'm on my way to amassing a nice collection. :-)

Steve

I don't think it's an either / or question… personally.

Sorry….didn't mean to leave impression that I thought it needed to be either/or…..I think it should be both!

Steve

It's hard either way. I'm not waiting for my DH to lose it. I'm buying it. Otherwise we'll never get out. With good quality gear you can always sell it later. Life's too short to use bad gear.

Well, as others have said, "both" is the best answer.

My personal journey from traditional to UL to SUL, starting a few years ago, was first more about "buy it." I was always into gear, but then I started to realize the benefits of minimalism and long distance days.

As my base pack weight got lower and lower, I started to think "what next?" First I got really into food weight for backpacking trips, which taught me a lot about nutrition and caloric density for different foods. So, I could carry less food for a trip. Then I focused on being smarter about carrying water.

Then, I turned to my own body… the final frontier ironically enough. I decided to taken my knowledge of nutrition and fitness and focus on loosing some fat. I made a plan and did it, sorta like I plan backpacking trips. Lost about 20 lbs.

So, now my body + total skin out weight for a week long trip is less my body used to weigh.

This is something that I've been thinking about for a long time.

I feel that pure weight loss will have a positive, negative, or neutral effect on your backpacking, depending on how you do it. Watching TV and drinking UltraSlimFast? Unless you're overweight or obese this will probably weaken you as much as it lightens you. Starting regular exercise regime and eating less Trans Fat? You will feel like superman on the trail; even more than if you buy a $500 tent that weighs 1 lb less.

Unless you are overweight or obese, I don't think that "weight loss" is what you need to be focusing on: I believe that FITNESS is absolutely the key to ultralight backpacking. A gym membership should be considered the most basic piece of UL Backpacking gear.

Increased fitness yields:

Greater ability to keep oneself warm, day and night
Less sweating = less wetting out of clothes and pack
Ability to move fast in response to approaching weather
More restful sleep
Less need for sleep
Less need for breaks that cool you off and break your rhythm
Less need to adjust clothing
Ability to carry less water
Ability to carry less food
Less stress on the body = improved appetite and digestion
Less fatigue = better decisions, quicker reactions
Better balance + co-ordination = fewer accidents and mishaps
Better mood, better attitude
More hours on the trail per day!

Yes: if all the time I spent on BPL were devoted to working out, I would probably be capable of more miles than I am today. I love UL backpacking as mental exercise: it's a logic problem, and an exercise in proactivity and memory and self-reliance. It's also better for joints like the knees that were *not* designed for the stresses we put on them. However, now that I am below 10 lbs base weight I focus my time and energy increasingly on my full-body strength, endurance, flexibility, and especially cardiovascular fitness.

EDIT: PS consider the extreme fitness sought by soldiers of all types — a SEAL team needs to spend 2 days and 2 nights swimming and walking 100 miles with a 100lb load on no sleep – just to get to the fight. Then they have to complete their mission and get out. Imagine what those guys could do with a ULA Conduit and a Gatewood Cape! :D

Great info. people. As the ultralite revolution continues, it is an exciting time and there certainly is a bewildering amount of gear choices. I do think that the time I spend surfing and feeding my gear head tendencies my be better spent.

When a new piece of gear posts on Ryan's "gear shop," it is simply amazing at the feeding frenzy that occurs (case in point- Bush Buddy stove). I wonder if there is a point of diminishing returns…I see the gear lists compiled by the SUL community and it seems so far beyond my current comfort zone to trek confidently, safely and have fun. In my experience as a professional dive instructor, I saw the same type of gear revolution hit the market place in the 80's and the saying still applies today: "there are old divers and bold divers but there are no old bold divers."

food for thought..

"couch"