Healthy Camping 2018

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During mid-August 2018, my family, parents and I spent five days at Lost River State Park in West Virginia. It’s a gorgeous park with nice cabins, beautiful mountains, plenty of hiking trails, and lots of wildlife. In fact, I saw the first black bear of my life just two hours after arriving. For those that have read my blog before, this is the same park I visited in 2017 and decided to change my workout approach. Also noteworthy for this trip, I came determined to eat healthy and leave in better shape than I arrived.

I spotted this bear from my truck shortly after arriving.
West Virginia is truly beautiful. I took this photo from a mountain adjacent to the park.

Unlike 2017, I was about 25 pounds lighter this year. Because of the past year of rigorous solo weight training, I have more muscle mass and a different frame than last year. This year was a terrific benchmark test of my progress. Furthermore, this year I had set a goal to hike every day that we were camping. Aside from the morning that we left and I was unable to hike, I adhered to that goal. I even hiked on the day that we arrived, albeit briefly for 37 minutes with my daughter, father, and trail dog, Zeus.

Zeus and I were about to embark on our first hike together in 2018.

Unfortunately, because of an issue with my FitBit synchronizing with my phone, I lost some data regarding my hikes. For instance, the data regarding the hike I took the day after I arrived (Tuesday) was lost. A day later, Wednesday, I did a 91 minute hike and burned 865 calories. That particular hike was a milestone for me because it was the exact same hike I did in 2017. Unlike 2017, I had a lot more energy and hiked the same distance in less time. In fact, I had so much time left that I decided to double the hike and go twice as far as before.

West Virginia has lush beautiful forests. Hiking there is the most enjoyable exercise imaginable.
Zeus took a break from guiding to check on me. He would be certain to stay within a certain distance from me. The below video shows him in action while guiding me.

Thursday was the most impressive hike of the trip; I hiked for 110 minutes and burned a whopping 1,375 calories! The details of that hike were also lost, but fortunately I took a picture of the results screen after the hike as proof. Lastly, on Friday I was able to do part of a 46 minute, 356 calorie hike and when I had just reached the top of the mountain, a thunderstorm erupted overhead. Zeus and I made it back to camp as fast as possible, but we were soaking wet and exhausted from hurrying back. On Saturday we left in the morning and I was unfortunately too busy with packing and loading the cars to hike.

By far the most calories that I have burned from a single activity since purchasing this FitBit.
On my belt you can see the bear insurance that I carried on every single hike. Fortunately I never needed to use it.
Zeus and I taking a break in a shelter at the top of the mountain. I was apparently too tired to take a clear picture.

In addition to hiking, we went horseback riding twice. We went for an hour on Tuesday, and two hours on Thursday. Horseback riding is plenty of fun; however, I was always extremely sore afterwards. Because the horses were going up and down the mountain, there was a lot of time spent bracing myself and shifting my weight and I believe that had something to do with the soreness. I also suspect there was a surprising amount of energy expended and engaged muscles by simply riding the horse, despite the fact the horse was doing most of the work. Speaking of muscles, I made sure to prevent my muscles from atrophying by doing some body weight exercises every night. I would do push-ups, squats, and in-and-outs every night. It appeared to work, because I noticed no degradation when I resumed my normal workouts after the trip.

The horseback rides were beautiful but surprisingly tiring.

The real success story of the trip was my healthy eating. First, I brought a lot of healthy food and snacks. These included sardines, beet chips, kale chips, frozen berries and veggies, ghee for sauteing, my protein powder and supplements, my homemade venison jerky and various nuts. Despite the preparation, we wound up eating out at least once a day. One day, we ate breakfast and I successfully ate healthy by eating an omelet with mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach. For all the other restaurant meals, I ordered grilled chicken salads and used vinegar as the dressing. It was quite obvious that the back hills restaurants were not used to customers asking for vinegar. A lot of times it was evident they gave me the distilled vinegar they used for cooking for lack of anything else. Regardless, I made it work and everything was quite delicious. The rest of the meals, I ate the healthy food that I brought. The only time I ate poorly was when my daughters wanted to make s’mores, and I indulged in a few. After burning hundreds of calories on those days, I did not fret about it too much.

Thankfully I made 5 lbs. of deer jerky before the trip. It served me well!

The next morning after I arrived back home, I stepped on the scale and pleasantly discovered that I had lost 3 pounds during those 5 days. Considering the amount of exercise and healthy eating, I wasn’t overly surprised. Regardless, it was a wonderful conclusion to a very fun vacation.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this blog is based entirely upon my experiences and observations. I am not a medical professional and you must do your own research and consult your doctor before making any changes to your eating, fitness, medication, or supplements. This general information is not intended to diagnose any medical condition or to replace your healthcare professional.

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