fitness

In an attempt to give me a feel for and help me train for the John Muir Trail while I’m in Washington I’ve been looking for trails that would take me into cold weather conditions in June/July for a day or two at a time. The Washington Trails Association Trail Finder has been really useful for that. WTA.org has an interactive map of the trails, plus trail reports. I’ve chosen three to test me in various situations similar to the Alpine regions of the Sierra Nevadas.

The following trails take one up over 3000 feet (two over 5000 feet), meaning one will need crampons for parts and that it will probably around or below freezing at night. They’re also over 14 miles each, meaning It’ll give me  a taste of some of the easier trail days.

My plan is to use them to train and test my gear for the JMT (while packing a weeks’ equivalent in weight of food) to make weight the same.

Here they are:

Iron Peak Loop

Roundtrip 14.5 miles
Elevation Gain 3600 ft
Highest Point 6387 ft

This trail takes hikers along open ridges, as one would encounter on the JMT. Route finding may be necessary as the trail doesn’t have a lot of use. Snow will present a challenge as might be the case in some parts of the John Muir Trail.

Meander Meadows

Roundtrip 12.5 miles
Elevation Gain 2475 ft
Highest Point 5000 ft

This follows the Little Wenatchee River up to its source. It’s an uphill trek, just like the many sections of the JMT that will take us over mountain passes.

Deep Lake

Roundtrip 14.5 miles
Elevation Gain 2150 ft
Highest Point 5500 ft

This trail goes through many switchbacks as it takes you up to Cathedral Pass. Yet another similarity to the JMT.

What are your favourite training trails?

This year is a big year for me. I need to be in shape for it. I didn’t know where to start, but my wife had found a cool tool that she started using at Livestrong.com, which tracks calorie consumption and workouts. I didn’t realize how many calories I had been eating! This tool is helpful in helping one control portion sizes and be more conscious of junk food.

Up until now, my training for hiking consisted of… well, just hitting the trail. I’ve never really monitored caloric intake or what I’m eating; I never really needed to. Until I hit 30.

Prior to leaving for a long-distance hike there is a lot to do—you have to buy gear and supplies, pack maildrops, organize maps and guidebooks, etc. But it is important that you are physically, as well as logistically, prepared for your hike. – Andrew Skurka

I determined to make a change with that now that the pounds don’t disappear as easily… and because I have plans to hike the John Muir Trail over just 12 days (17-22 miles a day uphill with a pack). Most of that is over 8000 feet, too. I’m also hoping to summit some 20000+ footers in May. I didn’t want to disappoint those I’m hiking with (or myself). I certainly don’t want to get left in the dust, or be so focused on that next mile that I didn’t get to enjoy the scenery. Andrew Skurka managed 100 photos a day when he did it in 7 days!

Enter Livestrong.com. Livestrong is a comprehensive fitness site that helps you manage everything from calories to training to health in general. You can use as much or as little as you want. Currently, I use the fitness tracker, my plate calorie tracker, and read through the excellent articles on training.

Once you sign up (for free) you can start entering things like height and weight. These serve as your basis for BMI calculations and really come into play once you’ve been tracking process for a while.

MyPlate – Food

The biggest shocker for me was the MyPlate application. It lets you enter what you ate at different times of the day. The cool thing about that is that they have a constantly growing database of foods and their related calories per serving, fat, protein, etc. When you start typing in that Burger King Rodeo Cheeseburger it eagerly tells you the facts that you’re already regretting. It tracks everything… so make sure you do, too.

It updates your totals as you go. I was shocked to see that by lunch on my first day that all those snacks had added up and I was closing in on my daily total (one can adjust this to a weight-loss diet, too and make one feel even more conscious). There’s even a mobile version of the Calorie Counter to take with you when you’re away from the PC.

If  one can’t find the food you ate on the list one can always enter it manually. One can also adjust the size of existing items to account for bigger or smaller servings. I’m really impressed with it. Especially after finding 4 or 5 entries for Homemade Oven Fries. It advertises itself as the largest food-calorie database on the web.

MyPlate – Fitness

After reviewing my total calories consumed for the day, I knew I had to do something about that extra portion of oven fries. I reluctantly jumped on the elliptical trainer.

If you cannot train for a long-distance hike by hiking, then I would at least encourage you to get your legs accustomed to moving by running, cycling, or walking (ideally, on trails and with a pack) every day. – Andrew Skurka

We have a love-hate relationship, my elliptical trainer and I. More hate than love. I thought it was just me until the handle disconnected and proceeded to pelt me with every stride. Nevertheless, I persisted for 80 minutes and sat down for a minute to enter the facts in livestrong.

Now, if anyone has used an elliptical trainer they’ll know that the totals are usually way off. It said I had covered around 30 Kms (18.6 miles) in those 80 minutes and burned close to 2000 calories. I chuckled, but inside it made me feel really good. I went over to the Fitness tab and filled in the activity “Elliptical Trainer” and it populated the facts, only 743 calories per hour. Sigh. Well, it was good as now I had something more accurate to measure my progress with.

What’s cool is that it adds… I mean subtracts those calories burned from your total so you know where you sit in your daily goals. I could eat a whole 1000 more calories! I didn’t, but I felt good that I could. I’m in this to lose a few pounds and get in shape for those 20 mile days later this summer.

Weight

Every day I’ve been entering my weight at 9 am before breakfast. I know that in the beginning I’ll be losing weight, but in the long term I’ll reach a plateau when muscle building beats fat loss. In the short term it’s nice to know I’ve lost 3 lbs off that 175 lbs. Plus, I feel better too!

It really shows me where the calories come from. Those 8 Oreo cookies (don’t judge) were 560 calories, or 1/4 of my calorific goals. Not worth it… ok, it was good in the moment. Worth 45 minutes on the elliptical? Meh.

Set Goals
Mentioning weight, if your focus is to lose a few pounds, you can set weight, fitness and nutrition goals as well.

My wife just had a baby so she wants to return to her ideal weight. She entered her age, height, weight, and how many pounds she wants to lose a week in the My Calorie Goals screen and it adjusts her calories to a rate that will help her meet her goals. The drop-down limits you to 2 lbs a week, unless you do custom goals – so be reasonable!

Kinect

I’ve been eyeing a Kinect Program called Nike+ that apparently you can use with this app to track weight-loss a well.

Competition… er… Community

Although my wife and I don’t talk weight-loss, and only generally mention calorific goals (i.e. “What do you mean I only have 200 calories left!?!?!”, or, “I think I’ll go for a salad for dinner”), we do use the positive pressure to our advantage. If I get on the trainer for over an hour she wants to know for how long and she’ll get on next and trundle away for the same… or more.

Doing this together is great, we’re both in this together! We have a 3-month-old, but that just means we take turns holding him.

If you don’t have someone locally to motivate you they have a community section where there are Forums, Dares, Groups, etc.

Try it Out!

I’ve been sticking to the My Plate section as it is full of the stuff I need. In time I may expand to use other parts. The articles are useful and I recommend reading them if you don’t know where to start with training. I recommend this to anyone that has goals for fitness and / or weight loss this summer.

The biggest benefit for me is the calorie counter. It’s surprising how much I shove down my gullet, and I can look back and decide what I want to cut out to save me some flab.

Do you use this or some other site? let me know I’d love to see it. If you want to join me, please do we can figure out a way to work on this together.

www.LiveStrong.com