How to Lose Weight

I found out the hard way last year that I am susceptible to altitude sickness. For some reason, it hits me after I crack about 11,500 feet above sea level. Back in 2010 I had hiked extensively in Yellowstone National Park, hitting peaks above 10K feet and feeling no ill effects of altitude whatsoever.

But, when I got to Colorado and started hitting really high (by USA lower-48 standards) peaks, I discovered that I do get altitude sickness. Really classic symptoms, too. Headaches, loss of appetite, dehydration, shortness of breath, nausea, reduced capacity to reason...most of the uncomfortable symptoms.

One thing about it, though...I lost a LOT of weight over the course of just a week spending most of my time between 11K and 13K feet. I pretty much stayed sick, so I had to force food down to keep from getting even sicker, and I was burning a lot of calories walking up and down those slopes at that elevation.

Another thing that I noticed is that I would awaken in the night gasping for breath whenever we camped at really high campsites.

Thus, the next time I go to such high country (and I'd like to do that in 2014...I've been looking at hiking in the Sierras in California), I want to make sure I'm in better shape than I was when I went to Colorado.

I think I weighed about 215 or so when I got to Colorado.

In Rocky Mountain National Park, on the flanks of the highest peaks in the Park, where I found out altitude sickness is some serious shit.

In the Mount Sneffels Wilderness a few days into the trip. I think I'd already lost a few pounds. Not much, but a few.

Coming down from one of the high passes we had to hike. This one had been very close to 13,000 feet.

Lying in my tent one evening. Cold. Sick.

Toward the end of the trip. I think we had one full day to go. I'd lost about twenty pounds by this point. My belt was all but useless. Had it cinched as tight as it would go and had to cram a washcloth in my waist to keep it tight.

The Condemned's Last Meal

I did really well all during the holiday season. I managed not to gain a single pound from November through the beginning of January.

Then, last week, my weight went up five pounds in just a few days. As usual, a diet ensued. I just can't eat like a ravenous bear during the salmon run and not expect to get really fat. Sunday was the last day of uninhibited eating for a while. Since we were visiting Carole's mom I figured I'd have a last meal before facing the starvation music.

Here's what I had:

The always wonderful grilled-cheese sandwich, home-made vegetable soup, and three glasses of sweet scuppernong grape wine.

Followed by apple pie with vanilla ice cream and two cups of really kickass coffee.

2006, Year of the Diet

2006 was a weird year for me. After spending almost every free weekend and holiday I had in 2005 hiking and bagging peaks, 2006 finished up as a very different year.

For one thing, it was the year my wife put the both of us on a very strict diet. I went from a size 40 pants to a size 36, and lost about forty pounds. My wife lost quite a bit more than that. I walked around hungry most of the time.

Another thing about that year was that it was the first full year that we had with our Casita travel trailer. Thus, instead of renting cabins in state parks, and tent camping, and staying in lodges and hotels, we hauled our Casita almost everywhere we went. That made for a very different way of spending our leisure time. It was also the year my novel THE FLOCK appeared in print, and the year that saw publication of the anthology EVERMORE that I created and co-edited for Arkham House Books. It was just a very different year for me. A very happy year, I have to say.


The beginning was weird enough. We stayed at this popular campground in the Pisgah National Forest. It was too dark when I got there the previous night to park the trailer in the right spot. So I left it in the pull-through driveway. Early the following morning hurricane-force winds whipped through the campground. A pine tree fell precisely where I was supposed to have parked. If the trailer had been there, it would have been shattered by that falling white pine. Fortunately, we weren't where we were supposed to have been.

Strange year though it was, I still managed to do quite a lot of hiking and to bag a number of peaks. Here begins a partial list:

The first peak of 2006: Stony Knob. I got an early start on the peak bagging that year. This was on January 15.


I got sidetracked after that on trips to Florida. My next mountain excursion was to the Cataloochee area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But it wasn't to bag a peak. I made that journey to locate the now-famous Sag Branch Poplar--the world's largest Yellow poplar tree. Here's Hank Pownell, me, and Jack Thyen standing at the base of that enormous tree.


It wasn't until June that I could get away to the mountains again. This was one of the most enjoyable trips we've ever made. Here Carole and I are with our friends Roy and Cindi Aiken and their children Emily and James. I can't even recall the name of this peak. I'll have to look it up. We had to bushwhack a bit into the forest to find the true summit.


Later on that same day, Roy gets a bit queasy looking down into the abyss on one of the intimidating slopes of Backbone Rock.

This might very well be my all-time favorite waterfall: Backbone Falls. Also on Backbone Rock. There are higher falls; falls with more volume; more isolated falls--but this one is just right at the top for sheer beauty and the great atmosphere of its location.

Carole snapped this in August at Indian Boundary Lake in Tennessee where we went to camp, hike, canoe, and find waterfalls. I didn't bag a single peak on that trip, but it was a lot of fun. I was starting to get toward thin around this time.

The grandstand view from our canoe.

These were the fantastic waterfalls in the Bald River Gorge Wilderness. The flow was great this trip because of the heavy rainfall. Around this time my clothes were really getting baggy--even the ones I'd bought to replace the lardass duds.

2006 will be continued later...

Another Damned Diet

My weight has fluctuated quite a lot over the course of my adult life. Since the age of 17, I've been as light as 172 pounds, or as heavy as 250 pounds.

Fuck it. I like to eat.

However, I don't enjoy being fat. If you've ever been thin and also fat, you know how much more fun it is to be thin. When you have a tendency to go to fat, the problem is in weighing the difference between the constant struggle to stay thin and the pleasures of eating lots of good food. Generally, my will power is not able to overcome my need to enjoy lots of good and very fattening foods.

The last time I altered my diet, in 2006, I lost a bit over forty pounds. I had not started out the heaviest I'd ever been (but close to it) and I didn't end up the lightest I've ever been (but relatively close, especially considering my age). Now that I'm 50 years old (almost 51) I know better than to expect my body to ever snap back to the way it looked at 26. It ain't gonna happen. However, I do enjoy being lighter. There's just that problem of fighting the urge to over-indulge in the kinds of meals that I seek out when I'm not paying close attention to what is, in reality, best for me.

When I started my dieting in 2006, I went from a size "40" pants to a size "36". And the 36 waist sizes were getting loose when the Holiday season rolled around. I opted to leave the confines of my diet around November so that I could enjoy the various dinners that I knew would be coming along. I managed not to gain much weight through the beginning of 2007. However, my weight slowly began to creep north. Until last week when I had to face the fact that, while I can still wear the size "36" slacks and shorts, they're getting tight. I've managed, since October of 2006, to gain back about twenty pounds.

Ugh.

Time to go back on the diet.

2005, before a two-day backpack in the Black Mountains. Probably the heaviest I'd been in a long time. I'd guess I was around 240 pounds. One thing about me is that even when I'm fat I'm still physically active. My weight has never stopped me from hiking, backpacking, or scrambling.

Mid-2006, goofing off with my wife at Huntington Beach in South Carolina. This was about the lightest I got that year. Somewhat south of 200 pounds, but more than 180.

This was taken recently on a hike to Green Knob in the Black Mountains of North Carolina. My weight is around 215 or so. Time to go back on the diet. Ugh!