[pct-l] Moving toward Net Zero

[Junaid Dawud]

In 2006 I can actually pinpoint the day my hiker hunger / metabolism  
kicked up a notch. It was about two days north of "the faucet" at the  
bottom of san jacinto. We camped at the faucet and the next day was  
bloody hot. We made it past the (i think) I10, past the wind farm  
where i unknowingly drank uranium tainted water, past whitewater where  
I walked into the creek and layed down, we finally camped a few miles  
past whitewater. The next day I woke up with an insatiable hunger that  
didn't subside until a couple weeks after I left the trail.

I think my metabolism went up another notch about 3 weeks after that.  
I remember in norcal counting the "labelled calories" and estimating  
the "unlabelled calories" and figuring my "snack one" at 1100  
calories. Now at the time I was eating: breakfast, snack one, lunch,  
snack two, snack three, dinner, chocolate and tea+cocoa for dessert. I  
think most days I was eating 7000-9000 calories. I still lost weight.

I think you'll have no problem at all losing weight

Incidentally, I dont think my metabolism ever went all the way back to  
pre-hike levels. I still eat ~3500 calories a day and I'm still right  
at my pre hike weight.

Junaid

On Mar 30, 2010, at 4:54 PM, <abiegen at cox.net> wrote:

> When I did my first backpack trip many years (decades?) ago my pack  
> was over 50 pounds easily. I would visualize helium balloons  
> attached to it, pulling me upward. That would help me deal with the  
> pain. the pain wasn't coming from gravity dragging me down but from  
> the helium pulling me up. For some brief moments, I would actually  
> believe it. Then I would imagine making gear out of helium.   
> Wouldn't that be great?! Well there are product out there that call  
> themselves Helium or Hydrogen but it really hasn't happened.
>
> So last year I cut my pack weight from 40 lbs to 20 lbs with  
> considerable investment with my "thru-wallet" friends. That felt  
> much better. This year I'll start out with a pack weight of 14 lbs  
> (sans water but with two days of food) with more investment with my  
> friends. The old goal of zero is never going to work so it had to be  
> dropped. The new goal is Net Zero Pack weight. Net Zero means that  
> as far as my feet, legs, and hips are concerned they are carrying no  
> more weight than they would be if I was just doing a day hike.
>
> So my PCT body weight plus the weight of my pack should weigh no  
> more than my old body weight plus the weight of my daypack. So I  
> have been losing weight - about 5 lbs. my daypack weights about 2  
> pounds. My new pack weight is 14 lbs.
>
> Old weight  = 164
> daypack      =      2
> total             =  166
>
> New Weight = 159
> backpack      =   14
> total               = 173
>
> Net weight   =      7lbs.
>
> So my current Net Weight is seven pounds. My legs are only carrying  
> an additional 7 pounds than when I was day hiking. So if I lose 7  
> more pounds before the PCT, I will achieve my goal of Net Zero.
>
> Piper tells me that I'm going to loose the weight anyway in the  
> first couple of weeks so I'm pretty optimistic I'll eventually get  
> there.
>
> Comments, corrections, criticism welcome. No corncobs or cache  
> cracks please.
>
> TrailHacker
>
>
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