physical health for a thru hike

[hobby]

Quitting smoking will do more to improve your health than anything. Nicotine gum, lozenges or patches will help relieve the cravings while you deal with the habits and rituals of smoking.
Yes, you are still putting nicotine in your body, but not the carcinogens and carbon monoxide from smoke. You can cut down and eliminate the nicotine once you are out of the habit of smoking. Quitting smoking is easy--I did it thousands of times! lol I stayed quit by using the nicotine lozenges, then stopped those later by decreasing over time.
Keep increasing your walks to improve strength and endurance (this will really improve once you stop smoking)
Speedgoats <------yes!

[Traveler]

I apologize if i ruffled a few feathers with my doctor rant but from my personal experience what i say still stands. Maybe there is some program for continuing education for doctors but nobody here can argue with the fact that as a high paying profession like being a doctor there are plenty of people who are in it just for the money. If you think otherwise you are naive and I'd say its more than a few rotten apples in a barrel.

No maybe's about it, here is a break down by State of Continuing Medical Education (CME) requirements for medical doctors: https://www.boardvitals.com/blog/cme...ents-by-state/. Many professions require continuing education, which does not completely safeguard the profession of having it's share of malpractice issues, but is a means to keep the field educated in new and established therapies and help disqualification if these requirements are not met.

I had a GP for years who finally was so upset with my continued smoking and complaints of smoking related health issues that he threatened to shoo me out of his practice unless I stopped smoking and changed my diet that was building cholesterol. Sometimes its the patient who is the problem when things don't work out. Stop smoking, get a better diet plan going to lose weight, start walking more hills, you'll get there. Don't do those thins and you won't.

To answer your question, sandals can be nice to have for water crossings and used as camp shoes if you want the extra weight. Small weight as they are, enough of those kinds of things will weigh you down as evidenced by contents of hiker boxes of gear abandoned by hikers along the way. There are few things one can control relative to endurance like weather conditions and terrain, weight is the only thing we have that is adjustable. When you have gone through everything with a scale (electronic scales are cheap at Amazon), you may be surprised how much weight you are carrying with your preferred gear and items that are nice to have at times, but not used daily. When you start cutting the handle off the tooth brush you know you are in the "sweet spot" of weight reduction. My rule to follow is if I don't use an item much when I am camping, out it goes.

Be well.

[gpburdelljr]

https://mymedicalscore.com/medical-error-statistics/

• Medical errors cause an estimated 250,000 deaths in the United States annually.

How many lives are saved every year by modern medicine? Life expectancy in the US was 47 years in 1900, now it is 79 years. A lot of the increase is attributable to better medical care.

[Astro]

Healthspan much more important than lifespan.
Unfortunately much of our medical approach is reactive (just trying to prolong your death) instead of proactive (preventive to live better until death).

[JNI64]

That's how they keep the pharmaceutical and ozempic companies rolling in the $

[Slugg]

Well anyway i was wondering if carrying a pair of sandals like chacos would be a good option when having to cross rivers to keep my shoes reasonably dry. Still plugging away and am up to 2 mile walks no problem.

Feet-wet water crossings are rare on the AT. If you want to carry another pair of shoes there are lighter options than Chacos (knockoff brand “Crocs” are popular but there are lots of options). Personally I don’t take extra footwear.

[One Half]

How many lives are saved every year by modern medicine? Life expectancy in the US was 47 years in 1900, now it is 79 years. A lot of the increase is attributable to better medical care.

the life expectancy was NOT 47 in 1900.

46% of people died before the age of 5. Women had a 10% chance of dying in child birth. But if someone lived past 20 they were as likely to live to 75 as anyone today

The first recorded heart attack was in 1921 - President Warren G Harding. https://naomedical.com/blog/first-re...evention-tips/

I believe the first heart attack was around 1910 through autopsy. I was actually listening to a new (to me) podcast where they were going over this stuff.
I think this was the episode I was listening to: https://youtu.be/pEMjLMCObdg?feature=shared

[jefals]

You may have heard of a dude with trail name "2nd chance". Weighing in at 400 pounds, he decided to thru-hike the PCT to lose some of that weight. So, substantial health-improvement is a goal you both share.
You might search him out on YouTube, and study his progress - and pitfalls. You might be able to learn something not only from what ge did right but also from what he did wrong...

[jefals]

All the talk about doctors reminded me of a time in my life when I was in my 30s living in Phoenix, and I started climbing something called Squaw Peak every day. I'd go up at a snail's pace.
One day I noticed what appeared to be a very fit young man whooshing past me - running down as I was 'crawling" up. It wasn't long before he flew past again, now going back up.
I would see this guy running up and down this thing twice on an almost daily basis, and it wasn't long before I noticed that tho he had the body of a fit young man, his face revealed he was probably in his 50s or 60s.
We sometimes met and sat and talked at the top. Turns out he was a heart surgeon and, according to him, climbing was the best exercise you could do for your heart.
Since then I've never stopped climbing.

[gpburdelljr]

“46% of people died before the age of 5. Women had a 10% chance of dying in child birth. But if someone lived past 20 they were as likely to live to 75 as anyone today”

And with modern medicine those deaths would have been much lower. Also many people that lived past 20 in 1900 died of diabetes, heart disease, pneumonia, TB, various cancers, etc., which are all treatable in varying degrees today.

[Mother Natures Son]

I agree with others, start slow. Maybe a easy section hike. (The Cumberland Valley comes to mine.)

[One Half]

“46% of people died before the age of 5. Women had a 10% chance of dying in child birth. But if someone lived past 20 they were as likely to live to 75 as anyone today”

And with modern medicine those deaths would have been much lower. Also many people that lived past 20 in 1900 died of diabetes, heart disease, pneumonia, TB, various cancers, etc., which are all treatable in varying degrees today.

diabetes, heart disease and cancers were virtually unheard of in 1900. it's the crap food in the standard american diet that causes these diseases to a very large part

[Time Zone]

diabetes, heart disease and cancers were virtually unheard of in 1900. it's the crap food in the standard american diet that causes these diseases to a very large part

Your first claim is false in each case.

But it's true, I and my fellow Americans can and should eat healthier, and that would likely reduce the incidence and severity of the first two diseases you mention.

[Mfturner]

i wonder how common heart disease was in 1900? When I just did a Google search of the string “heart disease in 1900”, the first hit on Google was from the National library of medicine on the NIH, and the first two sentences in the abstract were “Heart disease was an uncommon cause of death in the US at the beginning of the 20th century. By mid-century it had become the commonest cause.”.

but I cannot get past the abstract without an account to get details.

IMO “virtually unheard of” isn’t terribly different in meaning to “uncommon”, but that’s just my opinion.

[Deadeye]

Quit smoking first, then go for a hike. I ruined a lot of hikes by thinking I could just go into the woods without smokes.

[futureatwalker]

...I had a heart attack about a year ago and had a quintuple bypass. My legs have atrophied to the point where i cant even run ,I started going for walks to try to get some conditioning in but id go maybe 4-5 blocks and the burn would turn me around mainly in my calves and hamstrings from what i noticed( not out of breath ). So one thing i was wondering, is it possible to hike the AT being out of shape and slowly working my way up to getting my hiking legs....

To return to your initial query - is it possible to hike yourself into shape on the AT? Yes.

But the real question is: is it probable? The answer is 'No'.

But the good news is that you can increase your odds by getting stronger before you start. Assuming that you wish to start in April, you can get a couple months of walking under your belt by then.

So it depends on how much you want it. If you are serious about hiking the AT then get serious about your physical preparations.

[FTK]

I agree with others that said quit smoking first. I quit back in 2002 and if I can do it anyone can.

[Tallpine]

To return to your initial query - is it possible to hike yourself into shape on the AT? Yes.

But the real question is: is it probable? The answer is 'No'.

But the good news is that you can increase your odds by getting stronger before you start. Assuming that you wish to start in April, you can get a couple months of walking under your belt by then.

So it depends on how much you want it. If you are serious about hiking the AT then get serious about your physical preparations.

The motivation to increase fitness prior to starting the AT is, I tell myself,” you’re not going unless you get moving” I am dropping weight and walking as I can. I know that, at 63 years old, I won’t go fast and I won’t go far everyday and I couldn’t care less. I plan on walking to water rather than specific mileage. I will rest before I get tired, never exerting to a point of open mouth breathing and enjoy the adventure. I think it’s better to go slow, rest a lot and produce low mileage rather than being forced off the trail due to exertion related injuries.

[Deadeye]

I spent lots of bucks and time trying to quit smoking - hypnosis, cold turkey, therapy, etc.. I was eventually able to do it with nicotine patches, starting with the full patch, and gradually going smaller and even cutting the smaller patches in half then in quarters. It was not easy, and I had many false starts, but once you can go a few days without smoke, you start to get more confident and willful that you will make it.

And after 20+ years, I still get the occasional urge. It's a powerful addiction.

Don't use the AT to quit - that will ruin your hike. Quit or don't quit, but go ahead and hike.

[Leo L.]

The benefits of quitting smoking has been pointed out by most people here. In addition, it propably helps to know that the human body is able to recover over the years to the state of a non-smokers body:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...stract/2811807

Decades ago, I was a heavy smoker for about ten years.
As soon as I started to do rock climbing in a more serious manner, I well understood that smoking was a big hindrance against some serious improvement in sport.
It took me several attempts to stop smoking.
There was one book that gave me the right mental tools to finally succeed:
Maxwell Maltz "Psycho Cybernetics".
Maltz explaines that the biggest part of all our life, especially the daily habits, were defined by our subconsiousness. Then he describes a way how we can re-program the pattern defined there.
He starts with easy little experiments, like, to tie the shoe laces intentionally in a different order than we normally would (defined in our subconsiousness), and after bigger and deeper going experiments of such kind you finally have the whole toolbox of methods and ways to simply quit smoking almost effortlessly.