How Nature Immersion Improves Physical + Mental Health

This post originally appeared here on The Trek.

Why does being in nature feel so good? I considered this question a lot after I finished thru-hiking the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) last autumn, as I rapidly slipped into a state of apathy, and, concurrently, watched my glowing post-trail health decline. For those of us who spend hours wandering the outdoors, we’re intimately aware of how nature immersion improves physical and mental health. Now there’s a growing body of research to support what we’ve intuitively known.

Humans Evolved Outdoors

We have an innate connection to the Earth. We’ve known this for a long time. Do you find comfort in the sound of rustling leaves, the feeling of the breeze against your cheek, and the sight of sunlight filtering through the trees? I imagine there are few humans who don’t. Nature is where we evolved and it’s our place of respite.

Biophilia (love of life and the living world) is a concept made popular by American biologist E.O. Wilson in 1984. He believed that because we (humans) evolved in nature, we have a biological need to connect with it. We love nature because we learned to love the things that helped us survive. We feel comfortable in nature because that is where we have lived for most of our time on earth.

“And this affinity for the natural world is fundamental to our health. (It’s) as vital to our well-being as regular exercise and a healthy diet. Just as our health improves when we are in it, so our health suffers when we are divorced from it.” E.O. Wilson

An Urban Species

We have increasingly become an urban species, spending around 90% of our time indoors, with an average of about 11 hours per day on our devices. According to research in the book Forest Bathing by Dr. Qing Li, this has resulted in anxiety, headaches, depression, mental fatigue, eye strain, insomnia, frustration, irritability, and reduced quality of life.

By 2050, about 75% of the world’s projected 9 billion people will live in cities. The stress associated with living in cities is causing a lot of sickness, including more heart attacks, strokes, cancer, anxiety, and depression. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls stress the health epidemic of the 21st century.

The Benefits of Nature Immersion

A growing body of data suggests that connection to nature impacts the following health parameters:

Reduced blood pressure
Diminished pain
Improved cardiovascular and metabolic health
Improved concentration and memory
Reduced depression
Improved pain thresholds
Improved energy
Improved immune function (an increase in the count of the body’s natural killer (NK) cells)
Increased anticancer protein production

Nervous System Regulation + Stress Reduction

Of particular importance is the effect that nature immersion has on the nervous system. The nervous system is responsible for the stress response. Increasingly, people are spending more time stuck in the sympathetic (fight or flight) mode of the autonomic nervous system, and consequently, less time in the parasympathetic (rest and repair) mode. Sympathetic overactivity is related to several diseases, particularly many of the chronic diseases that are so prevalent today. For that reason, shifting our nervous systems into sympathetic mode as often as possible is imperative for long-term health. While there are many natural approaches to lowering stress, nature immersion is free and backed by science.

Research shows that forest bathing, the practice of walking in the forest, lowers the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline; suppresses the sympathetic system; enhances the parasympathetic system; lowers blood pressure, and increases heart-rate variability.

How the Wilderness Improves Health

How exactly is nature immersion improving our health? Based on research cited in Forest Bathing, there are several mechanisms of action, including the reduction in screen time and noise pollution, cleaner air, and the soothing sight of the fractal patterns of nature. Additionally, there are two powerful health enhancers found in forests. These are phytonides and a specific class of microbes.

Phytonides

Forests not only have a higher concentration of oxygen, but the air is full of phytonides. Phytonides are the natural oils within a plant that are part of a tree’s defense system. Phytonides protect plants from bacteria, insects, and fungi. Evergreens like pine trees, cedars, spruces, and conifers are the largest producers of phytonides. The main components of phytoncides are terpenes. These are all those scents you smell as you hike through the forest. The major terpenes are: D-limonene, alpha-pinene, beta-pinene, and camphene.

Phytoncides increase NK cells and NK activity, enhance activity of anticancer proteins, decrease levels of stress hormones, increase hours of sleep, decrease scores for tension, stimulate pleasant mood, lower blood pressure and heart rate, increase heart-rate variability, suppress sympathetic activity and increase parasympathetic activity.

Microbes

When we walk outdoors we breathe in mycobacterium vaccae, a bacteria from the soil. This bacteria boosts the immune system and a boosted immune system makes us happier.

Connect Through All Five Senses

Research cited by Dr. Li suggests that the greatest health benefits come from connecting to nature via all five senses (that’s right: hearing, sight, smell, sound, and touch). For example, natural silence, and the sight of the natural fractal patterns of nature reduce stress by as much as 60%. In terms of smell, researchers found that there are a few factors associated with forest bathing, which increase mental clarity and our sense of well-being. These include phytoncides and M. vaccae (discussed above), and the presences of negative ions in the air. In terms of touch, grounding (skin to earth contact) maintains the flow of electromagnetic energy between your body and the natural world. Grounding reduces pain, boosts immunity, and decreases inflammation. Regarding taste, there are the many nutritional benefits of truly wild foods, though you must be educated and careful while experimenting.

Minimum Effective Dose

A study in Nature, which included 20,000 participants, indicated that 120 minutes a week in nature is significantly associated with good health and well-being. It didn’t matter whether that time was in one long session or several shorter sessions per week. Furthermore, the results applied across different ethnic groups, socioeconomic classes, genders, and levels of baseline health.

How to Get Started

You likely don’t need me to tell you how to immerse yourself in nature. However, review this basic outline to ensure you get the most health benefits from your time in the wilderness.

Find a spot in nature. The farther away from city noise, the better, but if a city park is your only option, that will do.
Engage your five senses. Doing so pulls you out of your incessant thoughts and drops you into your present surroundings.
Sit in one spot or walk at a steady meandering pace. The goal is not necessarily to get in a workout or even to get anywhere. This mindset shift may be the most challenging part for those of us accustomed to hiking long trails.
Complete this practice for a minimum of 120 minutes per week.

That’s it! You’re now getting all those research-backed benefits of nature immersion. To dig deeper into this topic, start with this article, and then move on to Forest Bathing by Dr. Qing Li, The Nature Fix, and Ecopsychology. For bonus points, sit on the ground, in the sun, while you read.

October 27, 2018October 31, 2018

Oregon Desert Trail Journal

Field Notes (but mostly photos)

I have an (almost) daily habit of journaling, whether on trail or off. My journals are less of a play by play trip guide (“we hiked X miles to Y canyon, which is part of Z wilderness…”), and more of a free-flowing reflection on my inner experience. It’s a way for me to process the moments, the days, the feelings that make up this bizarre experience called life.

In the fall of 2018, I hiked the Oregon Desert Trail westbound, with 2 hiking partners. See this post for an overview of the trip. The present post is mostly a photo essay to provide a visual representation of the ODT, loosely in chronological order, with a few random notes from my trail journal mixed in. I hope it gives you insight into how diverse and stunning this landscape is.

“We dropped down into the aptly named Painted Canyon. Cool early morning hiking. A million shades of rocks. Bruise purple, juniper berry blue, sage green, burnt orange, sun-baked-bone white. The canyon walls pockmarked with thousands of tiny caves.

The sunrise touched the tips of the surrounding rock as we continued down the wash, hopping and picking our way over water-smoothed rocks. ….The terrain opened up, the canyon walls become tall grassy hillsides on either side of us. Spires of rust-colored rock jutting out of yellow grass.”

“Once the sun is up, the day becomes unbearably hot very quickly. We realize we’ve miscalculated our mileage to the next reliable water. We come upon a horse trough. It’s full of water covered in algae. We remove the scum to unveil cool murky brown water. Grateful, we drink.”

“Up one wash after another, cheatgrass filling my shoes and socks. Several carcasses and piles of bones scattered about. The remains of a desiccated snake.”

“We continue on, hiking cross country, up drainages and canyons. We round a bend, and a quarter mile in front of us, a wild horse stares back in our direction. We approach slowly. With surprising grace, it swiftly climbs the hillside and disappears behind a rock outcropping.”

“Many people don’t understand why you’d want to go on a desert hike. ‘Isn’t it lonely out there? Barren?’

There are mule deer and horses and lizards and snakes and hawks and coyotes and sages and thistles and wildflowers and rabbit brush and juniper and just so much life out here. How could one get lonely in the desert?”

“My legs were scratched to pieces and burnt with heat rash, and my shoes and socks were filled with sharp cheatgrass, but the moment I stepped into the rushing Owyhee, all the aches melted and everything, yet again, was okay. The current was swift and I held tight to some rocks underwater. It’s difficult to describe how glorious a dip in the river feels to a dust-caked, sun-soaked desert walker.”

“Despite the rough day, I’m grateful to be out here. Grateful to walk. Grateful for incredible hiking partners to laugh and suffer with. Grateful for a strong body. Trail (and life) will always bring challenges. It’s up to us how we perceive and handle them.”

“We walked dirt roads for 8 hours today. The landscape went on forever. You reach the top of a small rise and the scene resets, road and sage on into infinity. Dust devils danced in the wind. Heat waves rose from the ground. So much space for the mind to wander.

At lunch, we create personal shade patches by propping our umbrellas on sage bushes and scrunching underneath. We kept imagining we saw shade trees in the distance, but they all turned out to be weird shaped rocks or just more sage.”

“The fine dust lent itself well to telling the desert’s story. I could detect the tracks of so many different animals and invented a whole narrative in my mind. The snake, the giant millipede, the mouse, the antelope, the coyote, the jackrabbit… So many creatures have traveled here before me. People think the desert is lonely. I have to laugh. ”

“Up at 4:30 and hiking by 5 under a crescent moon and starry milky way. We walk directly east into the soon-to-be rising sun. The light filters rose, purple, orange through the clouds. Walking along the canyon rim, we make good miles on old jeep roads before the sun climbs too high in sky. Jack rabbits dart from one sage bush to the next.”

“Within a few miles, we’re forced into the river to make our way forward. The walls of the canyon are rocky and steep and the small bank that comes and goes on either side is full of willows, grasses, briers, hackberry trees, sage bushes, and massive boulders. Canyon travel is difficult and we move at 1-1.5 mph.

I’m swimming towards some large red boulders on the opposite bank, determining how I’m going to get up out of the water and onto the rock. I begin to pull myself up, eye level with the top of the boulder. I look up, searching for my next hand hold and spot a rattlesnake about 3 feet from my face. It doesn’t rattle. It begins to slither away, then stops, flicks it’s tongue, and coils into strike position.”

“We stop for a break at a bend in the canyon. In one of the most wild and remote regions of the country, it’s unbelievably silent…. As we pack up to move on, I hear what sounds like a jet coming around the canyon wall, and swooooosh, a flock of grouse is flying directly at our heads. They head straight for us, not veering up until the last moment. We whip our heads to follow their path, and as quickly as they appeared, they had flown out of sight. “

“We hike across the playa of the Alvord desert, a 12-by-7-mile dry lake bed. Mountains in every direction. Steens Mountain, which we will climb 5,000′ up and over tomorrow, is in the foreground.”

“I rolled my ankle in the Pueblos yesterday and it’s throbbing now. We make it to the hot springs by dusk. We snack and soak and rinse our clothes and linger until our skin is pruny. It’s glorious.”

“This type of travel requires you to constantly be on; to be flexible and adaptable. You might find cow trail to follow for a few hundred yards until it peters out, or you get cliffed out, and you have to let go, and find the next path of travel until that peters out or you realize you’re off your trajectory, and then you adjust again. Constantly changing your plan, experimenting, trying, failing, and not getting frustrated in the process. Good practice for navigating life.”

“The Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge is beautiful. Easy walking along rolling hills covered in sage brush, groves of aspen, and lone junipers. We’ve seen several herds of antelope. The aspens are golden-orange-yellow-bright green. I’m grateful for this taste of fall on the autumnal equinox. We descend down to Hart Lake and pass several boulders covered in petroglyphs. ”

“The rocks here are diverse and beautiful. And sometimes painful. Lava rock strewn everywhere, including all throughout the fields of sage and cheatgrass we traverse. There’s obsidian, opal, quartz, and many more whose names I don’t know. Remnants of the region’s volcanic history.”

“I wake up to the sounds of coyotes howling again. This morning, the twilight is a lovely red glow as we climb up to a ridge. We’re up high on single track (an ODT luxury). The nearly full moon is a big orange Harvest moon setting in the valley. We crest a mountain just as the sun rises and treats us to spectacular views of the Warner mountains in all directions.”

“This trail was a time warp. 30 days felt like 4 months. I didn’t come with many expectations. I just wanted adventure. The diversity and beauty of this landscape has amazed me. Much more than miles of sage, this area holds true remoteness and hidden gems. We’ve walked 700+ miles through one of the most remote regions of the US, in one of the hottest and driest seasons on record. We didn’t see a single other hiker. We laughed a lot and never passed up a chance for shenanigans. It wasn’t a relaxing month-not by any stretch of the imagination. But it provided the space and freedom and challenge I needed. It slowed me down. It was a salve to my irritated soul.”

“Ahh, to walk all day. To explore the limits of the body and the mind. What a blessing.”

May 16, 2018May 17, 2018

Boulder Skyline Traverse

A version of this post originally appeared on the Trek website here.

I love this hike (or run–depending on how fit I am). It’s a convenient and easy option when I want a longer day on trails, with respectable elevation gain, but I don’t have the time to get deeper into the mountains. Planning is easy and I also don’t have to fight traffic.

I’ve done this hike a few times. The photos here are from a hike in early April 2018 while we were still getting occasional spring snow in the front range. The morning was chilly and there were light snow flurries in Boulder. I hiked through fog up Shadow Canyon and arrived to sun and the most beautiful inversion (see photos below) at the saddle between South Boulder Peak and Bear Peak. The sea of clouds remained for most of the day.

The intention for this particular Skyline Traverse, beyond just an enjoyable day in the foothills, was to test my fitness level for a bigger hike I had in mind.

The Basics

Length: Ranges from 16-26 miles, depending on which trails you choose and whether you hike point to point or create a loop.

Location: Located in the iconic Rocky Mountain Flatirons, this hike hits the five highest peaks in the foothills surrounding Boulder, CO. The peaks include South Boulder Peak, Bear Peak, Green Mountain, Flagstaff Mountain, and Mount Sanitas.

Trail Type: Due to its proximity to an urban setting, this hike can start and finish in several different locations, depending on your logistics and the level of challenge you’re seeking.

Scenery: A mosaic of ecosystems from grassland to mixed ponderosa pine-douglas fir forests to rocky outcroppings and mountain streams. The traverse also showcases views to the east overlooking Boulder, Denver, and the plains beyond.

Terrain: Moderate to Difficult. There’s a system of well-maintained, connected trails throughout the area. With a total elevation gain of about 6000’, this hike makes for a solid day. However, if you’re heading south to north, once you climb the initial 3000’ to your first peak (South Boulder Peak), you’re mainly hiking rolling terrain along the ridgeline until you drop back down to Boulder before ascending your final peak of the day (Mount Sanitas).

Navigation: Straightforward. Check out a trail map of the area in advance and know your turn-offs. The trails are not particularly well-marked, but if you’ve looked at a trail map in advance, you should have no problem. The city of Boulder provides a good interactive map of the trails on Open Space and Mountain Parks land here. You could print out a map of the area and highlight your route or plot it on a mapping app.

Getting There: Depending on which direction you hike and whether you want to make it a loop, there are many options for where to park, including South Mesa Trailhead, NCAR, Shanahan Trailhead, Chautauqua Park, or Mount Sanitas Trailhead. For a point to point hike, park at either South Mesa or Mount Sanitas and get a shuttle to the other end (or bring a buddy with a second car). If you have non-Boulder County license plates, there’s a $5 fee to park at South Mesa.

The Hike

For my south to north hike, I parked at Mount Sanitas Trailhead and rode with a friend to South Mesa trailhead. I chose south to north to get the biggest climb of the day behind me early. It’s about a 3,000’ climb up Shadow Canyon to South Boulder Peak. From there I crossed the saddle over to Bear Peak, and descended via the Bear Peak West Ridge Trail. At the fork, I turned left on Green Bear Trail and hiked about 1.5 miles to the Green Mountain West Ridge Trail. I took that to Green’s Summit then backtracked to Ranger Trail, which descends about a mile until it forks left towards Flagstaff Road. Once over the underwhelming Flagstaff summit, I found Flagstaff Trail, which I followed down to View Point Trail, then down into Eben G. Fine park. After crossing Boulder Creek, I made my way towards Sanitas via Sunshine Canyon, hit the summit, and returned to my car via the East Ridge Trail.

Why Hike This Trail: If you live in the area, this is a classic run or hike. The Boulder County Open Space and Mountain Parks are arguably some of the best in the country. Planning this hike is simple enough to be done in an afternoon and the logistics are easy. The terrain is challenging enough to keep you engaged, but not overwhelmingly difficult. This trail allows you to put in a good day of miles and elevation gain, travel through the beautiful foothills ecosystems, and be rewarded with views of the city. Plus, you get to relax and refuel afterwards in Boulder, with it’s many good restaurants and breweries.

Climate and Weather: This hike can be done year-round. Microspikes are recommended in the winter, as snow and ice often remain on the peaks, even when the ground is clear in town. Late spring and summer are beautiful times for wildflowers, and fall is a great time to spot golden aspens along the trail.

Beware of afternoon showers in the summer. Due to the change in elevation, weather and temperatures can be quite different from your car to the peaks, so bring layers, and always have at least a wind/rain jacket. Don’t let your proximity to town cause you to be careless. It’s still a mountain environment with common dangers like sudden thunderstorms and snowstorms, slippery rocks, sun exposure, and areas with steep terrain.

Camping & Water Sources: While there is no overnight camping along this traverse, there’s a lot of national forest near Boulder where you can camp before or after. A Google search will provide several options. In terms of water sources, there are a few creeks along the traverse where you could collect water if needed, but since it’s a day hike, it’s also easy to just bring the couple of liters you’ll need.

Closing Thoughts: The length and elevation gain of the Boulder Skyline Traverse are ideal for a challenging day hike. Logistics are a breeze due to the accessibility of the trailheads and the proximity to town. The diverse ecosystems, the stunning views of Boulder, and the availability of post hike libations make this hike a great activity for well-trained visitors and locals, alike.

Much has been written about the Skyline Traverse, so you’ll have no trouble finding more information. If you’re in the area, do a bit of planning, then get out there and hike (or run) this classic Boulder traverse. You won’t regret it!

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January 29, 2018

The Danger of Fueling with Faux Foods

This post originally appeared on The Trek, which you can find here.

Hikers burn thousands of calories a day, so the quality of the food doesn’t matter, right?

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

When it comes to food on a long trail, the focus is usually on calories and palatability. Little attention is paid to the long-term impact of our food choices on our health and the environment. I’ll outline 10 reasons to make real food your primary fuel for endurance endeavors, as well as simple steps for how to make the transition.

What are Faux Foods?

Before we can avoid them, we must know how to identify them.

Faux foods are:

Foods where real ingredients have been stripped out and replaced with substitutions.
Foods that are created in a lab rather than grown in soil.
Foods that have an ingredient label containing substances you can’t pronounce.
Foods that are produced in a way that’s destructive to the environment.

‘Faux foods’ may not be the most accurate descriptor, as the foods are not necessarily fake, but it’s a good catchall for these foods, and it’s catchier than ‘non-food junk’, so that’s what I’ve settled on.

What This Means for Hikers

It’s hard to imagine a diet worse in quality and nutritional benefits than the Standard American Diet (SAD), which is an obvious culprit in the U.S. obesity epidemic (affecting 1 in 3 adults) and a strong contributor to the current chronic disease crisis (affecting 1 in 2 adults).

But there is one diet that is arguably even worse, and that’s the standard Thru-Hiker diet. This diet consists primarily of heavily processed, packaged foods, which are loaded with preservatives, artificial ingredients, colorings, trans fats, and excess sugar. Of course, this way of eating developed because hikers need high calorie food, which is light, packable, and tasty, but many are unaware of the dangers of faux foods and the alternatives which exist.

While many hikers can get by on Snickers and Doritos for a few months with seemingly few consequences, junk food has real implications on your energy, your performance, and even the outcome of your hike.

10 Reasons to Reconsider Your Resupply

1) You Are What You Eat

You’ve no doubt heard this before, but just let that sink in. What you eat literally becomes the components of your body. Do you want to be made up of artificial ingredients that were synthesized in a lab or would you prefer your cells to be made up of real, living things which grew from soil, sunlight, water, and air?

2) Inflammation

The full body inflammation caused by excess intake of faux foods makes us more susceptible to injury and illness. In 2017, injury and illness accounted for 17% of AT hikers quitting their thru-hike attempt. The main drivers of inflammation in a typical hiker diet arerefined sugar and trans fats.

3) Gut Health

Intricately tied to inflammation is the health of the gut lining. Sugar and refined ingredients, as well as several food additives and preservatives, have been shown to disrupt the digestive system – especially when exposure is chronic. This also impairs absorption of the limited nutrients that are being taken in.

4) Slower Recovery

If your body is lacking in essential micronutrients, it takes longer to get back to full speed. Thru-hikers beat their bodies up daily, so fast recovery is key to feeling great day after day.

5) Increased Incidence of Cardiovascular Disease, Autoimmune Conditions, and Allergies

Faux foods are more likely to result in these long-term health conditions that will affect you long after you’re off the trail. Processed foods are also more likely to cause allergies.

6) Slower Wound Healing

Chronic inflammation suppresses your immune system, thereby causing slower wound healing. It’s not uncommon to endure small wounds on trail, and quick healing reduces the chances of developing a serious infection that could end a hike.

7) Blood Sugar Balance and Bonking

Completing a long hike often requires long days. The key to having sustained energy and hiking big miles is maintaining balanced blood sugar by steering clear of highly-refined, processed foods.

8) Mental Clarity & Motivation

It’s often said that thru-hiking success is 90% mental. Whether you agree with that or not, there’s no doubt that the mental game is a huge part of successfully completing your adventure. Steady blood sugar helps you make better decisions and stay motivated over the long haul.

9) Post-hike Depletion

Most hikers are ambitious people with big plans. Rather than ending your hike exhausted and burnt out, it’s possible to recover faster and be ready for your next adventure without having to spend months on the couch in front of the TV. Faux foods lack the nutrients and antioxidants that will help you bounce back faster.

10) Overeating and Carrying Extra Food

Faux foods often have plenty of calories, but are deficient in nutrients, leaving the body unsatisfied. This leads to endless hunger and results in carrying more food than you may actually need.

BONUS:

The environmental impact of our choices is something we all need to be aware of. Industrial, highly-processed, GMO-filled foods increase the profits of mega-corporations at the expense of the environment we love so much.

5 Ways to Avoid the Pitfalls of Faux Foods

When it comes to eating for endurance, and overall personal and planetary health, I tend to follow a credo more than a specific diet. I don’t like the word ‘diet’ because it conjures up ideas of strict rules and restriction, which is not what I’m suggesting. A credo is more of a set of principles that guide your actions and beliefs.

Think of your food choices as a continuum with a 100% Faux Food diet on one end and a 100% seasonal, organic, unprocessed, local (SOUL) diet on the other end. This framework helps me work towards making better choices when I can, but not getting so caught up in rules and ‘shoulds’ that I give up entirely.

Here are a few of the basic principles and how you can apply them to your next outdoor adventure.

1) Eat more whole, unprocessed foods on trail

Nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and dehydrated veggies are all great choices. There are lots of ideas online and you can also check out my free Eat for Endurance ebook for more ideas.

2) Read labels

This will help avoid excessive added sugar, trans fat, and additives like artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, sodium nitrate, sodium sulfate, food dyes, potassium bromate, and MSG.

3) Send resupply boxes to places with limited options

Don’t be stuck eating gas station food for a week because you didn’t plan ahead. You’ll feel gross and you’ll compromise your energy and performance.

4) Make up for micronutrient deficiencies in town

Choose fresh vegetables and salads instead of (or at least in addition to) pizza, burgers, and beer.

5) Make small changes

It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing approach. Here are some ideas:

Add in a greens powder, such as athletic greens, amazing grass, or organifi each day.This can make up for micronutrient deficiencies on a long hike.

Swap out some candy for dried fruit. If your body is craving quick energy, eating fruit will give you a quick dose of carbs, with enough fiber to maintain blood sugar balance, and without all the added junk. And there are SO MANY options: raisins, cranberries, apricots, blueberries, mango, banana, etc.

Look for chips and other crunchy/salty snacks with as few ingredients as possible. For example, compare the following:

Ingredients in Organic Tortilla Chips: organic corn, organic sunflower oil, salt.
Ingredients in Nacho Cheese Doritos: whole corn, vegetable oil (corn, soybean, and/or sunflower oil), salt, cheddar cheese (milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), maltodextrin, whey, monosodium glutamate, buttermilk solids, romano cheese (part skim cow’s milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), whey protein concentrate, onion powder, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil, corn flour, disodium phosphate, lactose, natural and artificial flavor, dextrose, tomato powder, spices, lactic acid, artificial color (including Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Red 40), citric acid, sugar, garlic powder, red and green bell pepper powder, sodium caseinate, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, nonfat milk solids, whey protein isolate, corn syrup solids.

Start slow and do what you can.

Even making a few small changes is a good step towards fueling yourself for performance and creating a better environment at the same time.

November 18, 2017November 18, 2017

Top 5 Reasons To Eat Real Food as an Outdoor Endurance Athlete

If I’m performing well, why should I reconsider what I eat?

Let me start by saying that I’m not going to tell you that you should eat a certain way. Eat whatever works for you.

While I do believe there are some basic nutrition principles that can benefit everyone, there is no one perfect diet. Further, the perfect diet for you may change throughout your life. But that’s a topic for anther day.

Change Starts At Home

The objective of this post is to explore why we make the food choices that we do. As someone who gains her sustenance through time spent outdoors, I try to make environmentally conscious choices.

When it came time to pursue a career path, I wavered between my deep interest in human performance, my passion for outdoor conservation, and my desire to make an impact through working to change the food system. When it came down to it, I felt like working as a nutritionist and addressing peoples’ personal food choices, would check all three boxes.

With a rapidly increasing population to feed and a current food system which is destructive to humans and the environment, I believe the biggest impact each of us can make is to think about what we do day in and day out. Choosing to use green cleaning products, choosing to spend our dollars with socially conscious companies, and choosing how we nourish ourselves most likely has more of an impact on our future world than signing a petition or donating a coupe dollars to a non-profit. While those are important actions as well, it’s what we do consistently over time that changes our lives and the world.

Why I Choose to Eat Real Food

As an outdoor endurance athlete, here are the top reasons I continue to fuel myself with real food as opposed to the sugary, processed, easily accessible fare I see filling the backpacks and bellies of fellow hikers, runners, bikers and other athletes.

Health

The most obvious reason to eat real food is enhanced personal health. Processed cakes, cookies, chips, and bars are often laden with preservatives, artificial colors and sweeteners, and a ton of sugar. These are linked to adverse health effects, including rhinitis, weight gain, brain tumors, and even cancer. Diets high in processed foods promote obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and autoimmune diseases.

As someone who wants to perform at my best and live a long life, full of adventure, eating well just makes sense.

Price

Many people argue that it costs more to eat healthy. The price of real food, especially organic, may be more expensive than conventional produce or packaged products. However, when you consider the hidden costs of a junk food diet, it’s more cost effective to just eat real food.

What hidden costs?

Junk food often causes us to eat more, causing us to buy more, and causes long term health implications (discussed above) that lead to more medications and healthcare expenses. Plus you’ll save money (and your stomach lining) by laying off that Vitamin I.This article from the Huffington Post expands on these hidden costs.

Beyond the monetary cost, what’s the cost of not being healthy enough to complete your outdoor adventure, whether that’s a thru-hike of the PCT or a bike trip across the country or your first marathon? What’s the cost of not achieving your dreams? What’s the cost of missing important life events, like weddings and births of grand kids, because of poor health?

Environment

As someone who spends a lot of time outdoors and cares about the preservation of those spaces, I feel a certain responsibility not to support companies that are blatantly destroying our natural resources in the name of profit. These companies act with total disregard for planetary and personal health.

As outdoor enthusiasts, we’ve experienced first hand the power of time spent in nature, and we have a responsibility to protect those spaces not just with our voices, but with our purchasing power as well.

Freedom

I don’t like to feel like I’m owned by the big corporations. I like to believe I’m still independent-thinking, to some extent. I want to be able and wiling to go against the grain of what is ‘normal’.

As with thru-hiking, it’s an act of rebellion to choose to eat outside the junk food paradigm. We live in a time when we’re constantly brainwashed from every direction with adverts for one new product or another. Don’t be a pawn in their game. Don’t be complicit. Step outside the box.

Self-respect

Eating is one of the most fundamental acts of being human. It may be strange to say, but eating is one of the most intimate acts of being human. We take food into our mouths and literally become composed of that food. Do you want to be made up of sodium nitrate, MSG, and Red #40? Or do you want to be made of something that was once alive? Something that was made in a lab or something that grew or grazed on real grass and drank in the sun and the air which you so love?

Eat like you give a damn about yourself and the planet.

Real food is interesting and beautiful and complex. It has the ability to connect you to a place, a culture, traditions. This is obvious when comparing a Happy Meal with a traditional Mediterranean meal cooked by a Turkish grandmother. Of course, processed foods are often chosen for convenience, and you can’t always take home-cooked meals on a 2000 mile backpacking trip, but you can apply a similar mindset when choosing food for your next adventure. For example, when I consider a bag of M&Ms versus a bag of dried fruit, such as figs, apricots, and goji berries, the fruit has so many more flavors, textures, and aliveness. It supports the health of the body and the planet.

It’s never made sense to me that we celebrate our ability to crush miles while eating the most nutrient poor food imaginable. Why not celebrate eating food that nourishes our bodies and the planet we so love?

I try to be thoughtful and intentional about my choices in all other areas of life, from how I spend my time, to what I do for work, to the companies I buy my gear from. Why wouldn’t it be the same for food?

October 7, 2017December 14, 2017

Wind River High Route

Better Late Than Never

It's October and I'm just now posting a brief recap of my hike on the Wind River High Route this past August. It's worth a review as this was some of the most stunning alpine trekking I've done.

We (mostly) followed the Alan Dixon route. It was roughly 80 miles and took us just over 5 days to complete.

The fun started the evening of July 30 when I picked up JR from DIA. I had seen JR briefly the previous October, but we hadn't hiked together since the miles we shared in Oregon and Washington on the PCT, finishing our thru hikes together at the Canadian border.

Most of July 31 was spent driving from my home in Colorado up to Pinedale, WY. We arrived at the Green River Lakes Trailhead and began hiking around 5pm. The 10ish miles we hiked that evening were a gentle climb on well-maintained trail up the stunning river valley. The horizon was filled with views of the mountains we'd be hiking through for the next week. A brief storm rolled in just after sunset, treating us to some fine alpenglow as we set up camp.

May 18, 2017June 5, 2017

How Can Food Improve My Performance?

How would it feel to know that your food choices were helping you think more clearly and run faster and further? What if you could eat in a way that was easy, saved you money, and was healthy and delicious?

It’s possible and it’s easier than you think.

The Standard American Diet

American’s get 63% of their daily calories from packaged foods. US food consumption

Eating primarily packaged, refined, processed convenience foods results in a diet high in meat, dairy, fat, and sugar. Only 1 in 4 Americans eats one serving of fruit per day and only 1 in 10 eat the recommended minimum of veggies.

The Impact

fast food

From a personal health standpoint, it’s clear that our diets are killing us. America is the most overweight industrialized nation with about 35% of the population being obese, and 75% being overweight. Obesity increases the risk of illness and death due to diabetes, stroke, coronary artery disease and kidney and gallbladder disorders.

The Standard American Diet is associated with acne, Alzheimer’s, certain types of cancers, inflammation, greater risk of preterm delivery, bowel disorders, and greater risk of heart and kidney disease…and that’s just to name a few

factory farms

In terms of the environment, the intensive use of water, energy, pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics, hormones, and GMOs used in modern agriculture have resulted in increased topsoil loss, water pollution, animal waste, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Destroying our environment means not only destroying where our families live and play. It also means destroying the source of our food supply. Not caring for our land and water means there will inevitably come a day (in the not so distant future) when we can no longer grow enough food.

I’m just one person. What can I do?

We know this is happening, but it’s easy to believe that we’re powerless to stop it.

There are powerful industries with incentives to perpetuate this system. Convenience food is designed to be quick and addictive by the food industry. Advertisements have convinced us that we don’t have time to eat healthy or that it costs too much. Big Agriculture is a powerful business that influences government subsidization of large-scale unsustainable farming.

How do we get out of this mess?

It’s amazingly simple.

What we choose to eat powerfully impacts our own health and the health of the environment. Decreased demand for the packaged, processed foods means less destroyed land, less pollution produced, less packaging waste.

Steering clear of packaged junk foods also does wonders for our health. Eating real food (those that don’t come in packages or have a list of ingredients), grown sustainably, results in better cognition, decreased rates of disease and cancer, clearer skin, better digestion, and improved immune function. It means better performance in all areas of your life, from work to fitness to parenting.

What do you want to support? You can use your dollar and power of choice to improve your life and our collective future. Or you can use it to keep supporting the system. How would it feel to break free from the mega-industries controlling our food and our health?

Each one of us has the power to be part of the solution.

April 3, 2017June 5, 2017

Why this? Why now?

We have the power to make great changes in our lives and in the world.

It can be easy to feel powerless. We can believe that what’s happening in the world will continue to happen and there’s nothing we can do about it. But that thought doesn’t sit well with you because you’re an aware individual. You know that your choices matter. Whether we’re impacting one other life or many, each of our actions has ripple effects.

power to change the world

There’s a lot of scary stuff going on in the world, but we don’t have to passively sit back and watch our environment be destroyed and our health deteriorate. Those are not just inevitable parts of life. We have the power every day to improve our lives, our children’s lives, and the world at large.

Eat Real Food

In fact, we have the power to do that at least 3 times a day through our food choices. The goal of this site and my work is to empower you to make thoughtful choices that benefit you and benefit the planet.

And it’s really not so hard. It just takes a few small shifts in mindset and habits. It’s also not expensive or time-consuming. You’ll probably spend less money on your weekly groceries and less time making food decisions and preparing meals.

You’re also likely to drop extra weight, clear up brain fog, experience less anxiety and depression, have more radiant skin, and discover that many of those aches and pains you thought you’d have to live with forever, actually disappear after a few short weeks of consuming the right fuel.

You’ll feel proud of yourself knowing that your choices are building a more sustainable food system. You’ll feel good knowing that you’re part of the solution. You’ll feel satisfied knowing that your kids are learning healthy habits that will set them up for long, enjoyable lives. Your future self with thank you for making intentional choices.

The downsides? None, really.

Learn what’s possible.

In the following posts, I can’t wait to share the simple ideas, tools, and tactics that I’ve learned over the years that have helped me transform my own relationship with food, health and how I approach my life. I’ve seen profound changes in friends and family and I’m excited for you to join us.

In the comments below, say hi and let me know if there are any particular topics you’d like to hear more about as I continue to build out this site.