So you want to hunt sheep? Part 3 – Sheep Shape
Kyle Sinclair-Smith
Starting the week after I returned from my cat hunt, I threw a sandbag in my backpack, strapped on my boots, and hit my treadmill. I was diligent with my training for that first two weeks. Every morning I got up at 4:30 am and hiking three miles at a 10% incline with my weighted pack and no part of it was fun or easy. Two weeks into it, my wife being a sweetheart and only trying to help, told me that “you can train all you want but if you keep eating for six people at every meal your condition will never improve”. Ok, well that’s fair. So now what? How do I control my eating? Among a conversation with my best friend, he mentioned to me that I should try a free app by Under Armor called My Fitness Pal; what do I have to lose? After a download and a quick run through from him, I was all set to track my calories. At this point, I was still highly motivated to get in sheep shape so I tracked every calorie before it went into my mouth. The other part of this app, is if you have a Fitbit, you can connect it to the app and you can earn calories for your physical activity. Being a frugal person, I ran the idea past my wife and she thought it was a great idea. So off to the store she went and got me the Fitbit Inspire HR.
Ok, so now I have this fancy new Fitbit, fancy new app, my weight pack, and my treadmill; if I can’t get in shape now and lose weight then I have cheated. When I got the Fitbit and set it up, I put that I wanted to lose two pounds per week, with the stats that I entered it said that I could eat 2238 calories per day and achieve this goal. Being a somewhat impatient person, I told myself that I wouldn’t eat over 2000 calories a day so I could accelerate this venture. It was at this point that I also started tracking my times, how far I went, how fast I went, and what grade I did it at. For me, losing weight was never the goal, getting in better condition was and the stats I was tracking would prove it. Over the first few weeks, I could gradually see my condition improve as I was hiking at a steeper grade, and walking faster. What was really impressive was how the weight just fell off of me. When I got the Fitbit my initial weight was 290.9 pounds on March 26, 2019. By April 16th, I was down to 276.9 pounds. On May 17th I tipped the scales at 268.4 pounds, and by June 22nd I was down to 258.5 pounds. As the spring started to unfold, I also started supplementing my treadmill with shed hunting.
I kept the weighted pack but the real hills and resistance of natural terrain would give me something my treadmill wouldn’t. The hiking was working well but I really wanted to increase my cardio, which is when I started running. When I first started out I could run at 6 mph at 1% for 10 minutes before I was completely gassed. I also didn’t want to overdo it so I would hike for two days at an incline and then run one day. My condition was drastically improving, the weight was falling off me but most of all, I felt amazing. By the time summer came around, my cardio had improved to the point that I could run for 20 minutes without stopping. It was a large improvement from where I started, but my ultimate goal was 30 minutes of running at 6 mph with a 1% incline. Even though summer was now here, I kept up my routine of the treadmill. On the weekends, I would put my son in his backpack and we would either go shed hunting, check trail cameras, or scout new properties on foot. By this time, eating 2000 calories and doing physical activity was no longer a fad, it was now part of my life. Losing the weight was great, but the real motivator for me was how I was feeling. I could easily get down on the ground to play with my son, I could go hiking for hours and not have to stop every 15 minutes to catch my air, and life was so much more enjoyable.
Now I am going to be honest here, I was feeling great but I was still worried about my condition. The mountains are big, the terrain is tough, and I was worried that I had a false sense of accomplishment. There was really only one way to find out, and that was to go hike a mountain. With Father’s day coming up, my wife asked what I wanted to do. Without skipping a beat, I said I wanted to go hiking. With some fancy convincing skills, I finally convinced her that this was a good idea. I phoned my father, grandfather, and grandmother and told them what our plan was. Not wanting to miss out on a nice hike in sheep country, they were all over the idea. So this was it, my first trip to the mountains in my new found condition was going to be on father’s day with my whole family around; great. I guess there’s no time like the present.
