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I did El Camino de Santiago 3 years ago weighing at 220 pounds. 600 miles and 35 days later i was 160 pounds and had new perspective on life. As someone who alw

by avenoir 10y ago

I did El Camino de Santiago 3 years ago weighing at 220 pounds. 600 miles and 35 days later i was 160 pounds and had new perspective on life. As someone who always struggled with extra weight I've been able to keep the weight off ever since. Never felt better physically and mentally. By the way, I've met a lot of folks who started with the Camino as their first thru-hike and went on to do AT and Continental Divide. I highly recommend it as a trial thru hike. It's not very difficult, but not easy either. But it'll definitely whip your legs into shape and get your prepared for something bigger and better.

mrfusion 10y ago
60 lbs in 35 days is really dramatic! Is that even possible? Are results like that typical?
- mahyarm 10y ago
  That is 12lbs/wk! 2lbs/wk (-1000 cal/day) is considered a harder weight loss diet to maintain! That means he had a 6000 calorie deficit per day. Backpacking all day can give you a 4000-6000cal burn per day[1], so if he kept up something like a 2000cal/day diet and not conk out, then I could see that. [1] https://www.outdoors.org/articles/amc-outdoors/how-many-calories-do-you-burn-backpacking/ https://www.outdoors.org/articles/amc-outdoors/how-many-calo...
  - solnyshok 10y ago
    something happens to metabolic rate too. you keep burning more calories even resting and sleeping. After camino, I lost another 7kg in 10 days doing mostly nothing, sleeping a lot.
- avenoir 10y ago
  I was a sack of bones when I came back. I shocked nearly everyone and used to get this same question a lot. I don't think it's typical. I did starve myself for a little bit because I had huge trouble adjusting to food, which i typically do when i travel for some reason, and had a lot of digestion issues. I was mostly on fruits and veggies for the first 2 weeks which was rather hellish. Walking 8-10 hours a day and these first 2 weeks I'm sure contributed a lot to this.
- rconti 10y ago
  I did 10lbs in 5 days so I don't see why not. Obviously you have to start high enough that you can continue to lose. From memory, we had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast, a bunch of salami throughout the day, and freeze-dried camp meals for dinner. Couldn't have been more than 2k calories/day. I'm not saying this is sustainable for more than a week, but I don't remember feeling particularly hungry. It's really hard to carry enough food to eat a huge amount of calories.
solnyshok 10y ago
I did Camino 2.5 years ago (same year? October). Started with 160kg,finished with 132. 24 days. Felt like iron man after I dropped off my backpack at the Santiago airport. I got my weight back eventually. Looking forward to repeating this someday.

by avenoir 10y ago

mrfusion 10y ago

60 lbs in 35 days is really dramatic! Is that even possible? Are results like that typical?

mahyarm 10y ago
That is 12lbs/wk! 2lbs/wk (-1000 cal/day) is considered a harder weight loss diet to maintain! That means he had a 6000 calorie deficit per day. Backpacking all day can give you a 4000-6000cal burn per day[1], so if he kept up something like a 2000cal/day diet and not conk out, then I could see that. [1] https://www.outdoors.org/articles/amc-outdoors/how-many-calories-do-you-burn-backpacking/ https://www.outdoors.org/articles/amc-outdoors/how-many-calo...
- solnyshok 10y ago
  something happens to metabolic rate too. you keep burning more calories even resting and sleeping. After camino, I lost another 7kg in 10 days doing mostly nothing, sleeping a lot.
avenoir 10y ago
I was a sack of bones when I came back. I shocked nearly everyone and used to get this same question a lot. I don't think it's typical. I did starve myself for a little bit because I had huge trouble adjusting to food, which i typically do when i travel for some reason, and had a lot of digestion issues. I was mostly on fruits and veggies for the first 2 weeks which was rather hellish. Walking 8-10 hours a day and these first 2 weeks I'm sure contributed a lot to this.
rconti 10y ago
I did 10lbs in 5 days so I don't see why not. Obviously you have to start high enough that you can continue to lose. From memory, we had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast, a bunch of salami throughout the day, and freeze-dried camp meals for dinner. Couldn't have been more than 2k calories/day. I'm not saying this is sustainable for more than a week, but I don't remember feeling particularly hungry. It's really hard to carry enough food to eat a huge amount of calories.

solnyshok 10y ago

I did Camino 2.5 years ago (same year? October). Started with 160kg,finished with 132. 24 days. Felt like iron man after I dropped off my backpack at the Santiago airport. I got my weight back eventually. Looking forward to repeating this someday.