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Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Lean & Strong on the Trail: Balancing Fat Loss with Hiking Performance
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. What's up hikers? Welcome back to the show. This is your host, Brady. Today I want to talk to you about what does it look like to balance a hiking performance goal and a fat loss goal in tandem? Because I see this a lot in our Mountain Metabolic coaching program. Ladies come to us and they have a big backpacking truck or a big bucket list hike, or they just want to be able to, you know, carry their kids on a hike and hike more frequently with their family, whatever that looks like. But on the same end of the spectrum They want to be able to lose fat, improve body composition, get more tone, get more lean, all of that. Okay, so how do you balance both of those goals? Because if you've ever tried to do this on your own before, you might have noticed that it is not always as simple as it sounds to do both at the same time. So maybe you've tried to lose weight and suddenly your heart hikes are feeling harder, slower, just kind of sluggish. Or you focus really hard on hiking or running performance and suddenly you're gaining weight. And it's kind of confusing as to why it's so difficult to do these both at the same exact time. Okay, so here's the reality you can lose fat without sacrificing your endurance, strength, or trail enjoyment, but you need the proper strategy to do so. Okay, so that's what we're going to be talking about today. How do you balance these two goals. So why fat loss and performance often clash? I think a lot of times when people look at a goal like, you know, being out on the trails more, doing a bunch of long distance hiking or even like running. They assume that if they want to lose weight, that's actually the way to do it, right? Like, oh, I just need to do more cardio. So that's perfect, when in reality it's actually very, very difficult to do them both at the same time because calorie deficits are required for fat loss, which means you have less available energy the more you're training for a performance based goal like a half marathon or a big hike or something like that, the hungrier you're going to get and the more fuel you actually need to perform. Well, okay, it's not really a negotiable thing. You can say, oh, like I would be able to keep my eating under control, but when you are running or hiking a ton, you're going to be hungry, okay? Your body will fight back against you, and it's going to be almost impossible to maintain a calorie deficit consistently enough to actually see that weight loss. And if you are maintaining the deficit, you're going to notice your performance is dropping. You're going to feel it crap on your hikes or your runs, and you're not going to be performing your best. Okay. So one area tends to suffer when you try to do them both at the same time. So common mistakes here are over restricting calories while trying to still focus on performance. Ignoring fueling during or around your long hikes, trying to focus on both goals equally at the same time, or thinking training for cardio events will lead to fat loss easily. Okay, so those are kind of the most common mistakes I see here with this. And trust me, I've made them before, before I knew better as well. I used to be that person that would like, sign up for a half marathon as an incentive to myself for losing weight. And what would happen is that I actually wouldn't lose any weight. I would gain some weight. And it was not a strategic plan for weight loss because I was so hungry from all of the running I was doing. And you actually see that a lot. That is not just a me thing. If you look at a lot of marathoners, they will tell you the exact same thing. You want to basically get to your racing weight and then start training for the actual race. Okay. So very, very similar principle. So where do you want to start here. First you have to define your goals clearly because as I mentioned before, fat loss does require a sustained calorie deficit over time. Hiking performance requires endurance, strength, recovery and fueling for those things. Okay, so you need to fuel for the work required, not just focus on eating lists for weight loss. Okay. So let's talk about nutrition strategies here. In general, with these goals, you're going to want to focus on these fundamental principles. First is moderate calorie deficit. Okay. So not super aggressive no matter what phase you're in. And we'll talk a little bit about what the phases will look like later. You never want to go too hard on a calorie deficit, meaning that you're just like kind of guessing or you're just slashing entire meals or doing anything extreme because you will see your performance struggle. You put yourself at higher risk of experiencing metabolic adaptation faster, which just makes it harder to continue losing weight in an effective manner long term. Okay, so you want to make sure you're only doing about a 250 to 500 calorie deficit, depending on kind of how aggressive you're wanting to go with your goals. You're always going to want to prioritize protein for muscle retention, okay? No matter the phase. This is so, so crucial. And if you're just eyeballing and guessing, you're going to need to not do that because most people are grossly underestimating their, um, protein consumption. So you are probably not getting nearly as much as what you think. And when you actually start tracking, that becomes very, very clear. Um, carbs. You gotta look at these as fuel. I know that like for us millennial gals, if I have some fellow millennials listening, we have gone through so many dieting cycles in our lifetime of like the low carb, no carb fads. And so for me personally, like sometimes I still have it in my head that carbs are not healthy and that I should minimize carbs and not include them in my meals. And that is just simply not true. Um, you can absolutely eat all types of carbs and still lose weight if you do it the right way. And if you are trying to fuel for activities and performance, you need carbs. Not to mention, if you cut them low regularly, you can actually really experience some negative hormonal, um, effects as well. Okay, so ladies, don't feel like you have to cut carbs, especially if performance is a goal for you. Make sure that you are getting enough, especially complex carbohydrates, so slow digesting carbohydrates to fuel long term energy and then fats. We don't want to forget those either. While they're not as important for performance, we still want to make sure that we're getting enough fats for hormone support and satiety. All of the different macronutrients have their place, and that's why it's not healthy to cut one macronutrient out entirely. Fooling around your hikes beforehand. You're going to want easy to digest carbs with some protein. You want to avoid fats here for digestive purposes. During longer hikes, you're going to want again, more simple, easy to digest carbs and electrolytes don't really need to focus too hard on the protein or fats there and then afterward. That's when you're going to want protein and carbs for recovery. Okay, so let's talk about the training portion of this. And then we'll get into what how do we actually put this all together. Um, as far as hiking as training, you can treat hikes as legitimate workouts. If you are training for long hikes, then you want to have this as part of your regimen. And having some goals around like speed or tempo or incline work is really, really helpful if you can incorporate that into your training hikes, okay. And adjust intensity accordingly, because not every hike needs to be all out. Performance. Sometimes you're going to want to go for longer, more leisurely, steady state type of aerobic hikes. And other times you might be focusing more heavily on intervals and hills and things like that. Um, usually a combination of both is going to benefit you the most because you're training both aerobically and anaerobic, which you will use both energy systems while hiking. And then the strength training this, you're going to want to do at least 2 to 3 times a week, focusing heavily on lower body core and posterior chain. So the back side of your body so you know, back muscles, glutes, hamstrings. The benefits here. Injury prevention. Better uphill power is going to feel better. Also on your knees as you're coming down if you have strong muscles supporting you. So not only just better enjoyment during the hike, less pain, but also afterwards. You're not going to feel like you got hit by a bus after long hard hikes. Um, and also better body composition. Okay, so it's not just about what you're doing on the trails. You're also going to see benefits in your day to day life of just your functional health, bone density, better basal metabolic rate. And you're going to look better. More muscle equals actual muscle tone, meaning you can look leaner and more toned from your workouts. Okay, signs that you might be doing too much and just kind of how to manage fatigue. If you're constantly feeling sore and you never get a chance to recover, you notice your performance is declining, motivation is low. Whatever that looks like consistently, then you know you're probably doing a little bit too much and you might want to scale back a few days. Um, ultimately, always give yourself at least one full rest day, if not two per week. Because if you're doing more than that, you might hit a point of burnout, especially if you already have a lot of other stressors in your life. Okay, okay, so now this is kind of the good stuff here. Let's get into the periodization approach okay. This is kind of how we bring this all together. Because again how do we balance these two goals in real time okay. So what we're going to do here is we're going to alternate focus phases. You're not going to focus on fat loss and performance at the exact same time ideally. So how does this work. You're going to alternate between a fat loss phase. So this means that you're going to really, really dial in your daily action items for fat loss. And you're still going to focus on slight performance maintenance, meaning we don't want to lose all of our progress here aerobically and with and with our hiking performance. But that's not the main focus right now. Right now, we're really wanting to get the weight off, get your body composition to where you want it before we move on to the next phase. Okay, so what this looks like is minimal cardio minimal like aerobic training for your hikes. During this time, focus on hitting your weights. So meaning you're doing your strength training for body recomposition 3 to 4 times a week and you're walking a lot. You're not walking necessarily with a goal of burning attended calories, but you're on your feet. You're increasing your non exercise activity, which is not going to increase hunger the same way that going out on really long, hard incline hikes and running will do. Okay. And you're going to focus on your nutrition like your life depends on it. Because if you actually want to see fat loss, that has to be the number one priority. If you're looking at like a pyramid of importance. Hitting your calorie goal for your deficit is absolutely the biggest thing at the bottom. And then from there, it's like your protein goal, your weight training and your neat. Okay, so make sure that you are actually in a calorie deficit for where your body needs to be, what your metabolism has adapted to, what your activity level looks like, your height, your weight, your gender, all of that. Okay, all of those factors will make a difference. And if you are eating in a calorie deficit and not seeing weight loss, you're probably not hitting it as accurately as you think. Okay, so really making sure that you are being as accurate and consistent as you can, because what we want to do is not just live in this phase kind of ambiguously forever. We want to get this done in, you know, maybe a 3 to 4 month time frame and then move on to performance. So if you kind of just wishy washy, go into this without full intention, without good strategy, or you just don't follow it very well, then this is going to drag on and you're not going to be able to get to the performance phase, okay. So very, very important here that you stick with this and make it a priority okay. After that then you can move into your performance phase. So this is where you're going to move calories up to a maintenance or maybe even slight surplus. But you'll want to do this slowly in kind of a reverse diet fashion. That way you're not seeing a bunch of weight regain, and you're going to start to incorporate more cardio, more conditioning work, keep the same amount of strength training days, maybe pull back one. So you're only doing like three strength days a week, and you can increase your cardio anaerobic work maybe 2 to 3 times a week. And neat is going to stay the same okay. Also, your protein should stay the same here. Very, very important. And you want to align this with your hiking timeline. Okay. So ideally you're kind of going into your fat loss phase, maybe in the winter or early spring, and then you're ready to head into performance in late spring. And then by summer or whenever your ideal hiking season is, you're ready to go and you feel happy with your body composition and ready to go performance wise. Okay, so mindset expectations, let's talk about that. Progress is not going to always go perfectly. There's going to be things that will pop up that will hinder you from maybe following your plan just the right way that you plan on. However, please don't be that person that throws in the towel or quits because things are not perfect, because it never will be okay. So just because you commit to something doesn't mean you're not going to have any roadblocks or bad weeks or crappy mindset days. You got to just stay the course, keep showing up how you can, and try to stick with the plan as best as possible. Just pivoting as you go because it's never going to be linear or perfect. Okay. And keep in mind what your main goal is during each cycle, okay? Stick with the plan there because you want to be specific to that particular goal during that cycle before you can move on to the next. Okay. So let's talk about a real life scenario here. Someone who is training for a multi-day trek and is coming up in late summer, but also wanting to lose £20. Okay, so here's what I would put as this person's kind of plan. 6 to 12 months out from the big hike, depending on how much time you actually have. Obviously more time is ideal, but you can do a condensed version of this as needed. You're going to start the fat loss cycle while incorporating 3 to 4 times a week of strength training and hiking specific movements within that. So even though you're not necessarily focusing on hardcore performance, you can still use a ton of amazing hiking specific drills within your strength training. And then by the time you get to performance, it's not going to be anything new. Like, now you're ready to load those up, you're ready to go harder, and you can add more advanced variations. Okay, increase your walks, maybe even a little bit of incline walking. You're going to want to try to walk every single day. Calorie deficit and protein are your main emphasis here. Okay. Cannot say that enough. Stay in that fat loss phase for 3 to 6 months depending on how aggressive you're going. So if you're not super consistent with it kind of wishy washy, it's going to take longer. If you have more weight to lose maybe than £20, it will take longer. Okay. Then we're going to switch to your performance phase at about 3 to 6 months out from the big hike, increase calories up to maintenance through a reverse diet. Be strategic here. Protein stays high and increase your carb intake. Naturally, you'll probably pull back on fats a little bit to accommodate that. Incorporate more hiking specific conditioning work. So working on kind of that aerobic capacity while still maintaining the three times weekly of strength days here, you're going to really want to ramp up on your unilateral lower body movements, glute work, hip strengthening, core work, upper body pole work. Those are going to be the biggest movers and shakers when it comes to actually building strength for your hike. Okay, ideally your new lower weight will maintain and performance will improve. Okay, so by the time you get to your hike, you're like, I'm happy with my body comp. It's going to be easier on my knees because I weigh less. I'm looking good, feeling good, feeling strong, ready to go both aerobically and strength wise as well. Okay. So a few key takeaways here. You don't want to crash diet if you care about performance. I mean I don't recommend crash dieting either way, but especially if you care about having muscle tone, getting strong, increasing stamina for your hikes, just doing like a random crash diet or elimination type of diet, or just winging it and not eating anymore is not the move. Okay? You've got to be more strategic than that. Fuel your hikes, especially with carbs. Lift weights to support your hiking in both cycles, and approach this strategically with the proper periodization in mind. When we try to just wing it, that's when we usually come up a little bit short and are not super happy with the results. And if you're someone who's been winging it with weight loss or with performance goals, trying to get more muscular, trying to lose weight or improve body comp, trying to, you know, get more stamina for your hikes and you are constantly frustrated. It might be time to actually follow a plan that is set for you that fits your life and fits your goals. Okay. So that being said, Mountain Metabolic Coaching is literally designed to help with these two goals in tandem. So our ladies who want to improve body comp really work on that recomposition of getting leaner and more toned, but also support their hiking goals. We have a team of professionals to help you dial those goals in okay, while still emphasizing metabolic health during body recomposition and making sure that your performance on the trails is ready to go. Okay, so this is our bread and butter. This is exactly what we do. And if you've been kind of like on the fence on the sidelines wanting to know more information but not ready to take the leap, I definitely would encourage you to do that. If you are not seeing results and kind of spinning your wheels, let us help you out. This is one area that we are experts at, and we can take away that mental gymnastics routine that you have to do to try to figure out how to see results if you're not seeing the results that you want. Okay, so you can always check the link in our show notes to apply. Um, from there I will reach out and we can chat and see if it's a good fit for you. I hope that this episode has been helpful, especially with hiking season right around the corner. I can't believe it you guys, I'm starting to plan some big adventures. We're planning a 14 hour within our Mountain Metabolic coaching community, which I'm so stoked for. Um, so it definitely feels a lot more real when you have those hikes planned. So if you're someone who kind of like, holds back from planning because you want to get fit first, maybe you just plan it and book it and then it will force you to get your butt moving. It definitely works for me. Um, all right, you guys, thank you so much for tuning in. If you like the show, give us a rating and review or share with your friends. That is always appreciated and I will chat with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this. Be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on Etrailer.com. Happy and healthy trails.