As the old saying goes…
“You can’t exercise your way out of a bad diet.”
This article, from Backpacking.com, discusses Tom Heinbockel, who hiked the 2653 mile Pacific Crest Trail in 2019. He decided to track his health before and after the hike. What they found surprised them. (But not me! 😁) You see, Heinbockel ate traditional thru-hiker backpacking foods, refined, packaged, processed, LOTS of sugar, etc. (Instead of the wholistic style discussed in this blog) After they saw the poor results they decided “Exercise may not be enough to make up for thru-hikers’ bad diets”
“Heinbockel’s brachial artery flow-mediated dilation—a measure of how well the endothelial lining, a layer of cells on the inside of blood vessels, is functioning—had dropped by more than 25%, while his aortic stiffness had risen by 5%, changes associated with an increased risk of heart disease and stroke.
That degree of decrease might be what you expect to see, you know, over multiple decades of someone aging, and he experienced that in only 112 days,”
backpacker.com
Could Thru-Hiking Be Bad For Your Health?
A New Study Makes a Troubling Find.
Find out more at Backpacker.com.
