There is not one prep greater than your own body and mind.
That sounds like a broad, sweeping statement, but it’s 100% true.
If you aren’t fit – both physically and mentally – all your preps may very well be worthless. I’m not saying this to beat up on you, but to encourage you to be the best, healthiest, version of yourself. This is something I’m personally working on and I urge you to do the same.
Think about these questions:
- If you had to bug out for 20 miles through the hills to escape to safety, could you do it? If you could, when is the last time you actually walked 20 miles? If it’s been awhile, then you don’t actually know if you could do it.
- If you needed to fell a tree and split it into firewood to keep from freezing to death, could you do it? Chopping wood is a lot harder than most folks think, and I’m not just talking about the skills you need to do it.
- Are you at a healthy body weight? Are you really? More people in America are overweight than anywhere else in the world. And if you are one of those people, have you considered the fact that an extra 30 pounds is the same amount of weight as carrying a second bug-out bag?
If you are not physically fit, you know it, even if you don’t want to admit it out loud.
Fitness is the key to emergency preparedness. But it’s HARD. Most people don’t have any idea how to reach their health goals. I know that this has been a battle for me and for a lot of other folks I know.
So, I asked my dear friend and the wellness expert I use to help me reach my goals to write a guide just for preppers to help us reach our fitness and weight loss goals easily. Lisa Egan holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences with a minor in Nutrition. Lisa has managed two medically supervised weight control centers, worked as a personal trainer, and is a Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certified Nutrition Coach and wellness educator. The woman knows her stuff and she is warm, friendly, and caring. She LIVES to help people!
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So this is my insight to preppers in shape or not they say average Bob is 30 plus lbs . I live in dense woods almost impossible to move through without a trail. My bug site is 10 miles straight through nasty forest. I have caches at 4 mile 6 mile and 8 mile mark all redundant. My grab bag is a fanny pack move light move fast.
Anyone thinking they are going to need to bug out 20 miles through the woods is delusional. You know what you might have to survive? Food scarcity. 1lbs if beergut = 3500 calories in reserve you carry with you all the time. Survival fitness is not what many think it is…
You’re not going to “live off your beer gut.” Sorry, but that’s a myth. You may not actually die of starvation but you will not be at your best if you are suddenly dropping your caloric intake down to a few hundred calories.
Baloney.
The Nazis took extensive data on this. When subjected to hard labor a person will be kept alive the longest on 400 calories a day. That’s less than one daltrex bar a week. Having a beer gut, depending on the size, can literally be a cushion of months of extra existence. It won’t be pretty, but I’d rather have a chance while extra fit people drop dead of malnutrition. Ovbiously, for what it’s worth, being 200 lbs overweight is NOT a good strategy. But 30? It’s certainly a viable choice outside of other health factors like diabetes or high blood pressure.
Caveat emptor:
While I don’t disagree about carrying some fat above the ten to fifteen percent body fat it’s unclear to me what the 400-calorie intake meant.
** I’m wary that someone might read it to mean it’s o.k. to just eat 400 calories a day and not realize the long-term damage it will do to their health, possibly for the rest of their life.**
While that may not have be your intent, having known a bulimic/anorexic “girl” (a woman who due to trauma tries to gain control of her life by regressing to a pre-pubescent state) and witnessing the physical and mental damage a low caloric diet can do, a red-flag needs to be raised to any diet below say 2,400 to 3,000 or so calories a day. Advertising is misleading enough nowadays with ‘tranny’ models posing as women and women who try to imitate the narrow male hip proportions they weren’t built for.
The Nazi diet of 400 calories/dy, I read 600, more for camp inmates, was for a short while, then death, as approximately one million German P.O.W.s found out after WWII. And especially during SHTF when stress by itself will burn up calories.
Regarding a Beer Belly or Empty Calories
“The calories in beer or to be more specific the calories in alcohol are what are referred to as empty calories. These calories are known to be less likely to be absorbed by your body. In other words, they are not effectively processed by your body ,… It is said that only 15 calories are absorbed in every 100mL of beer making beer low in calories. Considering that there is about 330mL in a regular sized can of beer, what that means is that only 50 calories in beer get metabolized by your body to be used as energy.”
The calories come from food eaten while drinking. “After a few drinks, Friend-fries, potato chips, and chicken wings all start to look and taste the same, … What you may not have noticed is that these are all super high calories fried foods. Why is your body telling you to eat such fatty foods?”
https://slism.com/diet/beer-belly-myth.html
Which leads into Good vs. Bad Cholesterol:
The two types of lipoproteins that carry cholesterol to and from cells are low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, and high-density lipoprotein, or HDL. In short, LDL (low-density lipoprotein), sometimes called “bad” cholesterol can come from fast-food. HDL (high-density lipoprotein), or “good” cholesterol is better for not clogging up blood arteries and veins.
Plus, it takes your body energy to burn fat. Your muscles will be used for fuel instead. Anyway, for some people it will get in the way of getting to the ammo belt and reloading.
You know, it may not be so bad. When all the arm chair preppers who get out into the woods and die due to heat exhaustion, heart attacks, and all the other bad things that happen due in part to their refusal to get in shape; the rest of us might stumble across a free bug out bag and other goodies. But alas, no food in sight….
@ Bug out Brian,
You are correct.
At the local shooting range, I see a lot of guys with tricked out ARs, boasting about their marksmanship, at 100 yards, off a concrete bench, off a bi-pod or bags.
And yet they are huffing and puffing to carry their gear from their truck to the firing line.
Run a hundred yards? Not likely.
Hump with a 30lbs, pack, all their tacti-cool stuff and their 12lbs AR (all that stuff hanging off the rails) for 5 or more miles? Might take them 3 or 4 days longer than anyone in reasonable physical fitness.
when my insurance did not pay all my bills, surgery and hospital, the hospital seized my checking account causing all my checks i had just written to bounce. i went 28 days with no food at all. i had been paralyzed from the back injury and had not worked at all and was living off savings. The first 3 days i was hungry then i felt great until around day 22 . Fasting is actually considered healthy to a point. i was not overweight when that happened but was just a few pounds under overweight according to bmi. i now intentionally stay 10 pounds ( according to bmi) overweight so i figure i could go 30 days on just water. No way could i hike 20 miles. not with my back. but i have heated exclusively with wood for 13 years now and have a 3 year supply. i know how to do the work involved without hurting myself. and if my neighbors want to enjoy my wood stove, they will be doing some cutting and splitting.. i hope to bug in. if not, i am going to be in trouble. 4 miles walk is my max before my back goes.
Well very few are in excellent shape, but if you’re working on endurance and stamina. That will help more than being 30+ pounds……..
Motivation Tip: Being overweight during SHTF a few hours or less of walking your ankles will be inflamed to the point that you will not be able to put your shoes or boots back on, in addition to being breathless, dehydrated, nauseated, joints stiff and tried. You will be left behind by yourself to deal with hungry people who will assume you have a cache of food and will not believe you when you deny it. You will be tortured to give them the food … or made into candles or eaten (the dirty secret of the culinary arts, fat tastes good). See the movie “Deliverance”. Just saying, it’s possible.
I’m definitely not at this point. I’m also in the third trimester of pregnancy, so there’s that. I have a lot of work to do once the little one is born!