TGO Challenge: Wasting Away…

Expecting to lose a few pounds on my LEJOG, I ate like a horse and drank like a fish, but after four months of walking I resembled a skeleton upon my return home. I had lost about 30 lbs (That’s about 15kg, for the European and metricised amongst the congregation).

Now, the Challenge is only a two week walk, but this is still quite a demanding walk. It’s important to pile in the calories to fuel the lithe, mean, walking machines that we all become the instant we face east at our start points on the west coast of Scotland.

However, food is jolly heavy,  seemingly more so when you are carrying five days of the stuff from Spean Bridge to Braemar. (Who on earth planned this daft route with such long distances between re-supply points?)

Because of this I have plumped for dehydrated evening meals, which come in at about 5 ozs in their packets. To supplement these, I have gone for Granola bars, Breakfast bars, Mars bars, Toffee Crisps, honey roasted peanuts and jelly babies. All have high calorific contents. The things is though, you just don’t feel satisfied eating just that rubbish. You can’t beat good old cheese in crusty white rolls for scoffy-satisfaction and so I always take a block of cheese and half a dozen rolls as well for each leg.

I have never sat down and worked out how many calories I consume on this diet; All I ever notice is that I lose weight on the walk – not a bad thing in itself, after all I am not going to starve over two weeks, and I ensure I refuel handsomely when we hit Braemar. (Did you know Guinness has over 200 kCal per pint?)

So, after scrutinising packets and wrappers I did some sums today. Here’s a fairly typical “on the hoof” day’s consumption:

BREAKFAST                                           kCal             No.       Total kCal

• White crusty roll & cheese               400              1             400
• Cadbury Brunch bar                        165              2             330
• Orange juice & Coffee                       25              2               50

LUNCH & SNACKS

• NV Granola                                     198               1             198
• NV Granola/choc                             123               1             123
• 45g (1/4 pkt) H/R Peanuts               256               1             256
• 62g (1/4 pkt) Jelly Babies                213               1             213
• White crusty roll & cheese              400                1            400
• Mars Bar                                         260                1            260
• Toffee Crisp                                    229                1            229

DINNER

• Packet soup                                   100                 1            100
• M/H Main meal (av)                         500                 1            500
• Custard portion                              155                 1            155
• Hot chocolate                                 120                 1            120
• Coffee                                              25                 2              50

TOTAL CALORIES PER DAY                                                   3,384 kCal

That doesn’t seem like a lot, I suppose, but then you could add in the odd slug of Lagavulin and a glass of wine and it tips the scales at 3,500 kCal. Lord only knows how many calories an unfit, unhealthy bloke gets through with half a house on his back, clambering up mountains and wading through bogs and rivers.

I had better stock up on the beers at Braemar.