Hunger Games

Food. I want it. I need it. I can’t get enough of it. I go to bed thinking about how many hours before I can eat again and wake up thinking about the contents of my food bag.

I think about several things during the day, but my thoughts usually turn to what sounds good to eat, what I have left to eat and when I can get more to eat. Just when I feel full and content, I’ll hike a few more miles and the hunger is there, once again- like a revolving door.

Virginia is proving to be a tempting source of food possibilities. There are restaurants and gas stations closer in frequency and I feel like we’ve hit most of them. I never thought I’d be eating at a gas station/ Mexican restaurant combo in one, but it was pretty amazing and just what I needed to fuel my marathon day.

We tell ourselves that we need to do better and eat the food we have, but the temptation for hot, greasy food is almost irresistible. It might not always look that appetizing, but the calories and growling stomachs is what blinds us to good decision making. Mmm… caloric intake! So tasty.

Along with your basic meal times of breakfast, lunch and dinner, we’ve invented second breakfast, second lunch, and second dinner. It’s becoming a thing.

Yesterday, CPU, Hot Sauce and I spent a good 2 hours discussing food. We played ‘Would You Rather”, the food addition and calculated whether a pizza place would be open if we hoofed it extra miles into town that night.

Some hard hitting and valid questions came up during our hunger hike:

“If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life what would it be?”

“What would you want your last meal to be?”

“How far would it be to drive back to Smoky Mountain Diner in Hot Springs for some amazing, cheap food?”

I’ve never eaten so much in my life, but keeping up with my calories has proven to be a challenge.

My time at the store is spent checking calories- reverse diet style. The 10 year old me is having a hay day with all these outrageous delicious calories. My best find? A Boston Creme Honey Bun with a whopping 570 calories. That’ll get me up the first part of the mountain, at least.

Going into town, an AYCE (All You Can Eat Buffet) is our Emerald City. We load up. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I’m pretty sure I never want pizza again, but give me a few days of trail food and I’ll be singing a different tune.

I started the trail stove-less. It was something I’d been doing for about a year and wanted to continue for as long as I could. I dropped body weight pretty quick on the trail and struggled to keep up with my much needed calorie intake. That, along with the 5 snow storms we’ve been through, I thought I’d send home for my stove to try and get some variety in warm food. Turns out, as much as I didn’t care for cooking before, I REALLY didn’t want to cook when it was cold out.

I know most people want a good warm meal at the end of the day, but for me, it’s a big chore at the end of a long hiking day. Not to mention, doing dishes? And in the cold? No thank ya.

So, I sent my stove back home and have tried to get creative again.

I’m carrying more food weight and eating more, but my consumption can’t keep up with the ridiculous amount of calories I’m burning day in and day out. As a result of my weight loss, my pack no longer fits me with my hip belt on its’ tightest setting. The weight doesn’t rest on my hips, causing my pack to bare down on my shoulders and making my arms and hands go numb.

I tried sewing small sponges into the sides- they weren’t big enough.

I tried car wash sponges shoved in the sides- that worked for a day.

I even tried sewing one into the back of my pack-nope.

Now I’m in town, the second trip to AYCE Chinese behind me and awaiting the arrival of a new pack with the hopes that it’ll be a better fit and I can get back on trail as soon as possible.

May the odds be ever in my favor.