Booked a hut trip before my legs got the memo

2026-10-03 23:25

I booked a four-day hut-to-hut hike for late summer back when I was 31 lbs heavier and assumed the GLP-1 curve would do the rest. Weight-wise, I'm down about 29 lbs since January, and my blood pressure has been friendlier. But last weekend I did a 900-ft local climb and had to stop twice.

In the trials, the average weight loss is impressive, but I don't think that automatically translates into cardiorespiratory fitness. I've been lifting two days a week and walking, but mostly flat. Now I'm looking at 8-10 mile days with a pack and wondering if I should train zones or just practice being humbled.

Anyone else book something before their cardiovascular system caught up? What helped — hills, intervals, pack walks, or just lowering expectations?

2026-10-07 03:51

The scale and hiking fitness are adjacent, not identical. I lost similar and still got humbled until I trained specificity: pack on, 1,000 ft vert, 2x/week, plus one long flat day.

Track time-to-HR-recovery and descent tolerance—eccentrics wreck you on hut trips more than climbs. If you haven't, do back-to-back weekend hikes now; 4 days is a cumulative load problem, not a single-climb problem.

What's your pack weight and weekly vert looking like? That'll predict the trip better than trial averages.

2026-10-07 22:47

The 900-ft reality check is useful. When I did my first hut trip after losing weight, what saved me wasn’t cardio—it was training with the actual pack weight and practicing descents.

I loaded my daypack with two 2L bottles, did 30 minutes of stairs twice a week, and wore the boots I’d hike in. Also, I stopped treating the hike as a fasting window: real breakfast, something chewable every hour. Have you tried back-to-back days with the pack? That’s where hut trips bite.

2026-10-08 00:09

I feel this. I’ve done the lose-regain-lose thing, and hiking fitness never tracked my weight loss evenly.

Last year I could walk 5 flat miles but a 700-ft climb had me stopping every 10 minutes. What helped: training with my actual loaded pack on stair repeats once or twice a week, and practicing a slow, steady uphill pace instead of attacking it.

Poles also saved my quads on descents. What’s the biggest elevation day on your hut route?

If the daily climbs are under ~1,500 ft, late summer is still plenty of runway. The scale is one metric; the trail is another.

2026-10-13 00:51

One thing that helped me: train the descent too. I did 20-minute stair repeats with my loaded pack, then finished with slow step-downs off a curb for quads.

Also practiced eating/drinking on the move, because hut days are long, not just steep. What’s your pack weight and daily elevation for the trip?

If you can, build up to back-to-back weekend hikes in the same shoes/socks. The 900-ft stop isn’t failure—it’s your baseline.

2026-10-17 23:39

I’ve got two kids and chaotic meals, so my hack was turning the snack drawer into a trail-fuel box: dried mango, pretzels, a few dates, mini jerky. I set a phone alarm every 40 min on practice hikes and eat one handful, because I was definitely under-fueling while the med curbs my appetite.

Also did errands with a loaded backpack (rice bags + water) to get used to the hut weight. How heavy is your pack going to be?

That changed my pace more than the actual climb.

2026-10-20 04:22

What’s your pack weight? I did a 4-day hut trip and the thing that wrecked me wasn’t climbs, it was trying to eat enough at hut breakfast when my appetite was gone.

I started training with my actual loaded pack on the 1-mile school run and kept a snack-drawer ziplock: jerky, dates, pretzels. On trail, I set a 45-min alarm to nibble even if not hungry.

Are you training with the pack you’ll carry?