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Day 1/30 of the 2017 Keto Hiker experiment

Woke up early at home and had my regular fat coffee (about 1 tbs each of butter, coconut oil and MCT oil mixed into a cup of coffee), did my reading and started splitting the gear into two bags. Tent, gear shed and most of the food went into a big plastic bag and got secured with duct tape. I took the valuable stuff (camera, electronics etc) as carry on in the lid of the backpack.
Although everything was in one place to start with I barely made it through a quick shower before the airport coach was outside to pick me up.
Check in and security went really smooth, after passing I still had an hour before departure and went for a couple of hamburger patties.

Flight was soft, just under 1.5 hours and I even had a great Sit (that’s what we call our daily meditation session in the MKE) while in the air. As we landed on time I knew I would make it time wise doing my last shopping (gas for the stove) in Kiruna and could continue according to plan ‘A’. Take the train to Katterat and start from there!

Picking up my luggage I found that they apparently weren’t that gentle handling luggage, one container with ghee had been hit slightly ajar and some of the fat had leaked out in the food bag.
Thankfully I noticed this while waiting for the train to depart from Kiruna and I had time to clean it up decently.
Still, putting up a ‘note to self’ to secure food containers with tape inthe future, isn’t it great how we always can choose to learn something instead of being an upset victim?!

After just over 2 hours of train ride we arrived in Katterat at 17:10 (that’s 5:10PM for you Americans) and I started down the gravel road leading up to the damm right next to ‘Hunddalshytta’ (“Dog Valley cabin’ in Norwegian).

The gravel road presented for the most part a slight uphill slope, every now and then leveling out yet slowly climbing almost 300m (1000ft) of elevation. Walking a road is always easy on the legs and it was a good way to start after the rather lengthy travel.Still I was more than pleased reaching the end of the road and getting onto the trail after an easy river crossing.

Continuing uphill towards the pass I couldn’t do last year due to weather conditions, I stopped after a total of three hours to raise the tent and get a timely dinner.
Finding a wonderfully soft spot with perfect view into Hunddalen was just too inviting to continue on.

Even though I motored along rather well I could feel I was not in ketosis and I need to get quite some fat with my dinner.
I really look forward to try the PhatFibre for the first time tomorrow morning.

 

The backpack is clearly too heavy to be carried comfortably and I even had thoughts about leaving stuff in a depot to come back to later. Funny how easy it sometimes is to forget all the times I already done the same thing successfully that now seems hard to do. I’m so grateful how I nowadays catch my undesirable thoughts almost immediately and can focus on enjoying the scenery instead. Nature here is just breathtakingly beautiful!!!

Thank You for checking out my blog, please leave a comment and share the post with friends and loved ones who might enjoy it!

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Peace // Claes

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Why this project came about!

Hey there, thanks for following my project!
I sincerely hope that You enjoy the ride and find some value in reading about the preparations and, later on, the hike itself and the subsequent results.

Anyway, I´m well aware that the vast majority of people would consider 30 days hiking in the wilderness worse than divine punishment and so I feel compelled to share my reasons for this project!

  1. As You probably already figured out (if You know me at all), I´m not one of “most people” in this case – on the contrary, spending time in nature depending on myself for days and weeks is amazingly relaxing and fulfilling for me. If You haven´t already, please check out my Off The Grid Hiker blogg for more tours and adventures!
  2. I´ve been on the low carb side of life for the better part of 10 years and personally feel and perform a lot better being fat fueled than sugar burning and earlier this year decided to really try out the ketogenic diet. Leaving no more than 25g of carbohydrates per day in my diet, moderating protein intake to 1-1.5g/day and kg of body weight and devouring tons of healthy fats dropped me from around 15% body fat to well under 10% in less than 2 months without ever feeling hungry, fatigued or experiencing any cravings. Interestingly enough I didn´t even work out very much, mostly walking and a few short lifting sessions weekly.
    Feeling constantly energized and content got me thinking about how this way of eating would work in a hiking situation and I decided to check it out.May 1st I landed on Kauai and the next day my friends Dayna and Jason dropped me of at the Kalalau trail head for a few days hiking along the beautiful Napali coast (more on that tour here).
    I started early afternoon and the first day was horrible, travel and crappy airplane food had kicked me out of ketosis and I had to literally sit down and rest several times during a long uphill stretch…
    Having brought only beef jerky, macadamia nuts and coconut oil (besides some instant coffee) for provisions saved me as I was back in ketosis the next day and the few days hiking turned out fantastic!
    This experience naturally added to my curiosity towards hiking in a ketogenic state that originated from the 2015 hike in Lappland and I decided to stay under 20g of daily carbs this year
  3.  I totally expect these 30 days in the wild to have a massive positive impact on my health, not only physically due to the clean air, food and water, but also mentally, emotionally and spiritually as a result of the closeness to nature, time for contemplation and reflexion as well as freedom from distractions and influence from advertising, social media, email etc.
    By doing some rather extensive blood work and collecting urine samples for testing stress and sex hormone status, as well as measuring waist and hip circumference, a few skin folds and scale weight before and after we hope to be able to show an improvement in all or most of the areas tested. Thereby inspiring others to use our findings to improve their own health with or without our guidance and support.

Below You can see the main parts of my pack, weighing in at 32kg (70lbs) its a little heavier than I´d like yet there´s np way around this while bringing the stuff I need for the tour and being able to get all the documentation.

 Food supply, 15kg / 33lbs totalCamping equipment and clothes

Please check out the short video, share this post with people You know who could benefit, and leave a comment below to share Your thoughts!

Mahalo, I appreciate You!

Peace // Claes

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Let me tell You a story!

On July 31th 2015 my wife at the time, Maria, and I left Riksgränsen (a small tourist station along the road from Kiruna to Narvik) for a 4 week hike. Early on we decided to bring provisions for the entire trip with us from the start which, needless to say, was challenging.

As stated earlier I’m rather fat adapted and enhanced that by cutting out all sugars and most starches a good week before we started the trip. Maria, on the other hand, was mainly eating a vegetarian diet based on fruits and veggies with some nuts, seeds and the occasional cheese.

I thought she was planning too little food and during the last week before departure I persuaded her to dehydrate some beetroot and sweet potatoes, just to have some denser carbohydrates available.

Starting out we were both carrying way to heavy loads and the first few days were slow and tedious though we managed to motor along pretty well for the first two weeks. Then came the point when we ran out of beetroot and sweet potatoes and initially this could be managed by stocking up on milk chocolate every time we passed by a cabin selling provisions.

As You probably already know the nutritional value of chocolate doesn’t even come close that of good starchy tubers and You might already have guessed how this ended… Right, the simple sugars and fast carbs in the chocolate couldn’t sustain the energy output for long, I managed to get my hands on some butter and could give Maria my remaining coconut oil and still it didn’t suffice.

A few days into week four her energy levels were plummeting just 90 min after we started in the morning and besides physical hunger and lack of energy it affected her emotionally as well. In the end we cut the tour short a couple of nights and went down to Abisko early.

I, on the other hand, had a totally different experience – I usually eat beef jerky with butter/coconut oil and some nuts for breakfast and when the energy from that meal has been used, my body just continues burning fat from the storages of my body and I didn’t even notice the difference and frankly never got any dips or hunger pangs.

In 2016 I was out there for 16 days and actually had one third of the beef jerky and about the same of the coconut left over at the end of the hike. Out of the 16 days I only had three meals on three days, two days I ate once and the rest I had two meals. Always eating when hungry and never experiencing a dip in energy!

So, these experiences inspired me to go full keto this year and see what that feels like – stay tuned!

 

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And here we go…

 

Please let me start with saying “Sorry for the lack of pictures and media”… I´m on Cyprus and the wifi has been really challenging lately, the stuff just doesn´t upload right…

That said (drumroll)…

Keto Hiker is finally going to happen, and thanks to my wonderful doctor, who makes the blood work possible, Michel Lundell at Ketonix sponsoring with his latest breath analyzer and Christofer Kelly from Nourish Balance Thrive supporting with their Phat Fibre and some additional tests we can hopefully get some real data from the project and go on helping a bunch of people with the results.

On July 28th I fly from Stockholm to Kiruna and continue to either Katterat in Norway or Katterjåkk in Sweden, depending on how I manage the logistics after landing at Kiruna airport.
Whatever starting point gets chosen doesn´n matter that much, I just never started from Katterat before, and that´s it…

Anyway, I stay out until August 27th which gives me 30 nights in the wild, carrying all my provisions from start to be able to guarantee the food quality and avoid all the crap they usually sell in the cabin shops.
The only exception is is I get a freshly caught fish from someone – yes, that happens… and I totally gonna eat it!

I expect to cover 20-25km (13-16 miles) per day on average and the basic idea is to take a rather over averagely healthy 46 year old male (that´s me) and put him in a more or less hunter/gatherer situation (except I carry my food instead of killing it along the way) for just over four weeks.
No planned social interactions, no connectivity (that´s no FB, email, cell phone connection… not even snail mail) – just moving through beautiful nature and following the natural rhythm of the body.
Eat when hungry, sleep when tired, move daily, rest as much as needed. Detached from civilization and connecting back with our origin, in a safe and relaxed way using a familiar environment to really remove any stressors as much as humanly possible.

Naturally I cannot give You any updates along the hike, yet I promise to get back and tell You everything.

Mahalo for now, I appreciate You and am so grateful for Your support!

Peace // Claes