Ep 79: Fueling Yourself for the Backcountry, with Kyle Kamp
Kyle Kamp is a dietician and owner of Valley to Peak Nutrition, a company designed to help people fuel themselves properly for rigorous backcountry adventures. After losing 140 pounds himself and moving out west where he was immersed in the outdoors, Kyle wanted to help others get the proper nutrition for their trips into the backcountry. In this episode, we discuss how to get the right amounts of calories, carbs, fats, and protein in the backcountry and why the right types of foods can make such a difference on big trips. We also get into dehydrating your own meals to save money and have delicious backcountry food.
IG: @v2pnutrition
FB: /v2pnutrition
Website: V2pnutrition.com
Podcast: Valley to Peak Nutrition Podcast
Kyle’s Dehydrating Book: link
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fish in the backcountry. This is episode 79 with Kyle Kamp on fueling yourself for the backcountry. Hey everybody, just wanted to hop in quickly and make a quick announcement before the show. We are rapidly approaching flyathlon season and for those who aren't familiar with the flyathlon, it is a super fun race that happens a couple times each year and it's based around running, fishing, and drinking beer, which are three of my favorite things. If you'd like to hear more about the race, you can listen to episode one of the Fish Untamed podcast, where I interviewed Andrew Todd, the founder of the Flyathlon. In addition to being a really fun weekend with a lot of fun people, the Flyathlon is also a fundraiser to raise money for native cutthroat trout conservation. If you have a couple extra dollars that you would be interested in donating to a great cause to support native cutthroat trout, go ahead and head over to my website, fishuntamed.com, and you'll find a menu at the top called Flyathlon Fundraiser. That link should take you to the fundraiser and you can donate there. And any amount is greatly appreciated. This would be a great way to support the show and also support a wonderful cause for native trout. So that's all I've got for you and we can get on with the show. I would love to get a background on your experience in the outdoors. Like how'd you get into it? And I think we'll separately cover how you got into the nutrition side of the outdoors.
Kyle
Yeah, well, thank you first, first and foremost, just for having me, Katie. It's honestly, I always feel like I've been fortunate to be on a number of different podcasts and always feel tremendously grateful that anyone would want to hear what I've got to say. So thank you for having me.
Katie
Absolutely. Yeah.
Kyle
So background to the outdoors is, um, pretty unconventional from your normal person. I grew up in the Midwest, uh, in, in Indiana, Southern Indiana, that with absolutely no outdoor experience at all. In fact, like I remember being in Cub Scouts as a kid, I can I vividly remember two camping trips. And I think that that's pretty much where my outdoor experience topped out at. And then very long story short, and I don't know how much of a history you want me to go into on this, but so I'm a I'm a I'm a dietician by profession in Korea and own a business called Valley to Peak Nutrition, which is aimed at helping people perform optimally in the mountains and to prepare for the mountains. Well, I'm sure we'll get into that. But in the Midwest, I grew up very overweight as a kid, lost 140 pounds when I was in my twenties, and that led to me wanting to pursue a career to help other people do the same. So I was in my late twenties, no college experience, really not sure what I was going to do with my life. And knowing that I wanted to do nutrition, I went to my local university, met with a academic advisor and said, you know, what are my options in terms of this field that I'm interested in. She said, well, you could you could pursue a general wellness degree or you could pursue being a dietitian. So she went on to sort of highlight what the differences were between each of them and that, you know, up to that point, that my academic career is pretty pathetic. So she tried to steer me heavily away from being a dietitian, which is very, very heavy on the math, science, medical side of things. And I said, I hear you. You're probably right, but I'm going to give it a shot. And so I did. And when you become a dietitian, you have to apply to different internships to get supervised practice, to become credentialed and to be able to practice on your own. And a computer is basically in charge of your fate. It matches you to a program in the country. There's a variety of them, but you're it's to some degree, it's kind of a crapshoot where you wind up, depending on how many programs you apply to. I applied to one in Idaho thinking, my gosh, I hope I don't get that because never spent a lot of time in the area where my where my program was going to be at. But I did it because my mom lives near here. Well, I matched and I moved out here and I thought, well, I'm going to get the internship over with and then I'm going to go back to the Midwest and, you know, do my career. When I came out here, I had quite a while between the start of my program and me moving. And, you know, really, when you're when you live, this may be true of other areas, but the West is the only place I've got experience with. When you live in the West, the culture is very outdoor driven. So I move out here and everyone's talking about, you know, the outdoors and hiking and doing this and that and this and that. And I thought, well, I'm going to try it. I fell in love with it. So, you know, here I sit 10 years later, still living in Idaho. And, um, yeah, so I, you know, my exposure to the outdoors was kind of. Quasi just being thrown into it because I've lived here and just found that I'd fallen in love with it. And I think that, you know, hopefully that's encouraging to anyone who's listening, who thinks, boy, I would like to, I'd like to do that someday, but I don't have any experience that can seem really intimidating, but it just is kind of a step by, it's just kind of a stepwise progression, right? Like you start with a local hike and then you start with an overnight backpacking trip and then you start with two or three days and then you take your fishing or your hunting gear and then you and then it just snowballs into the life of chaos where you're always gone. So yeah that's kind of the what my initial interest was in the outdoors.
Katie
It's funny you mentioned that because I have I wouldn't say a similar background in that like that's not what brought me out to the West but similarly I grew up fishing but nothing I would describe as intense or wild, just like standard fishing around town. And then I came out here and suddenly I'm immersed in the backpacking culture of the West and all this and that. And that wasn't something I grew up doing. I feel like a lot of people I know are in that same boat that you described where they're now very into the outdoors, but it's not something they really grew up doing with their families back East. It was just something that you get out here and you kind of fall in line with
Kyle
yeah, I mean, I was I was was and am very fortunate to have had friends who were just willing to bring me along, show me because there is there's there's a I think that's part of the intimidation factor is there's a giant learning curve if you've not grown up in that. And if you know, if you don't have a dad or a mom or a grandma or granddad or anyone really who has shown you that over time growing up, it really cuts down significantly if you've got some friends who are willing to show you that. Yeah, I think it's when they see, "Oh, wow, this guy or this girl loves this as much as I do," they enjoy taking you. I think that that was a big game changer for me.
Katie
Definitely. Maybe you mentioned this and I just missed it, but was it your weight loss that got you interested in nutrition or was it vice versa that you were interested in nutrition and then used that to benefit you and your weight loss?
Kyle
That's a really good question. So I had no clue about nutrition when I first began losing weight. And so, you know, my history is such that, I mean, my parents were separated ever since I was three and I spent a large majority of time with my mom who worked full time. My dad was still very, very present in my life. My mom just had custody of me. So naturally she'd get off work and most of our dinners were grabbing fast food. And I had a, you know, I had a penchant for anything snacky. I just loved food. Right. And so when I was 20, when I was in my mid twenties, 23, 24, um, I was 270 pounds. I'm five foot six. So you can probably picture that that wasn't a good weight for me to be at. Woke up one Christmas morning. This was probably my, you know, proverbial aha. Um, we'd open presents and. I had a lot of like just chest discomfort and I'd already been diagnosed with high blood pressure and, you know, it was progressively getting worse and I'm in my early twenties and I thought, well, I've, you know, I've got to do something. So I just started making small changes that seemed really obvious to me, right? Like I would, instead of eating a box of pizza, I would eat half a box of pizza and a big salad, or instead of getting fries, when I would go to eat, I would get like a chili and maybe a chicken sandwich, but only eat one of the bun rather than two. I'd get water instead of soda. So I started making these small changes and, and this is probably I'm, I'm a very, very analytical person by nature, which benefits me really well in my job benefits me really poor in my pocket book when it comes to gear. And, But it really benefited me while here because I really, really wanted to know, well, that's great. I mean, I understand that losing a piece of bread or not eating an entire box of pizza or not drinking a soda is going to help a person lose weight. I get that that is quote unquote healthier, but I really want to know why, like what's what is happening inside of me that makes that a better option and leads to weight loss. And that, you know, at that time I'd been dating a girl for a very long time. just graduated nursing school. I just spent an extensive amount of time in Bible college, but was really just trying to figure out like what I wanted to do. And so I was thinking about going back to school, had a couple of options on the table, one of them being graphic art, the other one being a physical education, a high school physical education teacher. And I went into the guidance counselor's office and said, you know, what exists for nutrition? because I'd started to see some weight loss at that point. You know, I'd already lost a large majority of my weight by the time I was going to go back to school. So it was that process of my own journey and really wanting to understand it and help other people that led me back to school as opposed to vice versa, where I'd went to school, learned about nutrition and then applied that.
Katie
Well, that's awesome that you like made that change without even having the more formal education at that point. Because like you said, you're making what you described as obvious changes, which I know we're going to get into probably a lot more of the science and the actual analytical stuff, like you called it, today. But at the end of the day, I think a lot of people, they kind of have a hunch on what is good for them and what's not. And they might not be getting down to the nitty gritty numbers. But it's not rocket science to know that real whole foods that were grown from the Earth better for you than something that's been, you know, ultra-processed and put in a box by people. And I think maybe it's easy to forget that a lot of the changes that you could make in your life to get healthier are well within your control and probably within your knowledge like as it is without having to get overwhelmed by the details. Is that kind of an accurate statement?
Kyle
I think it is an accurate statement. I mean, so on one hand, I was sort of at an advantage because this was maybe almost 15 years ago, right? Like before the, I mean, the internet was already a thing, but people kind of used it sporadically. It wasn't really available on the phone. Like you couldn't just be glued to it all the time. So in a lot of ways, I didn't have as much information being pushed at me that people now are getting pushed at them, right? So I couldn't, I just had to, I had to rely on obvious choices as opposed to, I mean, there are so many things that are out there now, the number, I would say the number one thing that people who apply to our program say they struggle with is there is so much information. I've got no idea what to go in. Like I'm willing to invest the work, but I also want it to be efficient of my time. So I don't even know what to do, you know? So it's clarity on, on what the right option even is. But to your point, yes. You know, small changes can lead to a pretty dramatic change if consistently done over time. So I think it depends on, you know, how in the weeds someone wants to get. If someone simply is wanting to make small changes and they're not in a hurry, they're willing to be patient, changing a few small things done consistently over time, we'll get them there. Like one of the phrases that we use all of the time and and our program is master the basics and do them with relentless consistency. That is going to get you so much farther than trying to jump on any type of a fad train purchase. I mean, if any program is encouraging you to purchase something, some sort of additional supplementary something or another, that supplementary something or another is doing nothing for you way of progress. There's something else that would be working just by making simple changes.
Katie
And when you mentioned your program, maybe this would be a good time to jump into what that is. And I assume you're talking about Valley to Peak when you say that.
Kyle
Yeah. So Valley to Peak is really kind of two arms. You know, the kind of our mantra is we help people prepare for and perform optimally. So preparation, prepare for and perform optimally for the backcountry preparation is kind of a. The average person tends to spend between four and six months in the program, and in that we're tailoring a process for them, right? Like, so we begin by looking at, well, what are you already doing? And when I can sit down with someone, everything's one on one. Like they work directly with me. It's no one's on any sort of a cookie cutter. Here you go. Here's some papers. Good luck to you type of a thing. We sit down with each other and I want to know what you're already doing and what basic changes can we make based on that. And so I'll tell people the less that this looks like a complete overhaul from what you're already doing, the more on track we are to the right thing. Because if I give you something that is a complete, you know, life altering nutrition plan that has you eating your special foods at night while your kids and wife eat macaroni and cheese and fish sticks, You're probably not going to be able to do this long term. And consistency over time is what's going to lead to results no matter what you follow. Right. And so the more that we can build something that fits you as opposed to trying to shove you into a program, the more on track we are, we're going to be. I like I like to think of it as as boots, right? Like anyone, including your listeners who's been in the mountains, you could say, OK, well, here's my boots. They're size 13. They're really old. There's not even a soul on this one. You should be fine. You know, it's a boot, right? It'll get you up the mountain. Anyone who has spent any time in the mountains knows. No, not only is a boot not a boot, but there are specificities within each boot that you really got to find something that fits you to be comfortable. That doesn't cause hot spots. It doesn't blister, et cetera. So nutrition is a lot of the same way. You can shove anyone inside of a program, but it's not going to fit well. The best way to do it is to take a person, figure out what their needs are, tailor that program for them. Second arm of a valley to peak would be to perform optimally. And so people may be in great shape, but, you know, I'll look, I'll work a lot of a lot of the times with folks who draw a special tag for hunting, right, like a really challenging hunt, let's say, like a 10 day hunt in the backcountry for Dall sheep in Alaska where nutrition's heavily where your ability to be able to stay back there for 10 days and do well for those 10 days is heavily dependent upon what your nutrition needs are. And so second arm of that is, you know, we'll sit down and we'll talk about, well, what does that look like? How can we game plan for that? Whenever you're back there, that's a very small fraction of folks in the program. I would say 99.9% is those folks walking out over a process between, you know, again, four to six months where we're looking at your nutrition, we're checking in with one another. We've got a course that you'd get access to. And so the whole idea is not just me giving you some numbers, but it's explaining to you, "Okay, this is how nutrition works. This is what the process looks like." It's to create autonomy for the person, as opposed to being like a human meal replacement bar where they're coming back for meal plans all the time, all the while still not having any idea why it works.
Katie
I have a couple of questions based on what you said there, and maybe you can tell me if this is the right order to go in. because I was wondering anyway and then you brought up the need for like a personalized plan. It's not you don't have a cookie cutter thing. That said, I'm sure there are guidelines that are generally good for the population. Kind of going back to you know water is almost always a better choice than soda for basically anybody if they're trying to be healthier. If someone's going into the backcountry, do you have any first like just general guidelines for things that someone would want to keep in mind for performing their best and then maybe afterward I'd like to follow up with kind of how to tailor that to yourself. But I want to check first, are there any kind of general rules that might help people out if they're completely lost as to what they should be feeding themselves when they're going on, let's say a hike that's going to require more than just a lunch that day, but they want to actually stay out there for a little bit and do well in the backcountry?
Kyle
Yeah, I mean, so I think there's a couple ways you could take get one, you know, stopping by a local gas station and any mountain town before you go to hit a river or a high mountain lake or whatever it is, you're probably going to be okay. The nutrition piece and really detailing it down to your personal needs is when you're planning to spend, you know, a few days on end back there covering a decent amount of miles or cup and or covering a decent amount of vertical elevation change. That's whenever truly knowing your needs are going to be the most important. Rather than telling you what the best thing a person could do would be, I think it's beginning with maybe one of the biggest misnomers with back country nutrition. And that is if I have sufficient calories, then I should do well, right? wants to base their nutrition in the back country on total number of calories and or calories per ounce to keep their pack as light as possible. And I totally get where you would want to keep the pack as light as possible. The only problem is calories only matter if they're coming from the right sources. So it becomes more important that you know the three main sources of nutrients, where our energy and where our calories come from, what their responsibility is in your personal performance, which performance we could just kind of dummy down to say how well you do while you're hiking and then matching what your personal needs are with choices, right? Filling that gallons of block full of foods that are going to look like what your needs are for each of those three choices. Now of course probably leads to wanting to know what are the three main nutrients. Those would be what most all of us have heard about, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Each of those have a responsibility in the role of nutrition. Carbohydrates responsibility is energy. Fats main responsibility is the transport of hormones and fat-soluble vitamins. Proteins main responsibility is recovery and repair. Each person is going to need a varying amount of each of those nutrients to really feel as they could whenever they're hiking in the mountains. Now, it's very challenging to cast that net really wide and say, "Okay, everyone should eat X number of carbs, X numbers of protein, X numbers of fats, etc." You have to, you have to, that's usually based on the amount of effort a person's planning to do, the amount of intensity a person's planning to do, a person's height, body weight, age, gender, etc. all depend on what those variables are going to be. But I think summarizing it simply by saying calories are not just calories. The calories are only going to matter if they're coming from the right places.
Katie
And then how would a person narrow down what their proper ratio is? If they're like, "Okay, I get that these three are all important. I'd like to maximize the effectiveness of what I'm eating for myself. How does someone go about, besides just looking at, you know, I'm sure there's calculators online that you fill out with your stats, but I'm sure that there's also a lot more going on under the surface that can't be done by an online calculator. So how would someone figure out their best ratio?
Kyle
That's a good question. The best way to figure out the ratios, and this is again casting the net very broad. For the most part, we like to say getting about 50% of your total calorie needs from carbohydrates is going to put you at a decent starting spot. That would leave another 50% of your calories. If you divide those equally among the fats and the proteins, 25%, 25%, that's a rough place to start. Here's the other beautiful thing about nutrition is what's optimal only matters if it's practical. So those are starting points. If you get to playing with it and you feel like, boy, I sure feel better at 40% fats, 30% carbs, 20% whatever, right? To get to a hundred percent, that's okay too. You can tailor it to you. And that's, that's the beauty of it is yes, we've got some general rules of thumb. Yes, we've got studies that suggest people do better. Like whenever you whenever you study, whenever you study high performing athletes, there's there's studies that say certain ratios of these three tend to improve time in terms of yes, the performance gets better whenever the athlete focuses most of their intake on this nutrient or that nutrient. But if that doesn't work for you, then you you should ignore what's optimal and do what's practical and what you've observed works the best for you.
Katie
So it sounds like it's a decent bit of trial and error. Go out, eat things, see how they sit with you, see, you know, are they, I guess there's a practical side of, you know, are they light enough to you can't just go and look for the foods that fit those, that ratio the best if it's not something practical to take on a backpacking trip. And then just, I assume, try it out over, over the course of multiple trips and see which ones work well and which ones don't?
Kyle
Yes, I think so. But you have to you have to remember too that you're everyone's always going to be weighing what's more important to them. Right. So if like for me, for example, I would rather carry more weight in food and know that I've got everything that I need to take on whatever challenge is coming at me, as opposed to skimping on that, potentially hitting a wall and carrying a lighter pack. Right. And then some other people are going to say, well, I'd rather have a lighter pack and risk hitting the wall, you know, the wall of energy, uh, whenever you're doing a tough climb or whatever. So there is some practicality, but there's also preference, right? Prime example of this is, uh, there's a group of about 23 of us that just got back from Alaska taking on a very challenging hike.
Katie
Were you on the death hike?
Kyle
I was.
Katie
Okay.
Kyle
I was. Um, you know, we, we all went into this anticipating some pretty, um, pretty ambitious goals in terms of total mileage, total vertical elevation change. Bar none. The heaviest thing in our pack was food, right? I mean, most of us were sitting at over three pounds per day because what we were trying to take on required that much. Could you have skimmed? You could have, but the risk of hitting the wall would have been greater. So all of us decided, look, we value the ability to be able to complete this and carry a little bit of extra weight in the beginning, 'cause obviously that weight goes down with time, as opposed to not having what we need and potentially risk hitting the wall when we needed it the most. Does that make sense?
Katie
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think a lot of people probably know what you're referring to when you say hit the wall, like just from personal experience, but can you tell me scientifically what's going on when you hit the wall?
Kyle
Yeah, so essentially you have nutrient stores that sit within your liver and within your muscle, those are limited. Right. And so when, when, when you, when you exhaust those stores and you aren't being, um, you aren't being the word that comes to mind is prophylactic, but that's a very, that's a very sterile term. You're not being, um, you're not intentionally trying to prevent that because let me back up when you drain those stores after you've consumed something and you're not intentionally trying to replace them by eating with some regularity, those stores will empty. So the, the, what ends up happening is you literally do not have any fuel left to keep going, so you hit the quote unquote wall, you literally feel like you've got no energy. You bonk. There's a lot of terms associated this, particularly once a person gets deep into a long distance race, or they're trying to go up a big vertical ascent. And they just don't have it in them anymore. Now folks listening and you know, even, even the community at large will say things like, oh, well, this is why you should consume more fat as fuel, because fat has inexhaustible amounts of energy stores. Obviously we store more energy has stored fat as opposed to anything else. That's okay. If that can work as fuel, but particularly whenever you're taking on something really challenging, like a vertical ascent, the body prefers carbohydrate as fuel. In fact, muscles contract almost three times faster when powered by carbohydrate as opposed to other nutrients. So it becomes again, a delicate balance of what's optimal versus what's practical. We know that whenever exertion exceeds about as 85%, which, you know, whenever you think about, oh, this is all that I can do, I'm working as hard as I possibly could when you're 75, 85% of the way towards that the body's almost a hundred percent reliant on carbohydrate. Beyond that, it's always a mix. There's a portion of fat being given at lower energy outputs. There's a portion of carbohydrates and they're always a dynamic fuel. It's very, you know, it's always relying on varying degrees among the two. But as that exertion gets higher and as that, um, trip extends longer, it relies more on carbohydrate. So that the need to replace those stores often. is a key to avoiding hitting that wall.
Katie
And I assume the goal is to not hit that wall by continuing to feel yourself along the way. But I've also experienced where I hit the wall and I feel like I've got nothing else to give and I'm hangry. And then I eat something as small as a granola bar and I feel like I have this second burst of energy. Is that real or is that in my head that it doesn't take a lot to keep that going and get yourself back out of that hole.
Kyle
No, it's not. It's not in your head at all. Right. So the, the, the other, the other value of consuming carbohydrate is when you do that, you're there, there's two parts, right? Like, so there's, there's carbohydrates stored in your muscle and there's carbohydrates stored in your liver. When you, when, when the carbohydrates stored in your muscle, that carbohydrate is responsible for firing that muscle. Right. So if you, if you think about your, your, your legs, for example, once that's consumed, there's no energy left there. But if you continue to consume carbohydrate, those stores fill back up. You're able to still have energy to keep hiking. The other thing that's really important is as you break down carbohydrate, it delivers fuel to your brain. So if you feel like you come out of that fog after consuming some carbohydrates, because now the now the brain is finally getting some fuel to it. People will be listening and say, well, your body can get brain fuel from fats. It can, but there's always a requisite amount of consumed carbohydrate that the brain is needing to continue to perform in a way that you can keep mentally engaged. So, no, it's not made up or it's not in your head. And that's the other piece of nutrition, right? Like, so there's one thing. It's one thing to know your totals, how many calories, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats do I need to really take on what I'm doing? The other thing is frequency, making sure that you're eating enough, you know, often enough throughout the course of the day to where you're never hitting the wall to where you're making sure those tanks are always getting filled back up. Because that's the other deal. Like we're all guilty of this. We're in the back country. There's some sort of place we are trying to get to, right? Whether it's a glassing knob if you're hunting or whether it's a high mountain lake, if you're trying to fish, whether it's a saddle before dark, whatever. There's always somewhere you're trying to get. So none of us ever want to stop to eat. The problem is, is if that, if, if those, if those stores drain. Getting them to fill back up and get energy is going to require you to rest. Right? So you, you will be made to rest if you aren't intentional about it in the beginning. and it would be better at least every potentially two hours to stop, get something and keep going. And again, we're talking about. We're talking about if this is really a pretty high effort type of an endeavor. If you're, you know, two miles from the car or two miles from the truck walking along a trail that's relatively flat next to a river, this might not be applicable to you. right? Like you don't necessarily need to sit down and pound a bunch of Gatorade for something like that. It's 20 minute stroll essentially. But if you're trying to take on something that's a little bit deeper, a little bit further, a little more and requiring a little more effort, a little higher elevation, etc. That's when really having a detailed plan can make a dramatic difference in how well you do.
Katie
Now, what's the difference between, let's say you've got the same amount and type of food, but you've got it divided into three big meals versus snacking once an hour every hour. What's the difference between that? Like if I wake up and have a huge breakfast and then say, "Okay, I'm not going to eat again until lunch, but I'm going to eat the same amount of food that I would if I were eating my breakfast over the course of the morning." Is there a difference there between eating it all at once or spreading it out into smaller sections?
Kyle
No, it's largely going to, it's largely going to depend on what you're doing. If the intensity is high, our bodies can metabolize as many as one to one and a half grams of carbohydrate every minute, which means your breakfast could be gone after 60 minutes. If the intensity is really low, your breakfast could potentially last you until noon. So it's going to depend on the intensity. Now, if we're talking about a high intensity endeavor, then yes, it matters a lot. And the reason it matters is because those fuel stores, even though the breakfast may have been big, are potentially gone after two hours, right? You're consuming them and potentially using them up immediately. If the effort's low, they're going to stay around a little while longer. The other thing, and this is kind of where it gets a bit more nitty gritty and goes back to our conversation earlier where we were talking about, okay, can people just do the basics and get anywhere? Yes, they can. But for the analytical people like me, the little things may make a difference. And one of those would be, we know that distribution, small amounts of meal distribution, small amounts of nutrition trickled over the course of the day, as opposed to big amounts with nothing, big amounts with nothing, big amounts with nothing. The latter, I'm sorry, the former, the trickles seem to be absorbed better. They seem to prevent muscle breakdown more. They seem to encourage muscle building more. So that's kind of that nuance thing that you could argue doesn't make a big difference, but for people really wanting like the optimal side of things as opposed to just the practical side of things, then yeah, those small doses over time would probably be more valuable than giant amounts coming in at once.
Katie
Okay. And I think I can almost anecdotally picture myself not liking a huge meal as much in the backcountry just because if I eat a huge meal I'm not really inclined to go work hard after that. I might feel sick or nauseated and I feel like I feel better with like snack consistent snacking than I do until dinnertime. I like to sit down for like a big meal of dinner once I'm done for the day but for breakfast and lunch in the backcountry I rarely sit down for a dedicated large meal just because I feel sluggish afterward like I want to take a nap.
Kyle
Yeah and I think it's a great it's a great it's a great point to piggyback on You know, generally large meals in the back country are going to have quite a bit of fat, quite a bit of protein and quite a bit of fiber. Those three nutrients are known to delay gastric emptying, which is a very fancy word of saying it slows digestion down. Now that's great when you work in an office, it means you're going to be fuller longer, you're going to be less snacky, you're going to be around your calorie need as opposed to going over and risk gaining weight. But when you're in the back country and you combine that with a high intensity effort where the blood is pulling, taking from the stomach and giving it to the legs, it creates even more problems. So you'll often hear people talk about how they just don't feel good. Their stomach's always bugging them in the back country. And sometimes that can be what they're choosing. Like, you know, huge culprit is as great as it can seem to, you know, purchase these really expensive high fiber meal replacement bars. They are wreaking havoc on your gut whenever you're out trying to hike a lot because the blood is again taking your body is again taking most of the blood, taking it away from organs that aren't necessarily needed at the time and giving it to your legs because how active the legs are. Plus you've got your you know your pack on which tends to have a hip belt that hip belt It tends to be snug, so you're cutting off more, cutting off more there. So it tends to create a recipe for really not feeling well when you're eating lots of fat, lots of fiber, you're working really hard, it's hot, there's less oxygen. All of these things can really wreak havoc on digestion, which is why, yeah, you could argue the option for smaller meals, trickled over time, lower in fat, lower in fiber, lower in protein, would sit better with someone than the alternative option.
Katie
Now going back to protein, 'cause we haven't really talked as much about protein as we have about carbs and fats. Where does protein fall into this? I mean, I know protein's just important in general in your diet, but specifically in the back country with what you're doing, like, you know, during the day you want the energy to, let's say, get up the mountain, get to the lake. But I assume at the end of the day, like you're gonna switch to repair mode, like your body, now that you're not asking anything of it and you're sitting down to relax, Is that when you're going to go into a repair mode and is that when the protein comes in? Or I guess just tell me how the protein fits into all this in terms of being at your best when you're exerting yourself out there.
Kyle
Yeah, you're a wise woman. So protein, folks will often say like protein is what they'll focus on in the backcountry. They'll see it as an energy source and it's not. It's designed with one purpose and that's for recovery and repair. So most people, most men especially, are guilty of trying to take as much protein as they can in the backcountry to get the amount of protein that they get back home under the assumption well the exertion is high so the recovery is going to be high. The exertion might be high but really all you're trying to do is recover for the day. You're not trying to grow the muscle like you are if you're training for something back home. So the amount needed is usually far less than what's needed whenever you're at home. So what I'll typically do, and this is going to loop in your question about trickling nutrition over time, what I'll typically suggest is that someone gets some protein at breakfast, some protein at lunch, and some protein at dinner. And the idea is that it takes about the amount of time between each of those meals to fully digest the protein and absorb it. Meaning you don't necessarily need large amounts in between those meals. If you're getting a good dose at each of those, you're getting plenty of protein that goes to the protein pool, P O O L that allows the body to re to take from that pool, that P O O L and apply it to the muscles in recovery. So yes, making sure that your dinner, your evening meal has a good dose of protein in it is a, is a wise option. The other thing that's important to remember is at that evening meal, you also want to make sure that there's good amount of carbohydrate. We call carbohydrate the protein sparing nutrient. If there's adequate carbohydrate, it gives the body the permission to take all of that protein and allow the muscle to recover and repair. If there's inadequate carbohydrate, the body can take that consumed protein, create energy out of it, thereby not allowing it to go to the muscle for recovery and repair. So it's important to remember that none of these things are singular, right? Like they all work in tandem together, which is why you can't say, okay, well, I'm only going to focus on this or I'm only going to focus on this. The body just simply doesn't work that way. It works in tandem and all of the pieces working together are what really make a good nutrition plan.
Katie
Okay. You've mentioned a couple of things like this is generally good for a dinner, let's say, this is generally good for a breakfast. And keeping in mind that everyone's different, everyone's going to have their own personal needs, do you have any kind of overall recommendations for like what would be a good example of a people in the backcountry that will give them the energy they need during the day while not making their muscles just break down overnight.
Kyle
Yeah, I mean, so first I will say, I can give some general recommendations. In fact, I'll just kind of tell you what I did for the death hike. But what's most important to remember is you have to take stuff that you like. Your nutrition profile on an Excel sheet can look great, but if you get back there and you don't wanna eat it, it is not gonna do anything for you. That's an important thing to remember. For breakfast, I tend to, just for the sake of simplicity, like something like oatmeal with some dried fruit and some protein powder in it, because again, like protein is hard to get. So even though you don't need a ton of it, you need some of it. One of the easiest ways to get it in is just to throw some powder in a bowl of oatmeal. All right, so I'll typically do like an oatmeal in the morning with some protein and then I buy these little individual packets of honey. So you've got good doses of carbohydrate, you've got good doses of protein, you've got a little bit of fat in there, but not so much that it's gonna delay the digestion and cause you to have some problems. Lunch can vary as well for the death hike. Like I love, I get burnt out on tortillas, that's like a back country staple for a lot of people. So I took, I bought a bunch of bagels. These were, I think, like cinnamon raisin bagels for anyone curious. And I took them, so this will give you an insight to my life, I knew they needed to be flat so I could save some space in my pack, right? And I told my wife, I'm gonna buy them, I'm gonna put them in a Ziploc, and I'm gonna run them over with the truck. And she was like, or you could just put a weight on top of them to flatten them out. So I took her advice and I put them in a Ziploc bag, put a weight over the top of them, and it basically made these bagels as thin as a tortilla. So it added some great variety. I got tired of taking tortillas, but it also met my nutrition needs. So I would take one of those and then like a tuna or chicken salad packet or shredded pork, some sort of a meat packet to get a little bit of protein in at lunch, usually a candy bar, and then some Gatorade powder that I would mix whenever we got to a stream or whatever. For dinner, we dehydrate all of our own meals. So like one night I had dehydrated spaghetti with meat. One night I had dehydrated elk chili. And one night, I forget what I had for the other night. So again, I'm always focusing on making sure those three boxes are checked. Is there some carbohydrate? Is there some fat? Is there some protein? Those are what I focus on for the three main meals. In between those meals, I'm always aiming to get, you know, a high carb snack in every two hours at the very least. So sometimes I'll make my own granola bars. I love PB and J's, but you'll get like a day out of those before they go South. So what I started doing, what did I do on this trip in particular was I bought a bunch of Uncrustables, just the pre-packaged PB and J's. Those lasted a little bit longer than whenever I would make them at home. What else did I take? I took a bunch of gummy bears, especially for the ascents. I took a bunch of electrolyte powder. Again, both of those focused on just a high carbohydrate intake. I took some trail mix that had chocolate covered espresso beans, M&Ms, nuts, and a bunch of dried fruit in it. I took a bag of golden grams with dehydrated bananas. I took, what else was in there? Pop-tarts, I took a bag of pop-tarts for each day. And so I'm just, basically what I did is I'm laying out how many hours do we anticipate moving? How many snacks do I need every two hours aside from the main meals? And then I'm planning out those along the day. And so I'm basically trying to remind myself every couple of hours to stop and get something in.
Katie
So this is really interesting listening to your snack options, because I think most people that recreate in the backcountry, they're used to grabbing something like a Snickers bar or whatever. And listening to a dietician talk about, I take Pop-Tarts, I take Gummy Bears, I take this and that, things that people would not consider to be healthy snacks. If you're just sitting at home, snacking on a Pop-Tart and some Golden Grahams and an Uncrustable is probably not the ideal you're trying to be healthy in your office snack. How does that translate to the backcountry? are you just like no longer concerned about things like that because you're moving so much and burning so much energy? Like why are these snacks what's what's recommended when you're out there working hard?
Kyle
That's a that is an excellent question. So I will preface this by saying I eat none of that when I'm at home.
Katie
Right and I feel like most of us don't.
Kyle
Yeah like this is not a normal day-to-day intake. You know so obviously this is my job. My estimated energy needs, and I'm a small guy, like I weigh like one 45, I'm five foot six. My estimated energy needs for that hike alone were probably somewhere around 5500 to 6000 calories. If I were going to purchase a bunch of quote unquote quality food, there would be so much food that I would have to eat. The volume would go up so much. I would never meet the energy demand. Right. For starters. So, you know, you may remember a story people might be familiar with was Michael Phelps a few years ago, whenever he was swimming in the Olympics, like stories of him coming out, eating whole pizzas and just all of this, what looked like, quote unquote, garbage food. But he literally could have not performed the amount of effort he was doing without eating that because he needed the calories. So I think that that's that's number one, right? When the calorie demand is that high, there's really only one way to eat it. And you do have to sort of shift your focus towards some of those those foods. Now you could make it, you could do all of those things, but here's, here's the reality that's an unpopular truth. And again, this is not my, um, this is not my subjective opinion. This is literally objective data. This is science. This is how it works. The body recognizes carbs, proteins, fats, and that's where we get our calories from. It is not looking at it and saying, Hmm, that looks like a Snickers. We're putting that straight on the thighs. It simply recognizes, do you need this energy or don't you? And if you do, it's going to give you the energy to do what you're asking it to do. If you don't, that's where it starts becoming a problem with our weight and with chronic disease. So the other, the other, this is a way side trail. The other problem with that is when you, with those foods is if you're eating them, when you don't necessarily need them, they taste delicious. They're hard to stop at a single portion size. So we tend to over consume them and that's what leads to a lot of the problems. When you're in the back country, the need is so high, the body's processing it like fuel, literally burning it as soon as it comes in or as fast as it can come in. That it's got, it has no time to be shifted towards fat deposits. It's got no, the, the, the energy need is so far above what's coming in that it, it literally can't cause a lot of the problems that we associate with obesity. Now, if you were going to be on the trail for two years at a time, then yes, potentially causes a problem because you're missing vitamins and minerals, right? I'm not, I'm a dietitian. I know that there's no vitamins and minerals in an uncrustable, but I'm on the trail for three days, right? The rest of my diet is made up of nutrient dense, single ingredient, whole foods, 99.999% of the time. I still have pizza with my family. I still have donuts with my son from time to time, but most of the time it's these other foods because I know that my diet is largely comprised of that. And very rarely is it comprised of what was in that gallon Ziploc bag. I'm not even remotely concerned about long-term health implications. In fact, like there's been some research and there's a, um, post I did probably, gosh, I bet it'd been two years ago now on a study where they measured inflammatory markers in people who consume certain types of sugar, high fructose corn syrup being one of them. They showed no, no, no, no markers of inflammation. If the calories were equated for, it's the excess that gets us right. So like the, the, what we always, the, the term that we always use is it's, there's nothing good and bad. It's always the dose that makes the poison. Right. And so we go back to the reference I made earlier within the program about people eating mac and cheese and fish sticks. In reality, you could lose weight eating macaroni and fish sticks if you were able to control abortions. Now your portion sizes of macaroni and fish sticks are going to be very, very, very, very small compared to nutrient dense foods in order to stay within your calorie limits and not put on weight and prevent chronic disease. But it's possible. So this topic is a really, really, really deep topic in terms of what we see in the country right now in terms of excess intake, very little movement, overweight, etc. But it is an entirely different beast in the backcountry because of how great the energy demand is, if that makes sense.
Katie
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I have no idea how many calories I burn on an average day of backpacking, but I've fallen into the trap of what you mentioned where I'm eating what I would consider to be junk food and that's what I want to eat and that's what makes, like we talked about earlier, the hanger go away and makes me feel good again. But I think I have gotten stuck in that trap of thinking, "Oh no, I'm not getting any nutrients over the course of these three days." But basically what you're saying is that those three days are not going to ruin you in terms of the vitamin and mineral intake if you're eating properly the rest of the time.
Kyle
No. I mean, not only are they not going to ruin you at all, but the other unpopular truth. And again, like as a dietitian, it's it's really important to me that I remain very objective, right? Like I'm not giving my opinion. I have to literally look how to look at how does this work and then give information based off of that. Nobody cares about my opinion. They want to know how does this really work? If you're taking things like so I mentioned Golden Grahams. I'm not saying that Golden grams is the poster boy for nutrient density but it is fortified with a lot of nutrients vitamins and minerals in fact it may even parallel a general multivitamin so unpopular truth would be are you saying that you're getting some vitamins and minerals from fortified foods like cereals with golden grahams
Katie
yes
Kyle
you are in fact iron from something like Cheerios you can get a large percentage of your daily need from iron just by eating a cup of Cheerios so if If you throw that in there, you could absolutely make the argument that even though it's not the form that you may have thought it would come in, it is coming, right? You are getting those nutrients. I think that that at the end of the day is what matters and what shocks people. Honestly, I think it's comforting for people to know, "Man, this is so much easier than what all of these forums and blogs and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, have made it seem because it really is. It really is a lot easier than, you know, what we've kind of been told matters and goes back to the comment earlier where people would call and, you know, they'll say like, look, I'm willing to do the work, but I'm literally so confused that I don't know what to do. That's where we talk about. Here's a couple of basics. Let's learn how to make it your own. And if you can do those with relentless consistency, if you can just master these couple of things and do them week over week, you will absolutely see what it is that you're wanting to see in terms of progress.
Katie
Now do you take any sort of supplements with you besides the protein powder that you put in the oatmeal? I think you said, you know, like an electrolyte powder or something, but do you take like vitamins or any other supplements with you in the backcountry?
Kyle
I don't take anything. So I take the protein powder, which is just because it's a simple way to get some protein in. take an electrolyte powder, which is store bought powdered Gatorade, right? It's nothing even remotely close to fancy. It's the same stuff that your kids probably mix in at T-ball. And that's it. If I were going to be out for 14 or more days, I might buy a general multivitamin. And when I buy those, I buy the Walmart brand generic men's multivitamin. Right. Because the reality is, is that most of the time You do not need to pay the extra cost. Now there's going to be someone who's like, you know, well, cares about sustainability, they care about the, um, the ethos of a certain company. They, those things are different, right? Like those are intrinsic moral attachments that you're, you're trying to support a certain thing. That's, that's totally different. I get that. But if you're, if you're talking about in terms of efficacy, you probably don't need to be spending as much money as most people do on the really high end. stuff.
Katie
And is that just because the basics in there are all the same?
Kyle
Yes. Now, you could look at this both ways because there is no regulation on vitamins and supplements in the US. So you could look at it in one of two ways. One, well, the more expensive supplement, that must mean that it's in there. However, and this is the second view, it's not regulated. So how do you know it's in there? Right? In fact, you know, the, um, there is a third party seal called the, um, of course it would blank me. It's going blank on me now. I think it's the USP here. Let me type it in really quick. Yeah. So it's called the USP seal. It's a third party that, um, a third party company that can go in and assess is what this company says is in here, actually in here. And the, like one of the most prominent ones that you'll find that seal on is nature made, which is one of the most inexpensive vitamin companies that you can find probably at your local Walmart. And you find that seal which says, what's in here is actually in here.
Katie
Good to know. I think I've seen that brand all over the place. And like you said, it's like really hard when you're looking at the shelf to know if what you're looking at is legit or not. And that's a whole other subject to supplementation versus just eating right. But I guess the last thing I wanted to ask you about, I know you mentioned it, and I want to get to your book, is dehydrating food. Because as you also mentioned, if you don't like it, you're not going to eat it. And I feel like there's no better way to guarantee that you're going to like something than to dehydrate things that you already know you like and just take those meals that you're already used to out with you in the back country. Do you just have any general tips for getting into dehydrating your own meals if that's the route you want to take?
Kyle
Yeah, it's a very bad tip, but I'm going to give it to you. Dehydrating for most people, including myself, I first like started to get a little bit interested in it is very intimidating. The best tip that I could give you is just to buy a dehydrator and start because you're going to find that it's, it's very hard to mess it up. And that many questions that you've got about it, like, is it done? How should I store this? How all the questions you potentially have, you're going to answer by jumping into it. The worst thing you're going to lose is some leftovers. That's it, right? Like if you. And I know another really inexpensive way to get in it is purchase your dehydrator, buy a couple of cans of soup and start with dehydrating canned soup. Right. You're talking about less than a dollar investment. If you're worried about, you know, ground beef is expensive right now. Right. So if you're worried about ruining an entire batch of chili and you don't want to make the investment to cook that, buy a couple of cans of soup, buy some frozen fruit, buy some of these less expensive items, start with those and that way you can get a good feel for it. But the best advice that I could have is don't let the intimidation factor be the thing to deter you from starting. The best thing about dehydrating is that, like you said, the options are basically limitless on what you can take back there for dinners. And the other thing is, is that if you do go down the rabbit trail of looking up optimal and practical and what are your actual needs, you can tailor those meals to meet those, right? You're not having to rely on whatever the package ends up being from your favorite brand. And you know, well, do I need to augment that by adding in some tortillas to make sure I bring the carbs up for recovery? Because that guy on that podcast said, well, that's important because it spares protein. You can make it whatever you want.
Katie
And how do you, uh, what container do you take your backcountry meals in to reheat them? Because I think one of the benefits of buying a prepackaged one is it comes in a nice bag that you pour the water in, you stir it, and you come back in a little bit. Are you reusing, or do you have a reusable bag, or are you putting it in a Ziploc? I know some people use Ziplocs. What's your preferred reheating option?
Kyle
I have two. So I have this little cylinder Ziploc container with a lid, and then I bought some Reflectix. So if you can picture like what a sunshade in a car is made out of. And I basically made a holder of this Ziploc container out of reflectix to keep it insulated. So while it heats up, it stays warm as opposed to getting cool because obviously it's cold in the mountains basically year round. So that's one thing that I've got. When I was in when I went to Alaska and we were I was trying to be very weight conscious and space space conscious. I just heated it up in my titanium mug. I've got this little titanium mug and a little MSR pocket rocket. So I would heat the water up. I would dump the meal in. I sewed together a fleece carrying case that weighed next to nothing. I would put the titanium mug in the fleece carrying case to keep it warm. And then whenever it was ready, I would eat it. That worked out great.
Katie
Okay, that's good to know. I think I've heard that there are like, you can basically buy versions of those bags that the meals come in on Amazon, but I haven't tried one. And I don't know if I've talked to anyone who has tried one. So I'm not sure how effective they are.
Kyle
Yeah, you can. And I think they're extremely effective for me, you know, kind of being a weight weenie. I'm always trying to think about, okay, you know, does whatever I'm taking have multiple uses? Does it save space, et cetera? So like, I've never purchased one of those And I don't even take my little Ziploc cylinder thing much into the back country because it's just, just takes up space without multiple uses. The titanium, the little bitty titanium mug, which is a Toks, I don't know how many milliliters, it's the big one, Toks mug takes up very little space. And then the fleece bag that I sewed together is the carrying case for the mug and the stove and the fuel. So it's serving multiple purposes. It's not taking up any unused real estate in my backpack. And it serves an excellent purpose. It keeps it warm, like I said. And those titanium mugs can get super hot. So putting it in that fleece bag while I'm eating it keeps it from me having to simultaneously juggle it from hand to hand to keep my hams from burning.
Katie
That sounds really cool. I might have to look into doing that. I think I'd like to get a dehydrator in the next year or so, hopefully less, but it's kind of like the next big purchase on my list. But the intimidation factor, not of the dehydrating, but of the logistics of getting the meals out there has kind of been the biggest deterrent to me just because I don't feel like with what I use now that I have like a seamless way to take meal, the dehydrated meals into the back country. So I might have to take that suggestion because that sounds really convenient.
Kyle
What do you use?
Katie
Well, I just don't dehydrate my own meals. I usually take a dehydrated meal like in a bag that…
Kyle
So you're talking about something to cook
Katie
right
Kyle
Some people, I mean, I do know some people who dehydrate their own meals, who like will keep their mountain house bag or their trailtopia bag or whatever. And they'll just use that as many times as possible. Um, I know people, as a matter of fact, the guy that I spent most of the time with in Alaska, we were kind of paired and, you know, and collectively as a group. But the guy that I was in with an Alaska, I know he just does his in a Ziploc bag and he throws it in one of those envelopes like you're talking about on Amazon made out of Reflectix. He likes that a lot. But yeah, the pot for me has been awesome just because I just don't like 900 things to fidget with when I'm back there. So it's just simple, it's right there. I cook it, I heat the water, I throw it in, put it in the fleece and it's done in 10, 15 minutes at the most.
Katie
I suppose the closest I've gotten to that I've got one meal I take pretty regularly, but it's not a meal that you pour water and wait. It's a meal that you need to actually actively boil for a couple minutes. You put the noodles in. So I use my little kind of coffee cup/stove pot for that. But the inside, because it's over the flame, which JetBoil doesn't really have a low option. It's either on or it's off. And when it's on, everything just burns to the bottom. And it just makes cleaning it a big hassle. But I'm wondering if maybe I wouldn't be as bothered by that with a dehydrated meal because it likely wouldn't burn onto the bottom since it's not being actively cooked over the extremely hot flame.
Kyle
Yeah, and that's one thing like in that guide that was one of the lessons that I learned was I think it's easier to dehydrate something that's already been cooked as opposed to relying on you cooking it there, right? Because fuel is a luxury. I don't want to carry nine cans of fuel because I'm trying to cook pasta every night from scratch. So it just rehydrates so much faster whenever it's already been hydrated once and then you're just adding water to it. So essentially what you're doing is you're turning your stove on for, you know, the three minutes that it takes to heat up two liters of water or two, two cups of water. You dump your food in, put your what you put your lid on and you wait. And it just is so much easier. Like you're talking about, you get done at the end of the day. You don't want to sit there and babysit that and scrape stuff off the bottom. And so just to be able to turn it on, heat the water, throw it in, turn it off, sit and wait, you can go put your tent up or filter water for the next day or whatever. It's just it's just awesome. It's a luxury. And that, you know, that little fleece thing that I sewed, which was basically an old sleeve off of an old fleece sweatshirt that I sewed the ends off of and then created a drawstring, a drawstring cord attachment at the top. So that in, um, it worked awesome. I mean, I heated the water, heated it up, stuck it in the sleeve. I bet I did 20 to 30 minutes of camp chores between putting the tent up, getting water, et cetera, came back. It was still too hot to eat. So it could be an option.
Katie
And this might be the time to bring up your book. Cause I saw you, you mentioned that, um, that you have a book about dehydrating. Uh, tell me, tell me more.
Kyle
Yeah. So basically I, I didn't know anything when I started. I had tons of questions and I basically documented my answers to my questions and put them in a book. So it ended up being, you know, a 97 page guide that really does a couple of things. So one, um, it goes to answer all of those questions. How do you package this? How do you rehydrate it? Once you're in the field, how do you, um, go about dehydrating stuff? What can you dehydrate? What can't you dehydrate? What type of machine should I buy? What are the differences between the machines? Really trying to answer every question that I had in the beginning. In addition to that, there is a section in there on planning your nutrition, right? Like, so it goes through, okay, well, how many calories do I need? How many carbs, how many protein, how much of this stuff do I need? So that when I go to break these meals down, I've got a good idea that I'm close to getting what I need. And then finally, there's a few recipes in there and even some topics in terms of going stoveless. Right. which is a big, a big topic for through hikers where they don't want to carry a stove, they don't want to carry any fuel. And so it talks about what are some ways that you can cold soak different recipes and have a meal without having to deal with heating up water. So there's a lot of different things covered in there. And it really wasn't designed to be like a, you know, a guide in terms of an instruction manual for dehydrators so much as just being like a layman's, "Hey, I'd like to get into this. Here's the most frequently asked questions and here's your answers to those questions."
Katie
That sounds right up my alley for what I need just because, like I said, what's been holding me back from dehydrating is not the actual logistics of making something go from being food to being dehydrated food. I feel like it's easy enough to get a dehydrator, look up, "How do YouTube tutorial on how to do that. For me it's been more like the overall logistics of going from being somebody who eats Snickers bars and pre-existing dehydrated meals or freeze-dried meals to someone who now brings my own meals into backcountry. Like a more holistic view of it I guess which it sounds like this is more geared toward what I would need.
Kyle
Yeah I just emailed it to you so now you got it.
Katie
Oh perfect. What's it called and where can people get it?
Kyle
Yeah guide, nutrition guide, you can get it on the website. So the website is v2pnutrition.com. It's 10 bucks. So, you know, kind of what my main goal was to help anyone who either knows a little bit or nothing at all, get into dehydrating for less than the cost of a single dehydrated meal. So yeah, it's 10 bucks on websites, v2pnutrition.com. And whenever you go to the website, there's a little dropdown menu that says something like resources. And so the podcast is linked in there, bunch of free nutrition resources that we've put out over the years and that guide is in there too.
Katie
Well, thank you. I appreciate you sending that over. And where else can people reach you? You said you had a podcast. Go ahead and plug your social media or website or wherever else you want to spread to the masses.
Kyle
Yeah. Well, like I said earlier, I'm an analytical person by nature, which means I'm not very creative. So everything is under the same name. The podcast is the Valley to Peak Nutrition Podcast. You can find that on most podcast platforms and it's linked on the website as well. Instagram and social media is all V2PNutrition, so the two is the number two. And again, this just stands for Valley to Peak Nutrition. Email, if you got questions, is info@v2pnutrition.com. And pretty much anything that you can want to know about is under Valley to Peak Nutrition in some way, shape or form.
Katie
It sounds like a Google search will get you everything you need.
Kyle
It should, yeah.
Katie
Kyle, I really appreciate you talking to me today. I'm sure basically everybody who listens to this show is probably, as you said, hit the wall at some point. And I'm hoping a lot of these tips will help people prepare a little bit better and make their experiences better in the back country. Because I feel like the quickest way to ruin a trip is to not be able to fully participate in it. So I just really appreciate you taking the time.
Kyle
Yeah, I appreciate you having me, Katie. Thanks.
Katie
All right, guys. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to head over to the website, fishuntamed.com, for all episodes and show notes. And also, please subscribe on your favorite podcasting app. That'll get my episodes delivered straight to your phone. And also, if you have not yet, please consider going over to Apple Podcasts and leaving a rating or review. That's very helpful for me, and I'd greatly appreciate it. Other than that, thank you guys again for listening, and I will be back in two weeks. Bye, everybody.
Note:
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While I’ve reviewed each transcript to correct obvious errors, they may not be 100% accurate. In particular, moments with overlapping speech or unclear audio may not be transcribed word-for-word. However, every effort has been made to ensure that the core content and meaning are accurately represented.
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