Staying Healthy on the Trail: Part 1, Multivitamins

If you're a thruhiker or are at least familiar with thruhikers, you know what the vast majority of them eat. I'm talking a diet of peanut butter, tortillas, hamburgers, french fries, soda, ramen, spam, canned tuna, potato chips, etc. You name it, if it has calories and doesn't weigh diddly squat (or is at least somewhat shelf stable and portable), thruhikers are eating it. All of this food contains ginormous amounts of "empty calories".

Calorie: a unit of measurement, which, measures energy.

Empty calories: calories (macronutrients: fat, carbohydrates, and protein) with little or no micronutrients. Micronutrients being vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, electrolytes, etc.

Hikers need a lot of calories since they expend so much energy. Unfortunately, products containing empty calories often weigh and cost less, making them perfect hiking food. But are they really perfect hiking food?

All of those ramen peanut butter tortilla sandwiches? Well, they're not helping you much. You see, hiking twenty miles a day is pretty demanding and requires that one eats an adequate amount of macronutrients (energy) in order to replenish (and fuel) the body for the next day. However, hiking twenty miles a day also demands a lot of micronutrients, thruhikers (much like the average consumer) are just less aware of this demand.

Enter the multivitamin. Multivitamins are small, near weightless pills of concentrated micronutrients. Sounds pretty space age when you put it like that, huh? In any case, multivitamins weigh a negligible amount and offer up an entire day's worth of micronutrient goodness. When thruhiking, your food options are pretty limited, and unless you want to dehydrate six months worth of veggies before you start your thruhike, you might want to consider the multivitamin. But why are micronutrients so important? Let me break it down for you:

Routine exercise results in more micronutrient loss than a sedentary lifestyle. They're also lost through sweat, especially in the case of electrolytes. Lets face it, thruhikers are getting quite a bit more than just "routine exercise". And sweat? Thruhikers are covered in a constant glaze of the stuff. So it might be a good idea if the average thruhiker decided to up their micronutrient game.

NOT ALL MULTIVITAMINS ARE MADE THE SAME. Go ahead and read that last sentence twice, it's that important. I don't want to advocate for something that I don't entirely believe in, so let me elaborate on what you're looking for in a multivitamin, based on my experiences.

1) Minerals:

Minerals are important for a lot of reasons, some of which are repairing muscle tissue, bone growth and repair, and energy production. Minerals are incredibly important to athletes, especially considering that this micronutrient category includes electrolytes.

Electrolytes are chemicals that form ions in body fluids. They exist to help your body perform at optimal levels, and when you're low or out of balance in one, you'll experience cramping, dehydration, fatigue, or worse. Common electrolytes include potassium, sodium, calcium, and magnesium. One way to lose electrolytes is through sweat, and if you're a thruhiker (especially on the AT), chances are good that you'll be sweating A LOT.

Now, a multivitamin isn't necessary to get electrolytes. They're in our food and there's also products specifically designed for electrolyte replenishment (you know, Vega Sport and the like). But why take the chance?

2) Vitamins:

Vitamins control chemical reactions that convert food into energy and living tissue. Why is that important? Duh, this one should be a no brainer. The more efficiently your body metabolizes food, the more efficient a hiker you'll be, and the less food you'll have to eat!

Vitamins also help our immune system function correctly, which is also a no brainer. Staying healthy and avoiding illness should be high on any thruhiker's priority list. Trust me, you don't want to get sick out here, and if you do, you'll want to recover fast.

So get those micronutrients y'all!