Physical Prep For Hunting Out West With Wilderness Athlete

This week on the Missouri Woods & Water podcast we take a different look at getting ready for hunting out west.  People always talk about what gear to buy, map preparation and study, etc. but one thing that gets lost in the shuffle of getting yourself ready to go out west is the physical aspect of the trip.  Western hunting requires a different physical type of exertion and effort, so to help us tackle that topic, Nate and Micah get to talk with Kevin Guillen with Wilderness Athlete about just that.  Kevin gets into some things to do to prepare for your western trips, some of their supplements someone can use during that process, and ways to stay ready to go once you are on the mountain.  We even talk about some things that don't always have to be healthy in your pack.  One thing is for certain, if you were lucky enough to get a tag to hunt out west for the first time, now is the time to start getting your body right and ready.  Good luck!

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Missouri Woods and Water Podcast with your host, Nate and Micah. What's up dude? What's going on? My man? Nothing. I'm just sitting here upset because I didn't get to go. Last night was your own fault. It was your fault. It was your own fault. I was shitting my brains out. We did have some colorful text messages between the group.

Yeah. But I think one of the things I said was I would've literally shit off the side of the boat if I went And you had said yes. We were talking about that. And that would've been funny. Yeah. We were thinking about it. I was just like, dude, [00:01:00] what if Nathan did come and he did after Shut Off the Boat?

How hilarious would that have been? Oh, I thought, because I really, I was, I got home and I actually started to get ready. Yeah. And then I'm like, dude, I can't do this. I can't go. This is gonna be bad. And I was like, wait a minute. We're probably gonna be close to a bank. So all I gotta do is tell Darrell to, bank the boat.

Ha hop off. Sitting next to a tree and get back in. Yeah. It, it would've worked. Dude, man you missed a good night. You really did. We were on 'em. That's what I hear all night. That's what I hear. We hit a new record for us. So that was pretty exciting. It got 63 in the boat yeah, it was a good time, man.

For sure. Yeah. I need to get lucky enough to make it one of these times finally. Yeah. No kidding. So today we have Kevin Guillen with the Wilderness Athlete on. Yeah. It's a little bit of a different show today. We're not talking about like tactics or, How to go out west. We're literally just talking about what you need to do.

Fitness. Yeah. What you need to do to get prepared for out West Fitness. [00:02:00] Whole donut in my mouth. Yeah, no kidding. I definitely need to stop doing that. But so in the show, Kevin, as with Wilderness Athlete and wilderness Athlete is a fitness supplemental type of company for the outdoors men and woman.

They're this is their jam. And so this is what Kevin does for a living. And so we thought he'd be a really good person to talk to about the first year person, like thinking about going out west and what they should think about and do to get ready physically. We talk about all kinds of stuff all the time, about packs and what boots and whatever else, and that's great.

But kind of the most important part, like he says in the show is, Being fit to do it. I'd rather be in really good shape with a garbage pair of boots than have the best pair of boots and be overweight. And not in shape. It's looking at the ba, the bass backwards way.

So really good show with him. We appreciate him coming on and working through all the technical d difficulties we have. [00:03:00] Just as a re little fyi, we did have a problem recording right towards the end, so if I can't clean any of it up in our post edit, you're just gonna have to deal with a little hiccup towards the end of the show.

But otherwise, let's let's get into these sponsors and get into the show. Absolutely. OnX. We're gonna be using the heck out of that, coming up, preparing for our Western hunts. Make sure you get on there, get that downloaded, update your apps as they need to. Obviously go to our website and you can find that discount code.

Yeah. And you can try risk free for seven days, which is really nice. Oh yeah, for sure. We, you actually going somewhere this week? Weber Outfitters. Yeah. Out in Hawk Point, Missouri. Super excited. We're going out, shoot some bows, get it all dialed in for, a hunting season coming up. Just decided to take the boy with us too.

He's, yeah. So I guess I should have asked you and Andy, if you're okay with him coming. No I don't really care about my [00:04:00] nephew, but he's coming. No fine. He's gonna hopefully get him a bow. For himself. Yeah. That'll be his first little bow. Yeah. I just, he's not gonna hunt with it anytime soon, but I want him to start learning how to shoot Right.

What it's like, and then when he is able to actually hunt with one, he's ready to go. Yep. And Elite makes one called The Ember, which is supposed to be really good for for you, a kid growing into a bow. Yeah. So that'll be a good start for him. Yep. So check 'em out Webber route feds.com memorial targets moral targets.com.

They've got a wide range of different targets. We might be doing a show with them soon actually. Okay. Or at some point, I don't know for sure. But there's a lot that goes, a lot more that you would think goes into a target than just like throwing some paint on some foam. I mean there's some, I mean if you think about it, how many times are you shooting those targets?

Thousands. Yeah. Hundreds, thousands. And I'm hitting it lot right in the middle every time. You know what I'm saying? I'm sure you are bud. I'm sure you are. But there's a lot. Cuz you don't wanna throw your money [00:05:00] away, so you want something to last. So that's why we use Merl Targets. That's true.

Speaking of Targets, Midwest Gun Works midwest gun works.com. We've been our buddy. We've been texting with our buddy or our con eye contact and Buddy Cameron there. Yeah. Cameron just needs to freaking figure out when he is coming to shoot some coyotes. Yeah, we tried getting him last fall. It didn't work out.

We're trying to get him this spring. It sounds like it might not work out. Hopefully it does. The worst part is. Next weekend. The weekend I was like 17th to the best. Yeah. My daughter has a tournament that weekend. Caton, my son does not. No, it's the other way around. My daughter doesn't. My son does.

They don't play Saturday until 1230. Yeah. So it would've been perfect. So because during the summer, the way we do it, I'm sure you can hunt all day, but you're gonna hunt a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening and you know that's your day. Yeah. So that would've worked out pretty well.

But so damn it Cameron, we're trying to get that figured out. We don't know if it's gonna happen ho. If not, hopefully [00:06:00] this fall he can come out and we can get it done then. But yeah, check them out. I was actually on their website the other day. I'm in the market for a new pistol, so gonna be bang.

Scared for your life. No, I just going out west. You should be, you always carried the pistol. I'm like, and I'm not gonna be with you. Yeah. I don't need a pistol. And you know the world's getting crazy. I just wanna pistol. So the bears scare you a little bit. No, bears don't scare me. Mountain lion.

Mountain Lion do scare me. Yeah. That's the one critter that I'm like, I don't want to see one of those. No, definitely not the bear, eh. Of course Brandon had that close encounter LA was that last year? Yeah. Where it was five feet away from him and didn't move when he said boo. That's a little nerve-wracking.

That is. So yeah, check 'em out. They've got all your gun type of needs, Athlon optics. They're good optics and stuff. Ridiculously good optics. But yeah, maybe they'll start using my tagline. They're good optic optics. I doubt it, man. [00:07:00] I think they're pretty set in their ways with the ridiculously it's good stuff.

Yeah. So we run all athlon. We love 'em, we love their binoculars. Everything they got. I need to get my gun out and shoot it. I haven't shot my day rifle in a few weeks. It's been a little bit longer for me actually. It's probably been about. Few months now. Yeah. Yeah. Been a little bit.

So yeah, check out Athlon optics Rivers, edge tree stands. We do still need to put together several, two mans You were smart and didn't do any although you're gonna regret that at some point you're gonna have to at some point you're gonna have to, I got a few that I can take the kids with now.

You owe me at least one to help with too. So that's okay. I'll help you put one together and then I'm out. Because you got freaking seven. Yeah, exactly. Yours was a pan of butt though. Yeah. It wasn't that pain. It was a butt. It was the so we don't read directions. Yeah. Type of deal.

We didn't, yeah, we didn't read directions and we did it backwards. We directions. It would've been a big deal. And we did it backwards. And then we did, instead of being like [00:08:00] normal people, we We didn't, go backwards. We just had to, we just decided to muscle it. And it's better to read the directions cuz they're really simple to read.

It's super, and I like how they do it. They got each individual bag. Yeah. So this is a, or I forget how they named it or whatever. This is either one or two or A or B, whatever. So it's actually pretty simple as long as you read the direction. Yeah. Unlike us. Yes, exactly. Yep. And lucky Buck lucky buck.com.

I actually need to get out and do my June dump. Yep. Mine's a little close. I just got that reminder the other day. So yeah, I need to do that. So if you got your lucky buck, make sure you get your your. I do mine at the beginning of the month. So that's when I usually try to get mine out. It's time. If you haven't used any yet, get to a local store, get on their website, find out who dealers are, and you need to get it out there.

You're way late at this point, but better late than never. Exactly. And then finally black Ovis Camel Fire, I guess not finally still got reveal, but black ovis camel Fire black [00:09:00] ovis.com. I actually just ordered a head, a headlamp Okay. From Black Ovis. Do you need one of those uhhuh for at Wyoming.

Nice. And they got all kinds of them, but I did some research and got peak water peaks, a peaks headlamp. Oh, okay. I think it's peaks could be wrong. We're gonna be, we're gonna be camping on the mountain this year, so I should probably invest in a higher quality one probably. Yeah. Yeah. And then obviously camel fire.com.

Yep. Get on there. And then finally, last but not least, reveal by cam cell cams. I've got two out right now. I've got several that are getting ready to be deployed. Yeah. I got all mine ready to go. I have one deployed right now. Just got over my mineral just to see what pops up. And they're super easy to, they are really easy, super easy, super happy with them, great pitchers.

So they are, yeah. So check 'em out. Yeah. Go to our website and you can find all the discount codes there. Yeah. www.missouriwoodsandwater.com. Let's get in to our show with Kevin Guillen of Wilderness Athlete. This is, [00:10:00] oh, you're gonna do it. You do it. This is the Missouri Woods and Water Podcast. All right.

All right. With us today we got Kevin Guillen with Wilderness Athlete. Kevin, what's up man? Good, good to be here. How you guys doing? I'm pretty tired myself. Not gonna lie. I stayed up the dream. Yeah. I stayed up way too late last night into this morning doing some bow fishing. Yeah. I'm regretting my decision right now, but we're gonna make it through.

I thought you were gonna say something else more burning the midnight oil a little bit, but bow fishing sounds like a lot more fun. It was a lot of fun. We got a we got a lot on the boat and so it, it was definitely worth it. But, there's a little bit of regret there.

There's give and take. Yeah. You ever been bow fishing? Oh, I bet. No never done that. That actually, it's one of the things I've wanted to do for quite a while. But, I live in Arizona and there's just not much of that, oh, okay. There's not like a lot of [00:11:00] these waterways or canals or even these kind of like lakes that, at least that I'm familiar with, I, I don't see too many people doing it here.

It always seems to be a Midwestern or a Southern thing that. It, but I'd love to, it's how it looks to blast. It's ob obviously bow fishing, you're not going fishing for bass, cuz you can't, it's illegal. So you're fishing for these invasive species or fishing, going after these invasive species like buffalo carp and grass.

Carp, not grass. Carpa. Yeah grass, carp common carp, stuff like that. I don't know if they are in lakes in Arizona or I don't, they got into our lakes because of the rivers I think. I think conservation did 'em too. They did, I believe so. I could be wrong. I felt like they somehow got released down south and made it up the waterways and then into the lakes.

But I have no idea. So I don't know if you guys even have those or, have that ability out there, but I dunno either. I've only lived in Arizona for nine years, so I'm not like as in [00:12:00] touch with a lot of that. I actually. I used to be a really big fisherman, and then when I moved out here, I haven't, I've picked up a pole like a couple times.

We have a lot of man-made lakes here and these urban lakes and that's not, doesn't get me too excited. I used to really love fishing in streams and stuff, and that's just not as prevalent here. It's pretty dry state mostly it, they could have 'em. I just don't know. You know what state has an awesome set of lakes and some really great fishing Missouri, so make your way out this way.

Yeah. We'll take you boat fishing, but here you go. Yeah, I should I've got a, we got a guy, we've got a coworker who lives in Missouri and he's only lived there for, Year two now. He's been telling us stuff about all the, great fishing and stuff you guys have out there, so I gotta make my way over there for sure.

Yeah, definitely. All right. So before we get into today's topic Kevin, introduce yourself. Tell everybody who you are, where you're from. We all know it's Arizona now, and tell us a little bit about wilderness athlete. Sure. Yeah, my name's Kevin. Wilderness athlete. We're based here in Arizona in the southwest, which I always that's making [00:13:00] a hydration product. We see one 10 to one 20 degree days in the summer, like pretty regularly. Hydration's pretty key here. Wilderness athletes started. 19 years ago. And at the time it was really the only, it was the very first company in the supplement space, in the sports nutrition space to make things specifically for Sportsmans for Gods hunting fishing, trail, running primarily hunting.

But, it really cornered the market back in the day. In recent years, there's all sorts of companies coming up that, with different brands and names and stuff, marketing to the outdoorsman which is great. We love to see that type of. Support for the community that, we're a part of and that we love so much.

But we've been in business for 19 years. We make a full line of supplements really from everything, performance driven the type of products that guys are gonna want to take pre-season in the gym that kind of thing. Make some supplements and products that are really great for, on the mountain, in the field, like when you're on the go, or even just like long [00:14:00] workday stuff.

And then we have a whole line of products that is really more focused on just those foundational health focuses. Like your probiotics, multivitamins, things that are gonna be with you every day that really help you, keep that edge, so to speak. So yeah. When you've been in business this long we also have a really big, an incredibly talented formulation team that formulates our products really specifically for us.

We don't, one of the things that I think is a good point to make here. Not many people are super aware of it. But in the supplement space, like in the whole just global nutrition supplement industry, it's very common to see companies that are just white labeling their supplements, meaning there's really nothing unique or different about the ingredients they're using.

You can find a carbon copy of that same profile of vitamins, minerals, and supplements with just a different brand label on it. You walk into a GNC or you look at the supplement counter at Walmart and you could see 80 products. [00:15:00] You really couldn't be looking at maybe a variation of six to 10 different.

Actual formulas. And that's super common. That's not what we do. It never has been. We own all of our own formulas. Everything that we make we test, we are, digging through to make sure that everything is meeting the most current research and standards that are actually known to be effective and safe.

So we're very proud of our products. We've been, really, we've had some of the most loyal customers you can find that have been with us since the beginning of time. And we tend to just do business a certain way that a lot of people really appreciate. And yeah it's what we're about, it's It's a great, it's a great industry to be in, especially during all that pandemic when people were like trying to figure out how to be healthier and Yep.

They wanted to get outside and and we were positioned really well at the time. We were like, heck yeah, this is the lifestyle we live, we love being outside. And this is just what we do. It's a great job. It's a, it is a great industry. It's constantly changing and it's just awesome to be able to help people, which is really what we focus on the [00:16:00] most.

Just how do we help people? How do we change people's lives? How do we help people, achieve their goals? Yeah, it's it in a nutshell. You're gonna help people in this podcast too, because that's what we're gonna talk about today. Micah and I have been elk cunning for a handful of years now, and we know firsthand now what it.

How important it is to be in shape, be healthy, and take care of yourself out west. Especially, coming from quote unquote a flyover state and then going, out to the big, bad west. Yeah. 9,000 feet of elevation. Yeah. Nine, 10,000, whatever it is. Yeah. Like it's something to really take serious.

And I'll never forget the first year that Micah went it was my second year, Micah's first year, and Micah took it super seriously and he took it so seriously that I started making fun of him because he, I swore he looked like someone who had cancer, and not to make fun of people that have cancer, but the dude, how many pounds you lost?

Like 60 pounds. I lost 60 pounds in six [00:17:00] months. Yeah. So I took it pretty serious. He got real serious about like his diet and, yeah. He was doing intermittent fasting and all this different stuff, and I'm like, damn, dude You're taking it seriously. And he was doing all this stuff. And it made me think, when we were introduced to you of kind of him, what he did back then to get himself ready to go out west, and essentially at the time he thought that was gonna be his only time going out there. I wanted to make the most of it. Obviously as you can tell, I've got on a worse track and not doing what I need to, but I always, even every year I still, around this timeframe I'll start, walking a lot more, putting a heavy pack on doing that, getting my legs up to par.

But it's something that you need to consider if you're thinking about it, you have to put in a little work or it is just gonna be miserable. Yeah. Out there. And when we, in, when we met Kevin, that's what I went back to was Micah's, experience thinking he was only gonna get to go out to Colorado or out west one time.

And so he took it seriously. [00:18:00] And if there's someone in our states or in the Midwest that's listening to this, that's thinking about going out west, this is some, to me, sometimes part of the process that gets overlooked. They we've had many shows about gear and gear going out west and what boots and what pack and what single person tent, what, whatever.

We've had a lot of shows about that, but not very many about getting how you ready for it, how to get yourself ready, how to get your ass in shape or whatever. So when we met you that we thought that'd be a great topic. So what, I guess in, in a, at a 30,000 foot view, what are some of the first things you would say to somebody who's never been out west, who's thinking about going as it relates to their health and getting prepared?

Yeah. I guess to, to back up just a little bit to give you the real, the 60,000 foot view when Wilderness Athlete was founded, mark [00:19:00] Paulson founded this company. He had spent his whole career collegially professionally and he's trained collegiate professional and Olympic athletes for 30 some odd years.

His strength and conditioning coach so monster of a man, super, in shape. He trained football players, shot throwers for his whole life. He's also an avid l hunter. The first time he went Elk cunning he realized how outta shape he was. He's from the Midwest he's from Minnesota. And I think that's a, it's an awakening that a lot of people have.

I've had it, when I played football and baseball my whole life and I grew up thinking I was pretty in shape. You just, you do the typical bench press, squatting, push up type, global gym workout. You do your whole life. And then you go put boots on and you run up and down hills and you, you try to catch up to whether it's deer or elk or whatever.

And you usually get humbled pretty quick. And it's a pretty common experience. And we, that, that company, our customer service team is [00:20:00] awesome. We talk to folks all the time. I would say almost every day, and especially this time of year, which is getting into our busy time of year, who are folks that are coming from the Midwest or the East coast and they're coming out west.

All of our western states here, if you look at the statistics every year the amount of. Out-of-state, non-resident hunters, it's just increasing and increasing. And they're not just coming from western states, they're coming from all over the country. I think that so what you took it super seriously.

And that's, I gotta commend you for that. That's what you gotta do. You gotta invest, your time. You gotta invest your energy and your effort into it and you know you're gonna, rip the rewards of that. What we are at big advocates of, and hopefully what we can get folks to do is adopt more of a 365 day a year lifestyle.

It's a lot more sustainable and it's a lot easier than falling in outta shape and trying to get back in shape every year, which is [00:21:00] the typical flow for most guys. Even guys in the west here, they put the heavy packs on, they're in the gym, they're trying to lose a bunch of weight.

In June, July for their early August hunts or their September elk hunts. And it's really taxing in the body. And every year you get older, it's harder to get that weight down. It's harder to find energy and the time to put the muscle on. Where if you can gradually adopt smaller changes throughout the whole year and carry those through the rest of your year you'll find that every subsequent season you're less outta shape.

It takes a little less effort to get back to that fight in shape. I'm dealing with that now. I'm 33 years old and I know for some listeners they're like, they're thinking I'm, I've still got it made, but. I don't know, 33 right now is starting to feel like 33. I feel like when I was 32, I still fell 18.

And I just had my first daughter, and so that's throwing, that's what happened. A whole different wrench in the, that's what happened too, but it just, it further emphasizes the need to look at your hunting [00:22:00] season because, we're hunters. This isn't just a hobby, this is a lifestyle.

This is something that we think about and plan for and work towards and think about, frankly, all fricking year long hunting season is really just when we actually get to go out and play. But staying in shape whether that's, your physical conditioning, your strength monitoring a healthy weight, That is just an extension of this lifestyle.

It's just a we have a favorite phrase, which is that the most important piece of equipment is you. And in the hunting industry you've seen it, there's every single gizmo, whether it's every piece of arrow equipment, optics, backpack, boots, socks, rifle scope, everything.

We have a ton of people out there talking about how important that rifle is or that scope is, or that broadhead is to being successful. And we're just now starting to get to that phase. And I think in our culture where we're starting to look more about us and how we're really the key piece of the puzzle and we're just, really just echoing that because that is very true.

It is like [00:23:00] you could give me the worst equipment in the world and the shittiest boots in the world, but if I'm strong, I'm in shape and I'm feeling I'm i'll out hunt anybody, cuz you'll work harder. And that's really what it's about is just. Being more present. When you're out there you stay in your optics longer you're more alert, you're ready to capitalize because you're, you're feeling good.

Equipment's great too, but if you're feeling like shit the most expensive gear in the world's not gonna help you. Yeah. I think that was one of the biggest eye-openers for me was, when you're hunting deer, like our, we have a four month long deer season, starts September 15th in Missouri and goes through January 15th.

Obviously there's there's different things that happen inside that season. Rifle opens up muzzle load or alternative seasons, things change. But you effectively can hunt deer in Missouri for four straight months. When us Missouri boys go out west at the very most, we have 10 days at the very most, and we've never actually stayed those entire 10 days.

No. It's usually the entire tree usually [00:24:00] hunt seven. So let's just say it's seven days, then. You don't have time to take a day off. Oh, we'll take the weekend off here. You just wasted 40% of your right, of your trip. You've l invested a lot of money. Time, and time.

Even though as little as that time is, you've invested a lot into that. A lot into that time. Yeah. To get there and it's, like you don't have the ability to say, I can take the day off, yeah. We have had those days where we're like, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, we're gonna sleep in, come off the mountain a little bit early and we'll get back to camp a little early tonight.

Or I might sleep in early the next morning and go at sun sunrise instead of getting there before dark, whatever. Yeah. But it's really disheartening to not want to keep going on day three. Yeah, because you're worn out seven. Yeah. Because you're worn out. I remember what was, oh, was that, is it your first year or your second year where you And I did 15 miles in that first day.

It wasn't the first day. The second day wasn't, it was the second day. Second day we did [00:25:00] 14 miles and that was the longest we'd done at the time, obviously. Cause that was my first year going. But yeah, and that was a shitty day. But we were ready for it because we had yeah, he was ready.

I was be in better shape than I am at the time. And, we did it. It sucked. But Yeah. And that's just our experience, like I said, that's different cuz there's a lot of people out there. They do 14 miles every day or however much. I don't know what the max somebody's done, but there's guys out there that are just stay ready all year long and that can do 14 miles or 15 miles every single day if they wanted to.

Oh yeah. But for us that was a big deal. That was a lot of up and down a mountain that we've only been on. Yeah. For a few. I find 24 hours find. It's funny, I had a thing that sort of just, it occurred to me like in the last couple years where I'm surrounded by, the friends, coworkers and other partners in the industry that are just some of the most successful hunters.

And just some of the, the guys that just know how to get it done. They know how to kill those big bulls, [00:26:00] those big deer every year. They're just those guys that everyone always wants to emulate, and. Obviously they've got experience, they've got knowledge, they've got talent and they've just they've done it for so long, they've got a lot of things figured out and places figured out.

But one common thing that this kind of equalizes every one of them and what is their key to success is just straight time in the woods. If you can just start accumulating more time out there your odds go up dramatically. And even when you have a hunt that you've only drawn, you need, you're lucky to hunt once a year and you get 10 days.

If you can put yourself in the best position possible you've cleared your schedule, you've made plans, associa, to give yourself this chunk of time, maximize it by being able to be out in the woods, like actually hunting, not napping under a tree, or, just totally distracted, but actually hunting for the most time possible your odds go up so dramatically.

And a lot of that just comes down to physical preparedness, mental toughness, conditioning and[00:27:00] it just doesn't happen overnight, especially for, whether you're coming from a Midwest or just a different state, when you're outta your element, when it's a place you've never been, or you're looking at mountains that you're just not looking used to seeing, that can be overwhelming, but just to have that kind of confidence and that.

Kind preparedness makes all the difference in the world. And I think one of these days, and I hope maybe no one does this study because it might blow put the cat outta the bag. But it just seems that there's like a time like accumulate accumulation of time that a guy needs to acquire in order to reach a certain level of success.

And there's just, I think being able to just stay in the moment, stay in the game which, as I was just saying, comes down to just being able to tolerate a whole lot of right physical effort. If you're not in the game, you're not in the game and no, like a perfect example is you take a morning off.

Instead of saying, Hey I'm getting up there because you feel better weather. Yeah. How many times have you and I [00:28:00] been sitting there taking a nap or chilling and all of a sudden elk walk up, walks up on us yeah. It's happened before. Yeah. And but if you're not on the mountain because you're too tired, then you're not on the mountain.

No, absolutely. But absolutely. And I need, I think another part of, being healthy and ready is the mental side. It gives you, I got a helper next to me. What's up, buddy? Yeah. What's up, bud? Yeah, I gotta use all of them. Just making sure I don't get to play with one of them. Yeah.

Yeah. The, the mental side, your mental game or the mental game in hunting has a lot to do with your physical fitness as well, and Yeah. If you're feeling like shit, your brain's gonna be like, dude, take the day off, or, I can't do this. You can't do this. If you're feeling better, you're obviously much more apt to be like, yeah, I'm good.

Let's go. Yeah, let's go. Yeah. But yeah, there's something to be said absolutely for that. Just that mindset of confidence and knowing what your abilities are, what your capabilities are. [00:29:00] And for me that has grown over the years, with the more things that I've accomplished, just even outside of hunting, just physically and stuff, it you can, you can apply that to any hunt, and a lot of times, guys won't go hike to the next range or they won't go glass up on that hill because they just, they already feel whooped getting to where they're at.

That can be, make all the difference in the world, it's just having that confidence, like being, I know I've been here before. I know. I know what my body's capable of. And being able to just do it, so it just definitely, it doesn't happen overnight. And that kind of goes back to, how.

How you prepare and how you prove that to yourself and how you lay that groundwork leading up to it. Yeah. So this is not gonna be the easiest thing to answer because everybody starts at a different base. Some people are. Like I always say, if I ever am feeling good about myself and I wanna bring myself down a peg or two, I hop on hans's social media, and then I'm like, yeah, I'm a piece of shit.

So everybody has a different baseline,[00:30:00] some of us are in really good shape already. Some of us are in all right shape. Some of us are not in good shape at all, but so you can't speak to everybody, but what are some of the first things you would recommend someone do when they find out, Hey, I'm going out west.

Whether it's an O T C tag, whether it's a hunt of a lifetime. What are some of the first things from a health standpoint or a in shape type of standpoint, would you recommend people start with. Sure. I think the first thing, actually, you might not think of it, you can do it right here from your desk.

And I think it's probably the most critical thing before you take on any kind of new endeavor is to write down what your objective is and literally sit there with pen and paper and write it down. You can set some goals. We have, a pretty common one that a lot of people have done for years is, the five why's.

You ask yourself why five times? And it's like, why do I want to get in shape? I wanna go elk hunting. Why do I want to go elk hunting? And you keep going [00:31:00] down that road until you really boil it down to the thing that's really the most valuable and meaningful reason that you're gonna, start pursuing something.

I'd say having a clear picture of where you want to go is the first step. If you just kinda decide one day, Hey, I drew a tag, I better lose some weight and kind of get in shape, lays up the boots. As soon as shit gets hard in the gym, as soon as you're sore, as soon as work happens and life happens, it's gonna be a lot harder to stick to those goals.

If you don't really have a clear vision as to what your why is and for people that when you ask those questions, enough time, you get down to things that are far more Compelling. I want my kids to be proud of me. I want my wife to, be attracted to me. I want, I wanna leave my family.

I want my family to have, something that they can carry on to generation, that kind of thing. Much more important than just, I wanna look better in my jeans. I wanna see my penis figured. There you go. Yeah. Hey, that's a, and that leads to more things too, that's what I'm saying.

You gotta keep asking the why, [00:32:00] and you get down to something that you're really like motivated by. For some guys that's the it's right there in front of you. It's a big, hey, it's a big step for some people. Okay. It's a big step. It's a big step. Yeah. For some people, it's been a long time since they've seen that thing.

So I, that's where I'd start, and it, honestly, it's super important. I never even used to do that. And then I think I started doing that when I realized that like life should just, Has too many things. There's a lot of excuses all around you. Unless you're really committed, then you're not gonna get anything accomplished.

The other thing I would say is focus on small small goals. Yeah, you have your, 10,000 foot goal. Okay, I want to eventually be 60 pounds lighter. I want to be able to run two miles without stopping. I want to feel really good on day one. Okay what's my goal in two weeks from now?

You set yourself up for success, not failure. When you have this like really large. Beast that you're trying to accomplish. It can be daunting. And especially [00:33:00] when, your accomplishments are slow to come by. Everyone loses weight at a different pace.

Everyone gains muscle at a different pace. Everyone has different goals. So it's important to set up some good rewards for yourself. For some people it's just, I need to stop drinking soda. I want to go a week without drinking soda. Or I wanna, I, and so I think starting small is really critical and that can even be beneficial for people who, whether you're a guy who needs to just get off the couch, or if you do work out currently two to three times a week for me, what I always focus on when I feel like I'm getting soft and I'm I know I've got something big coming up.

I just try to do more today than I. Did yesterday. And like that can mean in the gym you do more reps, you spend more time, you do one, you take one meal a little bit more seriously, you make a better decision on what you're having for lunch and dinner. You start compiling these things, you start making better decisions on a micro level.

You start like choosing to have something healthy to drink over soda or you start choosing to make your [00:34:00] lunch versus going as fast food. When you're at work, you start doing these little things and it begins this cascading effect where you sit back after a month or two and realize I've been pretty great, like for the past couple months, and I'm seeing them feeling the difference.

So yeah, it's tough to it's tough to to kinda have a one size fits all thing for everybody. There are some definitely, I think invaluable. There are some core things. Like one thing I'd almost tell almost everybody, whether it, for some people it's not necessarily true, but.

We get really fixated on weight loss. Your culture is surrounded by how much you weigh. We have scales that just blink a number at you. So you are always fixated on how much you weigh. It's not, I'm not gonna throw that out completely. Obviously. I believe in that concept of if you can't measure it, you can't change it.

And there's a lot of truth to that. But I think when it comes to being an athlete and being, and make a mistake about it, if you're gonna hunt in the west you hunt period. Even if you're hunting in the Midwest, you have to be an athlete. And there's gonna be a moment in which, it's sometimes it's sheer [00:35:00] boredom punctuated by chaos.

And you have to all of a sudden be an athlete. I would much rather see a guy not lose quite as much weight. But really make his legs a lot stronger. His core stronger have his cardiovascular strength up, his just conditioning up. We talk to people all the time who focus on losing weight and they almost starve themselves and they wanna lose 20, 30 pounds before that hunt.

And, you show up to that hunt and you're a shadow of yourself. Your legs are weak, you've sacrificed a lot of valuable muscle just to weigh less. And in the long run, man, it's not the worst thing in the world. Like being a lighter person is valuable. Look at some of the guys that are hunting into their eighties, they're usually the wired guys that are like 130 pounds lighter lives longer.

It just, statistically it, it does. But This is a long game. You gotta look at it like, okay, this isn't, I'm not gonna get in shape for this hunt. I'm getting in shape for the rest of my life. I'm getting in shape for this hunt now, but I want to be, as soon as this hunt ends, [00:36:00] I'm gonna keep doing this.

So next year I'm even better shape, so on and so forth. Yeah. Yeah, that was one thing that I really, yeah. Like we talked about earlier, that first year, I didn't know what I was getting into. I lost a bunch of weight and I did fine. I did fine on the mountain. Everything was good. I kept up with everybody.

Yeah. We all hunted at whatever pace and everything was good and, but the, as the years have gone by, I've, I don't nec like you've talked about, I don't care about how much I weigh when I go out there. I. I care about how leg, how strong my legs are, and I'm an active guy, like I've always had some type of labor job, so I'm in and out of a truck pulling a hose or, doing something with my legs.

So I'm a pretty strong guy too. If you are overweight, Which I mean, who isn't nowadays, but if y'all overweight, don't let that get you down that you think you gotta lose 50 pounds or 10 pounds or whatever it is. Just being active is just a huge part of it. If you have a job where you're just stationary all day, it's gonna be harder and you're [00:37:00] 150 pounds and there's another guy that's 250 pounds that is active more, he's gonna have an easier time, in my opinion, getting out there than the guy that just sits on, at a computer desk the whole time.

You, I think the main thing is, you just have to be active and by being active, you will probably end up losing weight. Yeah. I'm lucky enough that I've never really had to worry about what I weigh my whole life. Mike and I were just talking about before we what do you call it, recorded that I dropped under one 90 for the first time in a few years, but I really don't care.

Like I've just been, I guess lucky enough that weight's not something I've really ever had to watch. So when I'm looking at going out west I don't care to lose weight or gain weight. I care just like what's gonna get me ready and Yeah. I think that's probably one area where I'm sure there are people out there that say, do this.

But I just find stuff that makes me work hard. For me, it's playing basketball. Makes me run my ass off and [00:38:00] sweat and work, use those legs. Yeah. I'm worried about hurting myself, but Micah's just cause you're old and fragile. Michael throw Micah throws his kids in a pack and runs around with 'em and Yeah.

That, that works really well for him. Yeah. We all try to, stay active as a group too. We're not just sitting around, like he said, they went bow fishing last night that sort of stuff. So that's all well and good, but I guess that's a good point is, it's not just about losing weight to go out there.

It's about it's about being constantly active. And if you're if your day job and what you do throughout the year is just being stationary, you are gonna have a harder time than the person that's overweight and that is an active person, not necessarily a hard time. You're just gonna have to get ready in a different way.

You're gonna have to get ready in a different way. Yeah. It's gonna hit you different than it is somebody else, in my opinion. So what's some what's some specific like workouts that you like or things that you would recommend someone try, especially who's never been out there [00:39:00] to help themselves get ready?

And it's not necessarily a thing to lose weight, right? Just what do you do? What have you heard that works? I think there's a myriad of things. I do CrossFit like almost every day. And I've been doing that for the last, I don't know. Seven years. Six, seven years. And I really I love it because it's it's functional, like you're using your body for stuff.

And like I said earlier, I grew up, your typical basket, baseball, football player and just doing those, this work, workouts that you're used to doing, through high school and college in that sense. And then I tried CrossFit for the first time and I realized I was way out of touch with being a true athlete the way I thought I was.

So for me, that works really well. It's constantly varied movement. You're, there's almost a way to apply every single thing that you do in the gym to something in a real life scenario. So for me, that, that gets me going and it's part of my routine. It's not for everybody, what I would say specifically is really focus on.[00:40:00]

Like a lot of like strength training and resistance training is very valuable. Not because you're just trying to build, GL muscles. That can be a nice, benefit as well, but people often just get too focused on like cardio, and they just they run themselves into powder on a treadmill.

I think No, thank you. A good balance. Yeah. No, it's not on top of being like, completely like mind numbing, you're really wasting a lot of energy when if you incorporate a lot of good, resistance training and strength training. I can't stress enough how important strong legs are in, in the woods, like even if the, especially if you're someone who is overweight having strong legs is really your best tool to keep yourself going. I think the. Quickest way to lose weight too and lose fat, which is really the weight that we wanna lose, not the muscle that we need is through strength training.

It is, you use a lot more metabolic energy in, in that strength training process than you [00:41:00] will on a treadmill. Yeah. And I'm one of the first people that freaking hate running and that's why I said I play basketball. Yeah. Cuz that's my version of cardio is I don't realize I'm running, I'm sweating my ass off and I'm getting really, winded.

But yeah. If you told me the only way you could go out west is to get on a treadmill and run five miles a day, I'd find something else to go do. I'm telling you right now, I wouldn't go hunting FM elk. Yeah. Yeah. But, ways I've worked around it, and I'm not saying this is correct because, I've been working out my whole life, but I don't know if this is right, but.

Some ways I have worked out cardio into my workouts is by, like you were saying, I do strength training when I'm working out and I'll, let's say do two reps, two sets on whatever I'm working out. And then I'll go sprint on a treadmill for a minute and a half, as fast as you can, sprint your ass off and then end it and then back to your workout.

And I've always heard, getting [00:42:00] that heart rate up and then, back up again. I get, I think they call it high intensity training or something like that. Yeah. High intensity interval training. Yeah. But just basically what CrossFit is, it's just high intensity interval training.

So I'm doing CrossFit, so I made it basically, yeah, you've done it. Sweet. You've done it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the only way I can get myself to do any sort of cardio if it's not in inside of some other activity, is just by, making it a short sprint, short burst or whatever. But other people, do love running on a treadmill.

And I guess that's a good thing. Yeah. My brother-in-law, Russell, the one I'm going to Wyoming with, will walk a million stairs by the time we get to Wyoming. I guarantee you. Yeah. The dude is the StairMaster guy. Just, yeah. The stairs on the stairs and scares me. But yeah, that's valuable too.

StairMaster, it's a mix of the two, it is some resistance training, for sure. You're working your quads you're your legs pretty well and it's, it's more of a steady state of cardio where you're trying to hold [00:43:00] a certain level of heart rate and output for, an hour or 20 minutes or whatever it is.

That's a really good one. I haven't done it in a long time, but I just, I stopped going to the gym that has one in the cross of gyms. They don't really have that kind of stuff. But that's one thing I honestly think. I used to love just getting on the stairstep or putting on some music, and you just gotta find, you just get into a zone.

You just go into a mental place where, 30 minutes goes by pretty quick. And there's definitely some value to that. Absolutely. Yeah. And he'll do many other things too. He's already ready. Yeah. But he guarantee you that guy's gonna, he's gonna make it difficult to stay with him. Yeah, he's a hard one to hunt with.

He's a little wiry guy for sure. Yeah. I'd say honestly, there, there's a whole myriad of fitness routines and as strategies that are beneficial. But what it really comes down to is you can't outwork a bad diet. You gotta start with the food and your diet. What you're putting in your body.

[00:44:00] You could have the most finely tuned, high caliber, perfect workout regiment you that, that's ever been created. But if you're feeding your body shit, you're not gonna get anything else out of it. It just, it's the way our bodies are created. It's true. I think that's something that I'm learning with time as I get older, is that I pay more for the cheat meals that I have and the snacks that I have, like right before bed and the junk food.

You used to be in my twenties, I could, when you're 23, you just, you wake, everyone wakes up feeling great, oh yeah. You're just, you're gumby. Everything is, it's kinda bull. It's kinda bull crap, man. It's, I know it's you really it's a bait and switch because you think, oh, I can just eat whatever I want by work, workout a little harder, I'm good, but you, everyone finds that precipitous drop off at some point in their life.

And so it absolutely starts with diet and that's, we preach that, and it's funny we're a supplement company, right? And we, I would tell everybody who is our customer, that our supplements can only take you so far. This is good, [00:45:00] high quality stuff, but like the real foods that you're putting in front of you on a daily basis every day that's even more critical.

The right breakfast, the right snacks that you're interspersing in your meals, the right dinner. All of that really. Supplements are supplemental. They're meant to really support those gaps in your diet. They're meant to sustain you through moments where you can't have the most outta your meal.

And they help you push a little bit further in the workout and recover faster. They're supplemental, but they're not by any means meant to be the cornerstone of your health. They're not magical. Truly is. Yeah. They're not magical. No. No. Exactly. Now that'd be awesome if they were, cuz then you'd be sold out at all times.

But, it's just not how it works. And you're right. Dude, same thing. We're all getting older and I've started eating better the last month or so I stopped drinking soda pop caffeine, which was difficult. But yeah, and I felt really good. Like I'm feeling really good about myself.

Last week I'm coming home from Wisconsin for work [00:46:00] and I'm about two hours away from home and I'm like, I'm hungry. And there was a Taco Bell. And I haven't had Taco Bell in six months and I'm like, I'm gonna eat Taco Bell. That sounds pretty good. I bet I shit the rest of that night. Thank you.

Yeah, it was good though. You lost a little bit of weight though. Probably lost of weight. Moral of the story. Taco Bell's. Good for you. Eat it. No yeah, it's just interesting because 17 year old Nate could have just had 17 double Deckers before a football game and acted like it never even happened, but yeah.

Not my age now, but so what are some supplements that you guys have that are helpful right now at this time? For someone that's getting ready, some stuff that they can use to help Sure. Get themselves in that shape. One thing that I think people don't consume enough of, and if you look at some statistics, we just generally don't get enough protein on a daily basis.

There's some days we, a lot of men, especially men who hunt, we make ourselves believe that, oh, I'm a red meat eating guy. I'm sure I'd get plenty [00:47:00] of protein, but do you, if you really look at your day over the course of the week, how many, how much, how many grams of protein do you think you actually took in?

Depending on what your goals are, it is known that you should be getting around 0.8. So a gram of protein per pound of body weight that you weigh to sustain viable muscle and to build muscle. And if you're working out, your goal is generally to build muscle. When you look at that's quite a bit of protein.

So if you're not, if you don't just have this awesome diet where you're. Getting in high quality protein throughout your day, chances are that a good protein shake is gonna be something really beneficial for you. And we have a few different options depending on how you're gonna use the protein shake.

We have one called our Mule Replacement Shake, which is very useful for people who, they're working on the go, they tend to be on the road a lot, or they have an office job. And the Achilles heel is eating out for lunch or getting something at a fast restaurant while [00:48:00] you're driving to meetings or whatever.

Our meal replacement shake is a great replacement for that. You get 200 calories per serving, 18 grams of protein per serving. Really good breakdown of your macros your carbs, your fats. We have really a lot of really highly One thing about all of our protein shakes that a lot of people don't realize why they feel so good on it, is because we put these things in 'em called proteases.

They're protein digesting enzymes. Most protein shakes out there on the market don't use that. And so everyone's probably had that feeling, whether they drink a protein shake and they just, they fart all day, or they just have GI issues all day. Yeah, you won't feel that with ours because those proteins has helped break down those proteins and digest them really quickly.

Just taking a lot of the emphasis on, responsibility off of what is existing in your gut. High quality protein shake, we've got a couple options. So meal replacement, protein plus, they can both be used differently. Protein Plus is a little bit leaner. It's a little bit less calorically heavy.

[00:49:00] That is a great way to start your day. Great way post-workout, pre-workout to have just good strength in your body. Another one, if you're someone who's trying to lose weight Our, we have a product called Lean Life. It's a pill you take twice a day. It's really metabolism booster, but it works in a tandem of ways.

It's not just boosting your metabolism, but it also helps curb your appetite and it also helps helps you feel more satiated, just more full with eating less food. In America, we just, our portion controls are outta control. We just, we eat not to the point of being full and sustained.

We eat to when we just, our plates clean. And we've just lost control of that. Lean life, we use an ingredient there called Garce. Gabo. One of its main functions is to help. The release of serotonin, which is that feel good hormone in your brain that tells me I'm full, I'm good. I don't need anything.

It helps you release that more readily. And so when you used to have to eat a meal like this big before you started to feel good, it helps you [00:50:00] cut down on the need to eat much. And a lot of people, when they're on lean life, they just don't have those snacky cravings. They don't feel quite as hungry.

So you're burning more energy because there's some caffeine in it. It gives you more energy for just being a more active person. It cuts down on your cravings and it helps you mobilize the stored fat in your body as well too. Again, before I get too into the weeds, all of this, we have a lot of great information and all of our products on our website.

So if anybody just wants to dive more into it our website, wilderness happy.com. We've got a lot of great information on all of our products. So those two are huge. But if you want one of these just one stop shop like Kit where it has a whole program for you for a full month and has a lot of different products, we make a program called the 28 Day Reboot.

It's an incredible stack of all of our key products with the goal of, we call it muscle management, losing fat, not muscle. That's something that we have to change the language we use in our culture because a lot of people used to think, [00:51:00] if I just weigh less, I'll be a healthier person.

Which isn't true, if you. If you starve yourself or if you're not eating the right nutrients to support viable muscle, and you start losing that muscle, cuz your body will start to catalyze valuable muscle for energy cuz you're not giving it the energy it needs. You're gonna have a rough go of it.

There's a lot of studies that show the most rapid decline in health as we age is reflecting of people who have the least amount of viable muscle in their body. So we're really big believers in feeding the muscle sustaining the muscle growing that muscle. So the stack we give you, like the program, I mean it has a meal plan in there.

It has a routine for all your supplements. It has a workout program. It's a great, it's a great zero to hero. Get that first month under your belt, get some momentum built and figure out what products you really like. It really is about su supporting muscle and you will lose some weight for sure.

Some people lose 20 pounds, some people lose seven pounds. But without a doubt you'll come [00:52:00] out at the end of that just feeling good, feeling stronger, feeling energized, feeling, healthy energy. So those are, some of the key ones I would say to hydrate and recover, that's our Hallmark product.

You won't find a better hydration electrolyte product in the world, in my opinion. We've, we look constantly very low sugar, really critically balanced electrolytes, a lot of other good adaptogenic herbs, minerals, vitamins. It's a great drink. Especially, it tastes really good, but like, when you're in the heat and you're dehydrated, you're cramping it, nothing else, replenishes you the way that will too.

And that's a part of that kid as well. I I believe I had some of that. I've never taken it's just water. I always just drink water, right? And yeah, we were out one year and Russell had hydrate and recover and I'm like, what the hell is this? And he's it just helps rehydrate you quicker.

And it even yeah. To me it, it felt different too. Like it felt like you were, or you [00:53:00] hydrated. It was you, it was Amy that had some stuff one time long, several years ago that you also let me try. Yeah. Yeah. And remember I drink I remember even drinking. I was like, it feels like I'm drinking. It's got a little flavor to it, but a little flavor.

Yeah, it just, it felt people. Yeah. I don't know what the statistics, there's a lot of people that are walking around that are dehydrated and don't even know it. That's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Water's king, right? Like you can drink water, tell the cows come home. And a lot of people do and they think I'm good.

I drink. A ton of water. It, not the full store. You gotta replace those electrolytes, having that that you can really what's called I'm totally spacing on the term, but it's where you have over watered blood essentially. You've watered down Oh the electrolytes.

It's what the hell is that term? Oh my god, I'm totally waterlogged. Yeah, that would just go with that basically. Yeah. Waterlogged. Yeah. That's essentially what we're, Dr. Micah has spoken. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so electrolytes are huge and the other thing that a lot of people don't realize is [00:54:00] that what electrolytes do for like your cognitive function.

We have a whole side to our company that it's called working athlete. We sell hydrate and recover and energy and focus, but exclusively hydrate and recover to companies all over this, all over the country. Construction companies, asphalt companies utility companies, tree like everybody who works outdoors and has a safety, like a heat related job whose companies supply them with supply them with electrolyte replacement cuz they're required to by osha we sell, it's like one of the fastest growing sectors of our country and.

We have done a study with b y U on our hydrate and recover formula specifically, and it has been shown to improve reaction time, which is really what that whole game is about, which is keeping guys safe, especially, heavy equipment operators when you're dehydrated, you're fatigued when you're facing heat stroke, heat illness.

In a job like that, it's not a game of oh, I didn't feel my tag, or I didn't it, it could be life or death. So [00:55:00] it's a totally different ballgame and hydration is really critical. And I think a lot of people unfortunately, learn the hard way what being dehydrated can ultimately lead to it.

Yeah. Muscle cramps. Yeah. You feel lethargic. Yeah. You may get real heat stroke and throw up and stuff, but the consequences of that can be pretty dire, if you're in a situation out in the mountains where you can't get yourself out. Hydration is definitely something to take seriously.

For sure. Definitely. Okay, so we've done all the pre-gaming, we've wrote down what we want to have to accomplish on this trip and we've, started getting ourselves ready. We've found some workouts that work for us, whether it's, CrossFit like Kevin does, or what Micah likes to do, what Nate likes to do, or whatever you like to do to get yourself ready physically.

And now you're on the mountain. Day two. What are some things you like to do to keep yourself in the game, as it relates to things like snacks, obviously, I'm guessing hot hydrate and recovery's gonna be with you[00:56:00] while you're on the mountain, but what are some other things you like to do to keep yourself in the game?

The entire trip. Not just the first two damn days. Yeah, day seven is like day one. How can you keep yourself there? Sure. The first thing before even day one, and I say this specifically to Flat Landers cuz we sell a product called Altitude Advantage, which helps people from, flatland and they go up to 9,000 feet, helps 'em deal with the rigors of altitude sickness.

And we, I mean I've, we've seen people spend ungodly amounts of money for us to overnight it to some weird little town and, wherever they're at so they can have it cuz it makes a huge difference. So Altitude Advantage is something that I would certainly suggest. Anybody who's looking to go hunt at 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 feet and they live at a thousand feet and they're just not used to altitude, look into it and take it seriously and it'll help you adapt pretty quickly.

You don't wanna spend the first two, three days of your hunt stuck in the tent because you can't. [00:57:00] Not get dizzy when you stand up or you're nauseous, you have a headache, you don't have that kind of time to afford. So that's for sure. Secondly, day 4, 5, 6 of a hunt. Sleep is for me.

And I, I know a lot of people, especially when altitude's involved, you just don't sleep quite as well sometimes. We make a product called Unplug helps maximize, like the sleep you're getting. Anything you can do, even just the gear you're bringing. Like for me, I would always take a little bit of a heavier sleeping pad or sleep, whatever I can do to help me sleep better.

If you're not getting good sleep on the mountain, you're not having a good time, you're just, you're not gonna be functioning as well. You're not gonna recover. Your energy's going to, go down. So sleep is key. And then, snacks that you like eating. For me personally when I if I'm going on a backpack hunt where like we're not even hunting out of a truck, if we're gonna be living out of our backpacks right for a week, health kind of goes out the window, so to speak.

I bring a couple Snickers bars, I'm [00:58:00] bringing the, those little chewy snacks that I just look forward to in camp. You want to stim, you don't want to, you want to enjoy what you're eating. If you don't like this stuff at home, you're probably not gonna like it on the mountain. A lot of guys I've done this too where there's all sorts of different backpacking meals out there.

Tons of options. Test 'em before you go eat 'em, make sure you like 'em. Some of them taste like shit. Some of them really do, and some of them are great. Some of them are like, they taste like gourmet meal. We have started to carry some of our favorite ones, like on wilderness athlete. We have. A few different options.

They're all really good and we don't carry anything that we ourselves don't like eating. So I would say, the snacks, those things that you really enjoy eating, having that kind of reward. Like every guy who's never really been hunting in the mountains, there's that thing you're looking forward to digging outta your pack or getting back to camp to eat.

So having some of those, because I went on a hunt one time and I'll never forget it. I was like, I was really getting into a routine of losing weight and just eating super clean. I was cutting out a lot of [00:59:00] carbs, cutting out processed sugars. I had been doing really good for months leading up to this, and I was in great shape and I was like, I'm not gonna use this hunt as an excuse and so I'm gonna pack really healthy stuff and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Consequently I just. I didn't enjoy. And so like the guys I was hunting with, they had freaking chips in their bag. They had stuff I wanted to be eating. Swiss rolls. Yeah. I just, I was miserable. I hated it, and I was like, I'm, I don't even know how many calories we were burning every day, with the hunting we were doing.

But I was like, a surely I'm making up for whatever, crap I'm eating. So I would just say enjoy the food you're eating. Something that I really like taking on hunts that really can make a big difference is our meal replacement shake. And we also make another product called Mc T, which you can mix into your coffee.

It's just powdered fat and it's medium change. Triglycerides is what MCT stands for. You add it to your coffee and we have one, we have a non-flavored and then a vanilla flavor. And it just [01:00:00] makes your coffee taste like rich and full. It gives it some calories. There's far more calories per gram of fat than there is for program of carbohydrates.

So it's energy dense. You can add a scoop of that to your coffee in the morning or you can add it to a meal replacement shake and you're not gonna find a more like power packed and delicious like little bag of powder that you can bring with you. And sometimes that's what you need to just when your legs are sore and you just feel like you need to fill that hole in your stomach, but you don't want to carry a bunch of food.

Who doesn't like a strawberry shake? It's, it tastes good and it definitely is a convenient way to take a lot of calories, a lot of energy-rich calories with a lot of good protein and other micronutrients that help fill in some gaps. You can take that pretty quick, and I've been doing that for years.

And then I tell people all the time, Hey, if you've got the space, throw in a tub of a meal replacement shake. And you just never know. Sometimes there's those mornings where you don't have time to make a breakfast or you get back late and you don't really [01:01:00] have the energy to make like a meal, but you need to eat something to recover.

Just have a shake. And it's easy to digest. It's easy to, your bowels are gonna move better with it. It's got a lot of fiber in it. That's been a kind of a little trick for me for a long time. That's helped me feel a lot better in the woods. We also make Like we, we made some really delicious protein bars.

We call 'em pack out bars. And then Pack out bites. Pack out bites are these little half size, hundred calorie double chocolate brownie bites. They're stupid. Delicious. And then we have one that's a peanut butter chocolate chip bar. Ooh. And then a salted caramel bar. Ooh. Super high protein. Yeah.

They're delicious. They say good. And like we, I don't even take 'em home cuz I'll eat the whole box in a night. Like they're they taste like candy bars, but they're actually low in sugar, but they're just, they're power packed with really good ingredients like grassfed way protein and really good stuff.

So those are great. Like on the mountain snack. Yeah. We learn that pretty quickly about [01:02:00] our, like in our pack stuff is that we just putting garbage in our back, our packs basically. And I love fudge rounds and funions, gushers, but if you think about it, you're burning so many calories that eating calories is not a bad thing on a mountain.

In my opinion. I feel constantly hungry, but yeah. Finding those things you like that, like you said, Kev, just that make you feel better about life. Yeah. When you're on a mountain, you're just, you're burning so many calories that it just doesn't hurt to have 'em.

We like be we like jerky. We'll make deer jerky before we come out and Oh yeah. Just munch on jerky all the time and that sort of stuff. It's nice for someone to hear that because, like you said, it can, if you just have healthy food with you, you're gonna hate it. You're gonna hate, you're gonna hate the trip because Yeah.

There's no reward to. Hiking the six miles up the top of the mountain, you're just like, oh, I got to the top of the mountain. Now I get to eat a [01:03:00] leaf of kale. Cool. Or whatever. Yeah. So it's not always about being super, super healthy. It's about being ready and your body being able to handle eating that garbage when you're ready to go.

Yeah. But if all you eat is Snickers bars before going out west, then also take the Snickers bars. That's when it's a problem. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely if you're hunting, like really hunting, if you're putting in an effort that you know, you ought to be, especially if you're coming out west and you're really, doing it, chances are that you're always gonna be like in a calorie deficit.

I lose weight in a lot of hunts. You just, you can't physically sometimes, Eat enough food. There's just not enough time in the day to eat enough food to really maintain a certain amount of calorie input. Making sure that on a, from a mental standpoint that you enjoy where you're eating is you can't replace that.

Like that's just a key to your kind of your soul and just keeping your head in the game. For sure. And yeah, like [01:04:00] I think the world's getting better with making that healthy food taste better and tastes like, good stuff. But every now and then, there's still healthy snacks that just taste like garbage.

It's just not the real thing. Yeah. All that kind of stuff. It's just not the real thing. No that's for sure. And it's, like I said, it's a process for everybody. Yeah. We've been through the process. I think the biggest thing I wanna say to the, our flatlander brethren and the folks on the East Coast and I guess the West Coast people that haven't done it is, or the out west people that haven't done it is.

It's not as daunting as you feel like it is, and it's not as easy as you feel like it is. It's just, it is what it is. Yeah. That was deep, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Real deep there. It's just, it's work and if if you want to do it, it's definitely doable. But you're not gonna do it by, like you said, just buying a tag and then going when the date opens and expecting to be successful.

Yeah. Yeah. It takes a lot of I think [01:05:00] everyone needs that kind of kick in the pants eye-opening experience. And if you don't feel like you've had that yet in your life and there's just nothing that's really shown you. The error of your ways are Hey, I need to start taking my health and my fitness more seriously then.

Yeah, sure. Go buy a tag and just come out and just start doing it. That's one way to just kick your ass. It every, everyone generally goes through that. But it, like you said, it's a process and I think that the best thing you can do is just get started. And I think a lot of people get paralyzed by the overwhelmingness of it because maybe they are, a hundred pounds overweight or maybe they just haven't really been in shape in years, and people just they put it off and they think, oh, I'm never gonna be able to go do that because I've been living this life for the last, 10, 12 years.

The worst thing you can do is just not get started. And you gotta just get started on the small things and, yes, we're talking about hunting. We want to be in shape to be able to go. Hunt and live in the [01:06:00] outdoors and experience mother nature to our fullest experience. But what we're really talking about here is just living a life worth living.

We're talking about, yeah it's work, but the things that are worth it in life, they take work. And so it's, you gotta change your perspective of it, and people just gotta get started. That's really all there is to it, is just start putting one foot in front of the other and learning, you're gonna learn a hell of a lot about your body and your health and what things you do and what things work for you.

And it's just a journey. Yeah. That's a, actually a really good piece of advice also for, on the mountain Bec was it, Russell I think told me like, if you're, if you look at this hill that you have to climb and, let's say it's, pretty steep and you're like, oh my God, this is gonna suck then don't look up.

Yeah. Look in front of you and start walking. And before you know it, you're gonna be there. But if you're looking at the end the entire time and going, this sucks. It's gonna suck the entire time. Just put one foot in front of the other. That was a [01:07:00] nice, that was like a double entendre for you.

That was a Well done. Yeah. It that's been a mantra for me and a lot of things in life for sure. It's just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you do that long enough man, and good things happen. It's as simple as that. We sometimes we get in our own heads and we overcomplicate life and we overcomplicate, the route to get to where we wanna be, but, tends to be the heart.

You just gotta keep, you just gotta keep showing up. You just gotta keep doing it. And that, that just, means. Showing up to, the gym, showing up to the diet, showing up to whatever it is, and things work out. Definitely. Kev before we hit the stop button on this one, why don't you tell everybody how they can check out Wilderness Athlete and some of the stuff you guys do?

Sure, yeah. We have a great website. Wilderness athlete.com has not only obviously all of our products and a ton of information on it, but we've got a journal that's on our website as well with a lot of educational material about, whether [01:08:00] it's diet, sleep mental health just hunt stories even workouts.

So it's a great online journal with a lot of resources on there, but again, our entire product line is on there with a lot of information. Probably our greatest resource though, it, because I know it can be a bit, overwhelming when you're just looking at a ton of products and you're not really sure what the right move is.

Just give us a call. We've got an incredible customer service team. You can chat with an expert on our website or shoot us an email, but you can absolutely just pick up the phone and give us a call and talk to a real human and, get some real world feedback and, advice. And that's, really the best thing I think that we do is just, is talk to people because health and all of this is, it's a very personal thing and sometimes people have certain sensitivities, proclivities problems they're trying to overcome.

Whatever you need to do, get ahold of us. If you're not really sure which way to go on some products And I would suggest signing up [01:09:00] for emails. Unlike a lot of companies out there, we don't send a lot of just spammy BS emails. We don't sell our email list to anybody. Chances are when you get an email from us, it's either a new product we're releasing a discount code, or maybe just some workout or it's something of value.

And I think for a lot of folks, when you're looking for some motivation and you're looking for a way to just stay in tune with a routine that you're trying to start getting some daily reminders and getting something to check into can be really helpful, I'd suggest maybe signing up for emails as well.

But yeah, wilderness athlete.com is our website. You can find us on Instagram too, which is just at Wilderness underscore Athlete. And yeah, hopefully we talk with some of you. Awesome, man. We appreciate your time today. It was a fun topic for me. I enjoy doing this stuff that's a little bit different than just, how to put the arrow in the animal.

And it was good information for me. I thought of some things that I want to start doing for Wyoming and I'm sure Micah did as well. So for sure, we appreciate your time today and [01:10:00] will figure it out next time that Arizona time won't mess with me the same as it is. Oh, no worries. No worries.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate talking to you guys and hopefully there was something I said that a listener finds helpful or valuable. But if anybody has any questions for me personally or just feedback or anything at all my email is kevin wilderness athlete.com and I'm more than happy to talk with anybody.

That's awesome, Kevin. Thanks for your time today, bud. Yeah, thank you.

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