[pct-l] Thru-hiking and weight loss

[DANPCT@pocketmail.com (Dan McGuire)]

Hey All,

While I'm sitting here at home, recovering from a dose of giardia (mmmm, yumm, flagyl) and looking forward to getting back out onto the trail next week, I've finally had a chance to see myself in a full length mirror.

My God, have I ever lost weight. I hopped on a scale, and it's been 20 pounds in the three weeks since Agua Dulce. I had no idea I was losing so much. I'm concerned. I was counting on losing weight this trip, but this seems like far to much in far to short a period of time. I have a feeling it, combined with the onset of the giardia, account for my incredibly low energy levels the last week or so. I thought I had my calorie consumption at a pretty good point, but the scale appears to accurately tell me I'm wrong.

So, I'm turning to all of you for some advice on increasing my daily cal input. My meals to date ave consisted of 3 packs of instant oatmeal in the morning, 3 or so cliffbars/promax bars during the day, along with a good amount of gorp and 3- 4 ounces of cheese and a couple of tortillas, some fig newtons and a hershey bar as well, and a big old pot of food at night (alternating between pastas, curried lentils, curried couscous...all meals I dehydrated and weighing about 8 ounces dry) I've also been adding a tablespoon or two of olive oil to my dinners. 

I am a vegetarian, as you might have guessed from the above menu, but at this point I'm considering adding meat sources to my diet as well - jerkey or those bags of tuna or something to try and get the weight loss to slow down and stabilize. Any thoughts on good, nutritiuos,dense high cal foods?  My family is threating not to let me back out of the house till I put on 10 lbs, but I've found where they hid my shoes and as soon as I find where they're hiding the sleeping bag I can sneak back out to the trail...   :)

TIA,

Dan "Scooter" McGuire