The Ramble: The Uphill Athlete Weight Problem

The mountains can feel like they’re calling your name, and sometimes the hardest part isn’t the altitude, the weather, or the miles. It’s looking at the scale, looking at your body, and wondering how you’re supposed to be an uphill athlete when you first have to fight your body.

I get personal about that exact struggle. I talk through my history with fitness swings, why trekking in Nepal lit a fire in me, and how Everest Base Camp and a Mera Peak attempt taught me what high altitude trekking really demands. We also get into the messy reality of weight loss when your tools change, including what happened when my insurance stopped covering GLP-1 medication and the weight came back faster than I wanted to admit.

From there, I lay out what I’m doing now: recommitting to consistent strength and endurance training, using treadmill and stair climbers to rebuild climbing fitness, and planning a thorough annual physical to get a clear baseline. I share a specific target for next year, Yala Peak in Nepal, plus the mental side of chasing big outdoor adventure goals in your late 40s: motivation, frustration, knee aches, and the choice to keep going anyway.

If you’ve ever felt embarrassed, stuck, or behind, I’m hoping this Ramble starts a real conversation in the hiking, trekking, and climbing community. Listen, subscribe, and if this hit home, share it with a friend and leave a review, then tell me: what goal are you training for right now?

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Transcript

Welcome To The Ramble

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Trade Tables and Time Zones. Presents the Ramble. I'm your host, Josh Bogle. And today we have what I would consider truly a ramble. Although I think there's a lot of us out there that that fight this battle. So you're probably wondering at this point, what the hell is Josh going on about? I think it's best to form it into a question.

Overweight And Drawn To Mountains

SPEAKER_00 0:26

And it's what happens when you're an uphill athlete and you're really overweight? That is a question I have asked myself for a very long time. And it's one that I am battling right now and trying to figure out the best way to go about it. Because a lot of you know that one of my big joys in life is trekking, climbing, outdoor adventure, right?

Nepal Trips And Hard Lessons

SPEAKER_00 1:03

I've had the privilege to go to Nepal at this point twice. One of those trips was to Everspace Camp, which I've talked about on this podcast, and what an experience that was. And then also to make a summit attempt on Mirapeak before getting stuck in some serious blizzard conditions and not being able to make an attempt on the summit. So those things, let's face it, mountain climbing or trekking, you know, long distance trekking through hiking, uh, biking, endurance, you know, marathons, ultramarathons, you know, long distance running, all those things require one, a lot of commitment, desire, but they also require a certain level of fitness.

Fitness History And Yo Yo Weight

SPEAKER_00 1:54

And fitness is the thing that I have always battled throughout my life. Now, like most people, when I was younger, you know, I went through that little doughy stage, and then that weight kind of went away, and I started, you know, lifting weights when I started playing football and other sports, baseball and other sports in junior high and then into high school. So I had a fitness routine, right? And I lived in very, very hot places. So there was a lot of sweat and a lot of running and lifting weights and those things and youth to help keep my body in good shape. In college, still, you know, was able to maintain a pretty good routine as far as staying, you know, somewhat healthy or at least in shape and not putting out a bunch of weight. But it seemed after that point, right, like in law school and then on into life, you know, it just became harder. So my weight has always kind of fluctuated up and down, especially when I kind of made the commitment to myself to go and do these big adventures, right? These big climbing adventures and trekking adventures. I had to get myself into shape. And so I went into it doing just that, right?

GLP 1 Help Then Coverage Ends

SPEAKER_00 3:17

I had a really good workout routine, I was eating well, and I had the help of a GLP one. At that time, my insurance actually covered them, and I was able to do the injections, and it really did work. They were able to curb you know cravings of food and just help me lose weight, and that was great because when I went to Nepal, I was a lot lot a lot thinner than I am now. But it took a lot of work, right? And and doing those types of endurance trekking trips, they they require a lot of work anyway. You have to be in good shape. I mean, it's I'm sure there are people in this world that could just step off the plane and acclimatize and just do it, you know, without really even thinking about it. But for the rest of us, it takes planning and work and effort and training. And so I went to Nepal the first time in pretty, pretty decent shape. Still too heavy, but um pretty good shape. And I'll tell you what, I, you know, as I've talked about in previous podcasts, it just whipped my ass. I mean, it's tough, right? It is high altitude, long days, strenuous trails. I mean, it's it's tough. And the same thing was at Mira. You know, when I started training for Mira, again, I had, you know, my weight had gone back up some and I was able to get it back down. Again, the medicine helped, but uh it was just a lot of hard work. Well, about a little over a year ago, my insurance no longer covered GLP1. So I had to stop taking it and I put on a lot of weight. And while I'm not at my heaviest right now, I am certainly not at a good weight for for endurance type sports, right? I'm I'm I'm not there. Now, I will also say too that I I let my working out kind of lapse. I wasn't nearly as consistent um over that time period as well. And so, you know, a lot of it is just me being not as active as I should have been. But I think a lot of people also battle, you know, the yo-yo up and down of weight. They let it hamper them into getting into these sports. And I've certainly fought this, you know, once one thing is, you know, being kind of ashamed of of your weight and not really knowing where to start or or being afraid to start right because you don't want to look stupid or silly at the gym or you know uh catch ridicule from people that aren't, you know, nearly as big as you or anything like that. So it's hard to start, but it's kind of one of those things that you just kind of have to get in the habit of and just say to hell with it, you know, this is my life, it's my body, and there's these things that I want to do that are going to require me to do more and ask more of my body than I have in the past, right? But I will say too that, you know, like a having the advantage of you know taking a uh a medicine that will help you in that endeavor is is a great thing. And certainly it's been harder for me since not having the GLP one um to to lose the weight.

Back To Training But No Loss

SPEAKER_00 6:59

And so again, uh right now I have gained quite a bit of weight, and about a month ago, I recommitted to getting myself back into shape because there's so many more tricks and summit attempts and things out there that I want to do. And also, I'm getting older, I'm in my late 40s now, and it is vital to get my body into as good a condition now as I can because it's only going to get harder. The older I get, the harder that becomes to hone your body into what you want it to be. So I started working out um about a month ago, and I've been doing really, really well, right? Real really consistent, good work, strength training, uh, endurance training, you know, a lot of treadmill, a lot of stair climbers, starting to do all that work because I do plan to go back to Nepal as my first trip back. But there's also uh I would love to do the coast to coast in England and the Tour de Mont Blanc, the Lagovegar Trail in Iceland. And so it it requires me to be in better shape. So it's a big struggle, right? Because, like I said, since I've been working out, it's I feel really good and I feel like I'm making progress on my fitness, but man, the weight is just not coming off. And I have got to figure out a way to make that happen. But that's the struggle, right? Like, even when you start feeling like you're making all of this progress and you're working hard to not see it reflected in the most visible of numbers is really, really tough. You know, I know that the time will come when my weight starts going down and I finally get over that hump and where it really starts to make a difference, and I'll be able to go back to Nepal. But it is incredibly frustrating to have this up and down weight gain, weight loss, and fight this battle all the time. It will wear you out, it will frustrate you. It's just kind of that another roadblock in the uh in what at at least getting at my age is seemingly a number of roadblocks that pop up, you know, from knee aches to foot aches to, you know, just just general age and and everything.

Why Share This Journey Publicly

SPEAKER_00 9:31

So I thought that a ramble series would be really good to share my journey and also, you know, maybe spur some discussion within the uphill community. I mean, there's a lot of people out there that have an interest in trekking and hiking and climbing, and you know, not every one of those people is a crazy in-shape extreme sports person or you know, a Sherpa who has spent their entire lives in that kind of environment. It's there's there's people out here like me that are just regular people, that you know, don't have any specialized training, don't particularly have a ton of alpine history, you know, of living around it or being around it since they were a kid, but that absolutely love that adventure, the nature, the thrill, the seeing these things that not a lot of people get to see. The draw of the mountain, right? It Nepal, I swear it calls to me more than many other places I've ever been to. In fact, it might do it more so than anywhere else. And it's not particularly because it's not Japan or it's not Iceland or whatever, it's different, you know, and it's it may not be my ideal vacation place, but it's my ideal adventure place, right? And so those mountains, man, they pull at you hard. I know I have a goal, and I know I have to do things to get to that goal. But that motivation and that drive and that frustration and all those emotions that come along with trying to get to that goal and get your body to work with you to that goal is is the struggle, right? That's that's the struggle part. So I'm hoping that you know this will drive conversation and it'll, you know, maybe, you know, as we go along, this will motivate people to say, damn it, I can do it. I can get myself into the shape that I can go to experience those things, and don't let the the fact that you're, you know, you know, quote unquote overweight or out of shape or whatever be a deterrent to getting you up and to motivate you to drive toward those goals, right? And and have those experiences be basically don't let weight become you know the reason you don't do something. And then the second reason for putting out this podcast, you know, may well mini-series, is that I think by putting it out there into the ether, right, it will also motivate me and it will hold me accountable because I've said it out in public, right? I've I've put it out into the world about being overweight and needing to get myself into shape so that I can do the things I want to do. So if I talk about it and others hear it, then that almost makes makes me more accountable, not only to the people that hear it, but to myself. And so I think that's a motivating factor for me as well. And so that was kind of the thoughts behind all of that was like, look, let's let's try to build a discussion about weight and being an uphill athlete and an endurance athlete and doing those things that you love to do and finding a way to be able to do them even when you struggle with being heavier or yo-yoing weight back and forth and trying to stay consistent and so that you can go and do those things, you know, quicker and easier than having to not only plan for just a particular trek, but also having to get your body to the point to be able to train for that trek. I hoped it would do that, and again, I hope it drives me.

325 Pounds, Doctor Baseline, Next Peak

SPEAKER_00 13:36

And so right now, I'm gonna share this out loud. I am 325 pounds or so, which is big. It's it's not where I want to be, and it uh it's hard for me to even say that out loud because usually, you know, when I've gone to Nepal and trekked, it's been around the 255 to 275 range, and even then that seems too big, right? Like I would love to not have to carry that much weight on the mountain. Uh so I would love to lose more than that. And also, I have a big doctor's appointment coming up that's kind of a very in-depth annual physical, but it it goes over everything, right? Like it's very, it's a it's a multiple hour, multiple, you know, test driven appointment. And so it's a great time to get a baseline of where I'm at, where my body's at, and what I need to do to get myself into shape so that I can go back to Nepal hopefully next year. My goal as of right now, the first part of the goal, is Yalla Peak, right? So I want to try to summit Yalla Peak in the Led Tang Valley in Nepal, but I think I'll probably want to also add a secondary objective onto that trip because it doesn't take that long to trek out to Yalla Peak. So I think there's gonna probably be something else added on. I don't know what that is yet. I've actually been talking to a couple of my really good buddies in Nepal, especially uh Kunga Sherpa, who um uh I've trekked with before, and you know, getting his opinions and his ideas on what might be a a good a good target. But that's kind of the plan is to try to do it next year, and it would be, you know, either in the late winter, early early spring, or in probably late fall. I don't know when yet, but um that's the kind of time period I've got to work with. And like I said, I've already gotten started, you know, at least a month or so of of training, and I'm already getting in better endurance shape. I'm just not really seeing any of the weight loss yet. So I'm hoping uh between continuing to work and going to this doctor's appointment and maybe checking into other options that um I could find a way to cut this weight off sooner.

Listener Stories And Series Plans

SPEAKER_00 16:25

But I'm not gonna drag this one out too long. Of course, this is a ramble, so it doesn't need to be super long. But I did want to bring uh uh you guys up to speed as to what my goals were, but also, you know, the obstacles that are in the way. And would love to hear from anybody out there that might struggle with this same issue. I'm sure I'm not the only one uh that has uh big dreams and and big goals and uh doesn't want you know weight or or struggling with their body to get in the way, and so are always looking for, you know, uh advantages, better methods of of working out and losing weight and staying healthy and all those things, right? Always looking for methods for that. So uh would love to hear anybody's comments or suggestions or whatever it may be about this subject and you know, maybe your story. Well, you know, I'd I'd love to hear that as well, you know, what what you've had to face or and what you've accomplished, you know, uh through your efforts. So I will probably do um several episodes of the ramble on this um as I go along, and I think it would be fun to share, you know, some of the the training methods I'm using and also some of the preparation and and things that I tend to do uh to get ready for high altitude um uh adventures. And so I think this this will be a great little series to uh to keep track of. And I hope you join me on this this weight loss journey and and hope it motivates you to uh to do the same to help get you ready for some type of adventure.

Closing And What’s Next

SPEAKER_00 18:16

But um, but with all that said, guys, uh again, like I said on the other podcast, it's great to be back. It's uh I've really enjoyed getting back behind the mic and talking and you know into the ether and hoping you know somebody listens um and enjoys and and gets something from it. Um but if not, then uh you know I certainly get a lot from this, so I really enjoy doing it and look forward to sharing a bunch more with you all. But as for now, that's gonna be it for this episode of the Ramble. Be on the lookout for more regular podcast episodes and also more ramble episodes. All right, thanks everybody. Bye.