Wade Watchers - How Fly Fishing helped me loose 100 pounds!

So there have been a lot of changes that have happened over the past year. I went from jobless, homeless, and penniless to having my dream job come true, gaining a wonderful home in a great town and we actually have a little bit of folding money. I have gone from a dark, angry and depressed asshole, to a more upbeat and pleasant, much less depressed but still an asshole. I am just a more self-aware asshole. I am Walter Sobchak, but I am trying Donnie...I am trying really hard to be the Dude.


Part of this whole change has come in a truly unexpected and pleasant form. I have lost a ton of weight. Probably over 100 pounds at this point and still counting. This weight loss is not only important because of my physical health, but my mental health as well. I now have the confidence and I am working on having to body to go further and do more than I have ever thought possible. While I do not feel I have used my weight to hold me back, I do know that it has. My weight did not keep me from going overseas and doing what I did, it has not stopped me from being a Park Ranger and a Caretaker. 

It has stopped me from fishing in places I want to go because I cannot physically make it there, well safely. It has stopped me from chasing animals that I have wanted to hunt and see in the wild since I was a kid. It has stopped me from having the confidence to do a lot of things I have wanted...so wait...my weight has held me back?

Despite a lifetime of adventures and all that I have done and seen...my weight has kept me from doing things I have wanted. So what did I do? How did I realize this and make a change? Well to tell you the truth the first thing I did was get tired of my own shit. I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was annoyed that the high point of my week was the rare moment I took a shower and left the house. I was sitting at home all day, alone, in a room, hating people, and I was grossed out and tired of that nonsense.

So I did what any other sensible person would do, I made changes. I got a job I hated, at a place I hated, and I gutted it out as long as I could until we fell into our Caretaker job and the rest is history. I...however was still fat. I was losing weight little, by little...but I was still fat and that was holding me back and again always there to screw with my head. 

So what really got things jump started, came from a truly unexpected place. You see despite all the horrible and negative shit that went on over the course of the past year, I have been rather lucky and quite fortunate. Not many people get fired from a job, and then take a road trip down to Colorado to fly fish on the Eagle River for a week, before starting a career as a writer and moving to a small town in Montana, however that is not where my fortune began.

Nah, the pathway to weight loss was started in the Summer of 2016, when we left Billings, Montana and moved to the Mountains of Idaho, in the Swan Valley. I learned to fly fish. Fly fishing was my gateway to weight loss and I was not even aware what was happening, even while it was happening. You see I was living off the grid, no scales and only a mirror and a fiance that sees me every day to really judge any progress. Sooner or later my clothes started to fit looser, and I had to tighten my belt more.

Now a few things occurred to me, we were eating almost no processed foods and when we did have them it was in truly smaller portions than we had before and far less frequent. So I knew weight loss was inevitable, but there was more going on than just eating better. I was exercising, but was I really? I was fishings, that is what I was doing. I was not out there at the gym lifting weights or running on a treadmill. I was just out at the creek in my shorts and shoes trying to master the art of fly fishing.

I spent most of each day, in the water. The water, of course, being well below the air temperature which enabled me to stay cool and active all day, no matter the intense heat. I would walk downstream to my favorite holes and would spend hours walking back upstream to the vehicle. I would lose all concept of time and would have to set alarms to remind me to eat and drink. I was so into the fishing, I just never noticed what all I was doing. 

I was fighting the current upstream, I was walking on slippery rocks, I was standing and keeping my balance in moving and rushing water. I was walking up and down trails, I was carrying loads of fishing gear, food, water, and other possibles on my back. I was eating lighter and healthier foods to get the energy to sustain my ability to cast longer and with less sore muscles.

What was happening is, I was getting a full body workout and I did not even know it...I had tricked myself into joining a gym. I started to do some research and look into exactly what goes into fly fishing and specifically wading. I mean really...how effective is Fly fishing really for weight loss?

Extremely.

As I fought the current upstream to I was doing resistance training, and it was low impact. I was not blowing out my knees lumbering my large body around trying to jog on a treadmill. Given the uneven nature of a riverbed, the speed of the water, and the temperature, on average just 30 mins in the water wading, is equal to 1-2 hours of Briskly walking on a treadmill. I was fishing for no less than 3-4 hours a day and upwards of 8-10 hours some days. I was working out every day but to me, it was just fishing.


Casting seems pretty light and not exactly powerlifting...it is, however, repetative muscle movement holding something that has weight and resistance...holy shit its low impact, resistance training! With every cast you are not only working muscle groups in BOTH arms at the same time, you are also working the shoulders, back, and midsection. 

Wait the midsection? Yes. Part of just being in the water requires your legs to work overtime to keep you balanced, which in turn works muscles in your core and midsection. It is essentially like doing sit-ups all day, just standing in a river fishing.

We are not even factoring in time spent hiking to get to a location to fly fish, the weight of the fishing tackle required for a day spent on the river. Fighting the fish, hell even tying knots burns calories, because you are generally still standing in the water when you do that. Everything you do while fly fishing centers around you being in the water, and if you are in the water you are burning fat. 

I found myself packing less beer when I fished because I had less time to consume the beer as I was too busy fishing. Beyond that, beer is heavy and I would rather bring fly boxes, jerky, and water with me. I started to only bring a few in a small cooler I kept in the truck, and soon I just quit buying it in general. The more time I spent on the water, the less time I spent eating bad food, drinking bad drinks, and it was starting to take hold. I was losing weight.

So here I am, nearly 120 pounds lighter and still counting. I have no scale, but my pants keep falling off and most of my clothes fit me like a kid wearing his dad's shirt before bed. I have more energy, I have more confidence, and I have the drive to do more than I ever have before.

The key to being healthy and in shape is not drinks, supplements, fad diets, or weird exercise regimens. It's about getting outside, it's about eating healthy foods, and about no losing our connection to the wild. We are hunter/Gatherers and we have not evolved past that point. Our bodies need the exercise, and our minds need to be part of that important connection we have with nature, the food chain. It is essential to our survival as s species.