If big wall climbing is grueling, solo big wall climbing is an extra special form of vertical masochism. Every moment of every day is jam packed with tasks. Cold mornings begin by crawling out of a warm sleeping bag, cooking coffee from a hanging stove and end after 10-12 hours of constant movement. If you find yourself not doing something on a big wall, then you’re doing something wrong. Long days then stretch into the horizon, never setting weary foot on solid ground.
Needless to say, the BugWall will pummel every fiber of muscle in my body into a worn-out mess. Adequate nutrition during such a venture will give me a fighting chance. I am just not that tough. I will need every ounce of energy and recovery I can gain via food to summit. Thanks to our awesome BugWall sponsors, I will be able to meet these severe nutritional demands with an all bug diet. The menu for a typical day on the BugWall will look like:
Breakfast
Cup of hot coffee | Exo bar | 1/3 bag of Hopper Crunch grain-free granola
Lunch
Chapul bar | Bug Eater Foods chocolate or Crik Nutrition vanilla protein shake
Snack
Next Millennium Farms Bug Bistro pack | 1/2 bag Six Foods Chirps cricket chips | imaginary cold beer
Dinner
1 cup C-Fu mealworm tofu chili | 1 cup top secret edible insect food*
Dessert
2 Bitty cricket cookies | piece of cricket leather | snoot of bourbon
When preparing for a big wall climb, its easy to let food fall to the wayside. Gear, weather and logistics can absorb all focus. I have learned this the hard way. While climbing Zodiac, my first serious big wall solo, I was so overwhelmed with climbing and weather conditions each day that I lost my appetite and topped out with an extra 6 pounds of food and deep ridges in my fingernails from the starvation my body experienced.
Lesson learned. Bugs will be my nutritional salvation on this climb. To better understand how edible insects fit in with big wall nutrition, I am teaming up with Brian Rigby, MS, CISSN who runs the blog Climbing Nutrition. Brian’s big wall nutrition acumen includes insights like:
Overall, the diet a big wall climber hauls up should be 60-75% carbohydrates, 5-15% protein, and 15-25% fat. Personal preference can dictate whether you fall on the higher or lower end of the spectrum, but if you’re trying to break a record, you should err on the side of more carbs and less fat.
I cant wait to pick Brian’s brain about climbing nutrition. Stay tuned for a specific breakdown of edible insect big wall nutrition a cricket leather recipe, and the long-awaited unveiling of newly released edible insect foods.
Want to give some of these edible insect foods a try yourself? Now is the perfect time. All of these insect-based foods and more are available as perks in our current Indiegogo campaign. All profits support the nonprofit Little Herds and logistical costs of the BugWall.
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