This weekend, June 11-15, I will be tackling the summit of Mt Shasta with a group of 5 friends. Mt Shasta sits at 14,179 ft tall. My previous elevation record was Mt Adams last year at over 12,000 ft. Due to whatever reason, maybe dehydration, i ended up having some moderate altitude sickness. The sickness included a bad headache, dizziness, loss of energy and lack of focus. With Shasta being another 2,000 ft higher ill need to prepare my body better for the high altitude.
So here's the plan.
8 days before the climb starts, I'll start a special food prep which includes:
- Drinking half my body weight of water in ounces each day. This puts me at 90 ounces of water each day. Therefore I'll be fully hydrated when i start the ascent
- Eating only complex carbs, fruits, vegetables and low fat proteins
- Cutting out all added sugars and eat only natural sugars which occur already in the fruit etc.
- Cutting out all bread. I have had only a small portion of whole wheat bread. Whole wheat is a good complex carb.
- Taking in lots of ginger in my diet mainly through adding whole ginger root into my smoothies. I heard this helps with altitude sickness.
- Taking ginkgo biloba as a supplement. I heard this also helps with altitude sickness even though i may have started taking the supplement to late as it may need for time for full effect.
- Foods I'm eating: Apples, oranges, blueberries, bananas , brown rice, kale, carrots, sugar snap peas, cashews, whole wheat bread, ginger root, broccoli, black bean humus, eggs, strawberries, and chicken and steal cut oatmeal
By Saturday June 13th I'll be on the summit and hopefully feeling well and not worrying about anything but the great views and memories made.
If you have any tips, recommendations or options on this matter feel free to ad a comment.
