Horse Chat: Too Heavy for Horses

[00:00:00] Oh, hey. It's your host, Lindsey, who really enjoys bacon. And today we're going to talk about how to know when you're too fat to ride your horse. Why? Cause you're listening to Rochester Trail Riders.

[00:00:21] Alright, I'm not botting shaming anybody but myself on this episode, so don't panic and don't get your panties all in a bunch. Even if they're gigantic panties, like mine. Because, wowzers, did I enjoy winter to the fullest. And by enjoy, I mean bacon. Bacon and doughnuts and hearty stews and potatoes and mac and cheese and just cheese in general like Epic runs to September Farms down in Lancaster County for cheese, Amish donuts, and who's hungry?

[00:00:53] Because I'm back on the bandwagon right now and all that talk just made me want to go eat something that I shouldn't. This is why I'm doing the episode today.

[00:01:06] I started this podcast last week. August. With my very first trail ride of the season last August. My last trail ride of the season was in I think it was in October when we were doing the Genesee Valley Trail. It's June. It's June. I haven't been on a horse since then. Why? Well, because I enjoyed the winter way too much.

[00:01:36] I enjoyed it. Everything about winter comfort foods to the fullest. It tasted so good. I loved it. I just wallowed in my happiness of making myself a Chunky Monkey. Which I now want Chunky Monkey ice cream. But Long story short is, here, I'll even show you the numbers. Mind you, I am 6'2 so my weights are a little higher than most, so don't panic if you think you're a chunky monkey, just realize that, uh, what I'm about to say for weights is It's gigantic a weight.

[00:02:15] I was 185 pounds when I did my last trail ride back in October. And as of two weeks ago, I was 215 pounds. So let's do some math here because that weight reflects upon your horse. And the average horse weighs a thousand pounds. They should not be carrying more than 20 percent of their body weight. 20 percent of a thousand pounds is.

[00:02:43] Drumroll, 200 pounds. That's 200 pounds of you, your clothing, your tack, anything you're carrying, anything you're having your horse carry, boots and saddle pads and everything. The whole enchilada is 200 pounds. At this current weight of 215 pounds, I am too fat to ride my horse, because I like little horses.

[00:03:11] I know, some of you got the big guys out there, but I want to get on off my horse very easy, so I'm a 15 hand and under, and I like a big stocky 15 hand, so they do weigh a thousand pounds. Unfortunately, at my weight, naked, after a good pee and poo, weighing 215 pounds, there is no way that I'm getting on my horse.

[00:03:35] Fully dressed in my garb with tack and going for a ride. That's just, that's mean to the poor dude. I know he he's a sexy boy, but he should not be doing that. So I have actually refrained from getting on my pony, but the good news is I am a driver, so he is staying happily in shape while I carriage drive him around.

[00:03:57] And I'm now working on myself. As I said, I'm not trying to fat shame anybody. I don't care. All I'm saying is, this is my viewpoint. I won't personally get on an animal if I am overweight on that 20%. So what am I doing? Because I'm obviously not riding my horse. So how am I going to get fit enough to ride my horse, right?

[00:04:20] I've decided recently that I've gotten into rucking, which is just hiking with a weighted backpack. I have no idea why, but For some reason, I enjoy this. A couple weeks ago, I was up at Lake Placid for a conference, and one of those days I took off in the morning while it was nice and cool. Went out to,, the Adirondack Lodge.

[00:04:44] Signed in and like let's go climb Mount Joe in my 20s and in my childhood. I remember these mountains were easy. I, especially Joe, you just, I went with my grandfather. You just run up to the top. It's a great view up there. Easy peasy. It's like a highway to the top of a place with a beautiful summit view.

[00:05:06] And then came middle age. I, I have a new respect for my grandfather who actually made it to the top of this hill because it, it whooped me. It whooped me hard. Like I swore climbing up to the top of this stupid thing. I, I did not like it. I remember yelling at it. I also remember yelling at my husband who apparently somehow is more fit than me.

[00:05:35] If you know him, I don't understand. So he just happily plodded along behind me. He plodded along. Made sure I was in front so I, I set the pace of sloth, but I made it. I got to the top. My whole body hurt. I chugged a bottle of water when I got up there. Like, I never drank for days. The view was spectacular, just as I remembered it.

[00:06:03] Some extra trees that grew up around there, but who cares. The summit, when I got to the top of that silly thing, I Was my trigger all of a sudden something clicked in my head that said yo Fat ass, you know, you need to actually get back in shape because you enjoy doing physical activity for as much fun as it is to sit on a sofa and hide in a house and You know, pretend that you're fit because you own a farm.

[00:06:35] By the way, farm fit's not fit. Farm fit is just your daily routine that your body is comfortable with and you're not stressing yourself at all. Yeah, you might do a hay day here and there because it's hay season right now and you know, chuck around four or five hundred bales of hay. That's one event.

[00:06:54] Your next day to do hay is not until second cutting. There's time in between. So I got back down the mountain and, uh, sent an email off to James Appleton, who runs the podcast. And I said, Ouch, buddy. Um, I listened to your podcast and you climb all these mountains. And if you've ever listened to him, start at the beginning.

[00:07:21] He tells you the story of how he couldn't even make it up and had to turn back and started working out. So he could actually make it up some of these mountains and he did end up getting his 46. I have no aspirations to get my 46. Not a thing. Don't even care. Do I want to climb some mountains? Yes. Do I enjoy the summit?

[00:07:39] Yes. Do I want to be an ultra fit crazy person? No. I would like to be fit enough and weigh myself low enough that I can get on my horse if I want to, get off my horse and hike if I want to. I would just like to enjoy my time on this planet a little healthier. Thank you. So he, uh, has some challenges that he's got set up, some recommendations to get yourself in shape to be able to climb the mountains.

[00:08:13] I've got about another six weeks off before I go back up to the Adirondacks and I have a lofty goal of hitting three peaks while I'm up there. Short peaks. We're talking about a 2000 foot elevation and under, not the 46ers, which are 4, 000 foot elevation higher. So little guys, I'm starting small and realistic, right?

[00:08:34] I got to get my fat rear end up there. So that's what I'm currently doing. And to do that, it's a lot of, uh, walking. It's a lot of understanding what you're putting your body nutritionally. And, uh, I've just started adding weights to my hikes and purposely trying to climb the mountain. Up steep grades, which is awesome.

[00:08:56] By the way, if you are conditioning your horse to try to do, I don't know, endurance or anything, you literally cannot do better than Benden Ponds. Like Tevis Cup? Yeah, whatever. Go do the orange trail behind the, uh, Devil's Bathtub and climb that steep grade to get on top of that drumlin. Holy bananas!

[00:09:20] Psycho, psycho steep. I don't know. I remember doing it once when I owned my trail horse Goliath and I pulled him out of the Adirondack Mountain So he was used to going up and down and up and down and was incredibly fit for doing that and I just remember Hitting that wall at Menden Ponds and I go.

[00:09:39] Hey, buddy. Do you think he can climb it? He goes got this Totally launched himself right to the top of that slid on his rear end to get down the other side I don't know why I don't have that confidence level anymore You So that's, that's a goal. I, so I just set out and I did actually a hike out there this morning and I did that trail and it, it was not friendly and I had lots of swear words and I felt my body burn just like it did trying to get up the top of Mount Joe and it was a great goal and a great feeling at the end of it.

[00:10:17] So here it is, two weeks in. I'm down a whopping 3. 6 pounds from my craziness and um, I still got a ways to go before I Can get back on my horse, but I'm curious. What do you guys do? I would love to hear from you Do you have the same viewpoints that I do where you try to stay within that 20%? body weight For carrying do you actually weigh your horse?

[00:10:49] Do you weigh yourself? Do you? Do you weigh you and your tack to understand where that 20 percent limit is? Do you attempt to stay there or do you say, nah, whatever, um, my horse can handle it? It's just ingrained in me from, some folks that I grew up with that, you know, were really cavalry minded that, you know, Put a lot of emphasis on understanding conditioning of your animal and what the fitness levels are of it and how to make sure that they have a long lived life without any joint problems, especially your back problems.

[00:11:23] Kind of like you. You don't want to have joint or back problems, so I kind of project that onto my horses as they are fitting up also. But I'm dying to know. Let me know. What is it that you guys actually do to try to keep yourself in shape off the horse? Do you care about your own body weight to the point where you're like, oh Are you like me at all or you actually won't get on?

[00:11:53] Am I the only one that does this? I kind of feel like I am for some reason Especially if I watch a lot of stuff online I really feel like I'm the only person that I'm just gonna get hate mail for this apparently You But, let me know. Give me a shout. RochesterTrailRiders, you can find me everywhere. Um, you know, social medias, the YouTubings, the FaceBoxing, the InstaSnatch, whatever.

[00:12:18] RochesterTrailRiders at gmail. com. Let me know. Subscribe. Like. Comment on this video. Let me know what your thoughts are. I would love to hear about you. But that's me. That's where I've been. That's why you haven't heard any trail episodes. Transcribed And I hope to change that. Nobody says that I can't take a horse and I got minis, maybe I'll line drive a mini on a trail.

[00:12:41] I got to come up with something to get myself back out on trails with horses. Shoot me off any ideas on what you would like to hear. If there's a trail that you would like me to review, let me know. By the way, speaking of trails, if you guys have not been to Rochester trail riders. com, the website and checked out this trail section, I totally revamped the entire thing.

[00:13:06] There are thousands of miles of trails between Buffalo and, I'm guessing I went to about Waterloo y kind of area to the, uh, east side of it from the lake all the way down to the PA border. There's tons. I'm putting together a gigantic map of how everything looks. Lots of map sites, lots of links to the actual stuff.

[00:13:35] I'm putting together a quick guide. I don't know why I'm doing this with my hands. It's not like you guys can see me. I'm putting together a guide so you guys can understand. You know, what's the cell phone coverage at a site? Uh, is there camping there? Great, it's a long trail. Are there any hitching posts so I can, you know, hitch up my horse while I'm out there?

[00:13:54] Uh, Everything that you can think of. I asked the question a while ago and I do have this list. It takes time. I mean, it takes like a year to put a lot of this stuff together. Um, the amount of work that goes into even what you see on the website today was extensive weeks of. Research. Weeks of getting everything on there.

[00:14:18] Tracing out trails so you knew where things are, how long things are. What the actual, um, website was for it. Downloading all the maps so I have a physical copy so they can't go in disappearing land again. Lots and lots and lots and lots of information. So by all means, check it out.

[00:14:42] Well, that about wraps it up for the day, I think. I just want to keep you guys in the loop on a couple of things. I'm looking for folks to talk to. I want to talk summer camps. So if you have a summer camp that you run for kids or even adults, let me know. I would love to sit down and chat with you.

[00:15:03] You can either call in over the phone if time is a little tight or I can come out and visit you and we can do this one on one. I'm a mobile person. If you want to talk summer camps for kids, by all means, get a hold of me. Let me know. That's what I would like to See what's going on in the Rochester area for our youth.

[00:15:24] All right guys, that's the show. So as always, respect the trail, wear a helmet, and clean up at the trailer site. Happy Trails!