Episode 252: The Mountain Within: What Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro Taught Me About Weight Loss, Health & Resilience (Part 2)

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the Back on Track Achieving Healthy Weight Loss, where I help you get on track and stay on track with your weight loss journey. I'm your host, Dr. Alicia Shelly. So let's get started.

[00:00:28] And welcome back to the Back on Track Achieving Healthy Weight Loss podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Alicia Shelly. Now last week, I shared the first four lessons that I learned while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. And we talked about saying yes. We talked about preparing before your journey begins.

[00:00:50] We even talked about moving pole pole or slowly, slowly. Pole pole is Swahili for slowly, slowly in English. And the power of encouraging others along the way. But today, I want to tell you about the hardest part of the climb. The part that nearly every climber dreams about and fears. Summit night.

[00:01:15] Now, I woke up around 10 p.m. in order to get prepared for summit night. We layered our clothes, we checked our headlamps, we packed snacks, and we tried to rest. Unfortunately, it's hard to rest during the day. And I say try because sleep just was not happening for me. I tried, but I kept waking up.

[00:01:38] There was so much excitement. There was so much anxiety. And the constant sounds of the busy mountain camp was too difficult for me just to be able to fall asleep. And so once we woke up, we ate dinner. And then around 1140, we stepped into the darkness. There were no breathtaking views. There was no sunrise or no mountain peaks. There were only small circles of light from our headlamps. One step at a time.

[00:02:08] And remind me that sometimes life just doesn't show us the entire path. In fact, all we can see is just what's the next step. And sometimes that just has to be enough. And so today I'm going to take us through the next three and final lessons that I learned on the mountain. And so the lesson number five was sometimes progress means going higher than lower.

[00:02:36] Now, let me tell you a little bit more about what I mean. So a few days before the seventh day, we had to test out our altitude. So initially it didn't really make sense to me why we had to do this. You know, we know we're going up higher altitude. Why don't we just keep going higher, right? Each day. But this particular part of this itinerary took us to Lava Tower.

[00:03:03] Now, Lava Tower was more than 15,000 feet above sea level. And, you know, you're thinking, hey, I was at 13,000 before. Now we're at 15. OK, you know, we're increasing. We're trying to get to 19,000 feet, which is what the peak of the Mount Kilimanjaro is. However, instead of staying there at Lava Tower, we turned around and hiked down several thousands of feet to sleep.

[00:03:30] And I remember thinking, why are we climbing all this way up just to lose elevation? And then our guides explained the strategy. You climb high and you sleep low. The purpose was not to stay at the highest elevation. The purpose was to help our bodies adapt to the change in elevation. And that lesson stayed with me because our health journeys rarely move in a straight line.

[00:03:58] I tell my patients all the time, weight loss is not linear. In fact, it is more of like a roller coaster. Because if we look at other factors, like sometimes your cholesterol may improve before your weight actually changes course. Or sometimes your blood sugar gets better before the scale actually moves. Or sometimes you feel stronger long before you look any different in the mirror.

[00:04:24] And sometimes you have weeks where your scale will go up instead of down. But that doesn't mean you're moving backwards. Sometimes your body is just adapting to what you've been doing. And sometimes your habits are getting stronger. And sometimes the greatest progress is happening in ways you can't yet measure. So don't confuse temporary setbacks with failure. Don't think that, oh my gosh, I didn't lose a pound this week.

[00:04:54] I must have been plateauing. No. Watch it. Guide it. Because what may happen is that maybe you started doing weight. And so your body is adapting to what you're doing and it's holding on to the weight. But as you keep moving forward, your body will start to lose and you'll start to see the scale move. And sometimes going lower is part of the process of going higher. I tell patients all the time, sometimes it can be so frustrating when you may see the scale go down a half pound,

[00:05:24] go up a half pound, then back down one pound. Like it's just like a roller coaster. And so don't get discouraged, but keep moving forward. Now, lesson six. Trust the process before you see the results. One of the best decisions our group made actually happened even before we even started climbing.

[00:05:47] One of the fellow climbers suggested we spend our last night at Barafu Camp instead of the traditional Barofu camp. Now, this move did cost us an extra $180 to do. And it added another hour of hiking the day before when we were trying to get to camp and rest and get ready for summit night. And at the time, I just had to trust the recommendation because I didn't do the research.

[00:06:16] You know, I'm not going through Facebook and all these places to get the thing. I was just like, let's just, we'll do whatever. But I really didn't understand why. But the answer came clear the afternoon before the summit night. As we climbed to that final steep section in daylight, I realized how technical this trail really was between Barafu Camp and Kosovo camp. There was loose rocks, steep terrain, sharp switchbacks.

[00:06:44] And suddenly, I was extremely grateful. Because had we stayed in Barofu camp, we would have been seeing that difficult section for the first time in complete darkness. And sometimes experienced people can see dangers or opportunities that sometimes we simply cannot. And as physicians, we ask our patients to trust the process all the time.

[00:07:11] Not because we expect blind faith, but because we've walked this path with hundreds and maybe sometimes thousands of patients before. Healthy eating doesn't transform your body after one week. Exercise does not dramatically improve your health overnight. And medications don't always produce the immediate results that we want. But over time, consistency compounds.

[00:07:36] And before you know it, you're seeing these changes because of that consistency. So remember, trust the process, especially when you can't yet see the destination. So our last lesson is lesson number seven. 15 steps, five breaths. Now going back to summit night, the altitude became more noticeable. The air became thinner.

[00:08:06] Every step required more effort. And if you've never been or maybe nearly been at 19,000 feet, it's sometimes difficult to describe. Because walking becomes work. There were times I looked up at this mountain. I was like, Lord, I ain't gonna make it. I am not gonna make it because it was so hard. Walking became work. And breathing had to become intentional.

[00:08:34] And sometimes the summit just feels so impossible to climb. So the one thing people ask me, why do you climb at night? Now, one lady told me is that they don't want to see how treacherous it is if you make the wrong step. But in actuality, I am so glad we started climbing at night. Because if I had seen how much I had to climb, I would have been like, well, we ain't gonna make it. I would have stopped even before I got there.

[00:09:05] So then I will admit, there were moments when I wondered, how much further are we? Like, are we there yet? Are we there yet? But then I realized something. Looking at the summit made the journey feel overwhelming. So I had to change my strategy. Instead of thinking about getting to the top, I just focused on the next 15 steps.

[00:09:30] Then I'd stop, take five deep breaths, and then I would go another 15 steps. Now, I did try to go 20, but then I was like, okay, is this too much? Too much? Too much. So I had to stick with 15. And so 15 steps, five breaths, and then again and again. And eventually, those 15 steps became 100 steps or 1,000 steps. Although in truth, I did not count that. I just focused on the 15.

[00:09:56] And then finally, after hours of climbing, we reached Stella Point. Because I could not see Stella Point. The guy was like, it's right there. It's right there. And I was like, all I see is rocks, sir. I did not see anything. But then when I saw the point of the sign, I was like, we're almost there. I turned back to my colleagues and the girls who were climbing. I was like, keep going. Keep going. This sign is there. We're almost there.

[00:10:26] And as the sun began to rise for the first time, I realized how close I actually was. And I will admit, seeing that sunrise on Mount Kilimanjaro, it was one of the most beautiful sunrises I've ever witnessed. Standing above the clouds, watching the sky change colors, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. But guess what? There was still more section to go.

[00:10:54] So from Stella Point to Aruru's Peak, it was about an additional hour. And although it was not the steepest part, it was so disrespectful. Because you still had to go up and down, up and down. And after nine hours of climbing, it felt like it would never, ever end. But then I saw the sign.

[00:11:22] I saw the famous sign. Uhuru Peak. The roof of Africa. I smiled. I laughed. I took pictures. And I took pictures quickly. Because I was ready to get off this mountain. And most importantly, I thank God for carrying me through this journey that was bigger than I ever imagined. And what struck me most wasn't just reaching the summit. It was realizing how ordinary each step had felt. Because I wasn't taking big steps.

[00:11:52] I was taking very small baby steps. And I would count them in order to still move forward. Because none of these individual steps looked remarkable. But together, they changed my life. And that's exactly how healthy habits work. No single healthy breakfast is going to change your health. No single workout is going to change your body. No single medication is going to change your future.

[00:12:19] But thousands of ordinary decisions, those change everything. And so, actually I said lesson seven was the last one. But actually, technically lesson eight is the last one. And this lesson is the fact that the summit isn't the end. Here is something that many people don't realize. Reaching the summit is only half the journey.

[00:12:44] Because once you get all the way up there, you still have to come down. And in fact, many people say that the descent is actually harder than the climb. Your knees hurt. Your muscles are tired. Your focus has to remain sharp. And you can't just simply celebrate because you've reached the top. You still have more work to do. So once we got up to the top, it took us about nine hours to get to Uhuru Peak.

[00:13:13] But then we had to come down. That wasn't a whole additional three hours. And then once we got back to camp, we had to pack our stuff and go to another camp because we're still making our way down, which was another three to four hours. And then once we got there the next day, we had even more hours to go down. So know that just because you get to your goal, there's still work to do.

[00:13:40] So many people think that losing weight is the finish line, but it isn't. Maintaining that weight loss is where the lifelong journey begins. Our bodies naturally defend against weight loss because it wants to hold on to it because it wants to survive. Our appetite hormones change. Our metabolism adapts. That's why maintenance requires just as much intentionality as losing the weight in the first place.

[00:14:09] So the healthy eating, the physical activity, getting to bed on time, the stress management, sometimes medication, sometimes accountability, they all play a role. Maintenance is not failure. Maintenance is success. It's continuing the healthy habits that got you to that summit. So as I look back on Mount Kilimanjaro just a little over a week ago, I don't think about

[00:14:37] one particular single moment. I think about all the ordinary moments that made that trip so special. The slow walks, the conversations with our guides, the laughter around the camp, the encouragement from strangers and just meeting people from different parts of the world. The quiet moments when I wondered, can I keep this going? The summit wasn't built during summit night.

[00:15:07] It was built every single day before it. The same is true for your health. The life you want isn't created in one dramatic moment. It's built through ordinary choices repeated consistently. So wherever you are today, whether you're just beginning your health journey or you've been climbing for years, remember this. You don't have to see the entire mountain.

[00:15:33] You only need enough light for that next step. Trust the process. Trust the preparation. Trust that even when you don't feel like you're making progress, your consistent choices are shaping a healthier future. And remember, forward is a pace. Thank you so much for joining me for this special two-part series on the lessons I learned from Mount Kilimanjaro.

[00:16:01] If this episode encouraged you, I'd love you to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share it with somebody who is climbing their mountain of health as well. And until next time, stay strong, stay committed, stay consistent. And remember, we are stronger together. And we'll see you next time.