When Renee Miller and Tim Beissinger (higher often known as the @ThruHikers) set out on their large journey for 2022 — a canoeing and mountain climbing route by way of the Pacific Northwest overlaying 2,700+ miles in 106 days — they determined to doc all of it on TikTok.

The couple shared particulars about every part: how they deliberate and dehydrated their meals, how they crossed streams and carried their canoe, and even how Miller manages her interval whereas she’s on the path.

One of many TikToks that received essentially the most engagement, nonetheless, was the one which documented how their our bodies modified all through the journey. The video, which amassed greater than seven million views because it was posted in October 2022, dives into what occurred to Miller and Beissinger’s our bodies from exercising a mean of 9 hours and quarter-hour per day for 3 and a half months straight.

The “PNC: altering our bodies” video was impressed partly by their followers’ curiosity. After watching the 2 tackle such an immense bodily problem, multiple commenter needed to know, “How a lot weight did you lose?” So, Miller and Beissinger detailed precisely how that a lot train modified their our bodies — and their message was past refreshing.

“Lots of people requested if we misplaced weight — that was a standard query we received on our movies,” Miller tells POPSUGAR. “However we realized it was extra than simply weight reduction. Our our bodies have been altering.”

The PNC route first concerned mountain climbing about 1,600 miles throughout 72.5 days, from northwest Washington State up into Canada (that is about 20 miles per day). Then, they paddled a canoe again alongside the whole Columbia River out to the Pacific Ocean, overlaying about 1,200 miles in one other 33.5 days (about 35 miles per day).

They detailed how strolling for therefore lengthy flattened their ft (they have been each a full shoe dimension greater by the tip!); how being exterior gave them tans regardless of carrying sunscreen; how bushwhacking left them with random cuts and bruises; and the way strolling and paddling gave them blisters, then calluses on their ft and fingers.

In addition they acknowledged that, over the course of their journey, they each misplaced nearly all of their physique fats and “began trying fairly scrawny,” as Beissinger says within the TikTok. However they constructed muscle, too: first of their legs, whereas they have been principally mountain climbing; then of their arms, in the course of the canoe portion of the journey.

In actual fact, after a couple of week of paddling, Beissinger says he really shocked himself whereas altering his shirt. “There was this big progress on my arm, which was my muscle,” Beissinger tells POPSUGAR, laughing. “I felt like a muscle man. It actually stunned me once I realized my muscle groups have been rising in instructions that they’ve by no means grown in earlier than.”

Finally, they each got here dwelling simply 5 kilos lighter, since they’d misplaced a variety of physique fats however gained a variety of muscle.

However the two have been cautious to level out that these adjustments weren’t everlasting. “Now, we’re each again at work sitting in entrance of computer systems all day. It is unrealistic to keep up the our bodies we have constructed, however we attempt to keep match between journeys by exercising outside not less than as soon as a day,” Beissinger says within the TikTok.

“Lots of people requested if we misplaced weight — that was a standard query we received on our movies,” Miller says. “However we realized it was extra than simply weight reduction. Our our bodies have been altering.

“One thing else we have documented on each of those hikes, that lots of people on TikTok watched, was how a lot we eat in a day once we’re on the market,” Beissinger provides to POPSUGAR. “This isn’t a weight-loss journey; it is extra of an eat-everything-in-sight journey,” he says. They estimated that he was consuming about 4,000 energy day by day simply to gasoline the journey bodily.

In actual fact, Beissinger and Miller say that they had bother consuming sufficient to maintain their exercise, particularly in the course of the starting of the journey; at first, the sheer quantity of train makes you much less hungry, Beissinger says. However “after two months of being on the market, you are simply all the time hungry and all the time needing extra,” Miller provides.

The couple’s candid strategy to the weight-loss query is refreshing in a wellness tradition that usually considers train to be, in the beginning, a device for weight reduction. Their message serves as a reminder that, for many individuals, motion — whether or not an off-the-cuff lunchtime stroll or three-month trek — is pleasing and fulfilling in itself, and never solely used as a strategy to change your physique. To not point out, our bodies will fluctuate (as will your exercise stage), and that is OK.

The Via Hikers say their transition again to desk jobs wasn’t simple. “There is a phenomenon that individuals name the ‘post-trail blues’, which is if you swap from being out on certainly one of these tremendous long-distance trails on, in some ways, like a four-month trip. You are simply so joyful. It is so enjoyable. After which regular life can really feel mundane and tedious, and it is arduous,” Beissinger says.

In November 2022, even a few months after returning to normalcy, he admitted he was nonetheless going by way of that adjustment interval. “If you hike 25 miles a day day by day, you all the time really feel such as you’ve achieved one thing. And at work, you already know, some days I really feel like I’ve achieved one thing, and different days, I really feel like I did not. And that is simply a part of life, however it may be arduous getting used to that once more.”

And, sure, dropping his muscle-man physique since returning has been unhappy, Beissinger says, however it was anticipated. “It is enjoyable to really feel like a superhero in terms of health. However as we mentioned in that video, we settle for that that is not lifelike and that is not a great very best to attempt for as a result of we will not — no one can — seem like they’re at their peak health three hundred and sixty five days of the 12 months.”