That's an interesting concept GCP, and something I hadn't considered. I'll do some more research on the concept, thanks for the idea.

Don't fake it, just say you are challenging yourself to survive for a week in the woods with a few basic tools of survival. Leave the cabin and tent out of it and build your own shelter. Locate any nut trees such as walnut and chestnut in the area for a food source and a wild life attractant. Look at setting up some squirrel run poles, maybe some through lines for turtles along with your small game snares. See if you have any types of edible tubers in your area like groundnuts. You will have more fun with this if you document the real challenges you encounter and how you overcome them during the week. After you're done you can challenge others to post their week in the woods and show the different problems that they encountered and post them with
video so that we can all learn from it.

Interesting take Sumrow. I want to stay within the bounds of our game/fish laws in Wisconsin. Unfortunately that means no squirrel snares and no trot lines. But I can hunt squirrels and fish with hook and line. Only not trees in the area are red oaks.

Sleeping outside in a shelter vs using the cabin will likely increase my calorie usage as my body struggles to stay warm during the nights. I don't think I want to stay in the cabin, so I could use my hammock, but not sure I want to go so far as to stay in a shelter. But maybe?!

Thanks for the suggestions, keep them coming!

Organs boys, organs. If you gonna live like old timers eat kidneys livers and hearts. Plains Indians lived for weeks and weeks on just game. But you gotta eat the organs.

The Wooded Beardsman finally posted the weigh out video. He was working with a partner who started the week at around 212 pounds and lost 12 pounds and the Wooded Beardsman started at about 148 and lost 6. These guys seemed to have quite a bit of food to eat, but it was mostly lean wild meats. They used vehicles a lot to get places, but did plenty of physical labor like sawing firewood.

So, we will see how it goes. I've been cultivating a "dad bod" lately, so I actually wouldn't mind losing some weight, but this is going to be a weight retention challenge, not a weight loss challenge. But I guess that raises the question, the native Americans who lived off wild foods 24/7 typically didnt have dad bods, at least not in the depictions I've seen. In the last video they mentioned another guy who's doing a year-long wilderness eating challenge who has already lost 40 pounds or something like that.

i've done long weekends and on a few occassions whole weeks.

mostly on rivers, which makes finding food (fish) very easy.

some in the mountains - once in October I went 4 days with nothing but some nuts and a small hen of the woods mushroom - when i finally got a small trout and squirrel, it was the best trout and squirrel I've ever eaten. (including hearts)

I do take some spices, even top notch game like venison and trout can use a little spice.

mushrooms are tough, but there are a few that are fairly easy to identify with some practice that are available in the fall.

i carry a large water filter as a precaution - similar to this Water Filter

its hard not to lose some weight, unless you are already very lean
rabbit snaring is a good way to get some food too, if its legal where you are

i fast intermittenly as part of my nutrition plan, usually 24 hours - and also stay away from processed foods and carbs - which makes the "transition" to this type of adventure a little easier when food gathering is slow.

Hey guys, thought I would revive this post once more. I will be heading out on my wilderness living week on October 11th, coming home on the 17th. I went in for a wellness check for insurance last week and I'm right around 200 pounds, heaviest I've been in my life. You could say I've got a "dad bod."

I'm looking forward to taking on the challenge of finding food. While I would like to bag a deer, I can't count on it. Sure would be cool to eat some heart, liver, tongue, bone marrow, and of course some venison. There's also a 3.5 mile section of river I'm going to float for ducks in my canoe, and miles of logging roads to hunt for grouse, squirrels and turkeys. I'll also have some traps out for beaver, as well as some predators. I hope it doesn't come down to having to eat coyote or coon, but I guess we'll see how hungry I get. However I don't usually get to dedicate a whole week to trapping this property, so I'm going to take advantage of that. I'll also have my fishing boat along to go after some pike/walleye/panfish.

It will be interesting to taste the different meats unchanged by spices. Staying true to only consuming calories I can get from nature, I won't be using any spice, including salt and pepper. The weather looks good, 40s and 50s during the day and 30s and 40s at night and relatively dry.

The plan is to make daily posts online at www.grandviewoutdoors.com chronicling my successes and failures, sprinkled with a bit of the history of our little section of woods. I'm the 5th generation to hunt those woods, I think that's pretty special. If you care to follow along, I'll add the link to the first post on here once it's up, and you can follow from there.

Thanks again for all the ideas. If you have any more ideas on stuff you might be interested in seeing me try, I'm open to ideas. Anything that might make for a better read.

You might want to take salt with you unless you have a natural source in the area. Hypnoatremia effects millions of Americans a year. Even in cool weather, you're going to sweat a fair amount, while you're exerting yourself and you don't want to throw off your body chemistry.

I hope you have a great time and find out a lot about yourself.

Keith

Good luck to ya tlguy! It is cooling off and hopefully the rain backs off a bit for you.
Let us know how you did.
A week does not seem long until you find yourself with no beer or frozen pizza.
I would sure take a little salt with me but I suppose you could get by without.
There was a reason folks sailed around the world in search of spices.

Zim

I take potassium pills over the counter to help with electrolyte loss.

Shizo is a purplish greenish pasture weed that is edible. The Japanese eat it with their sushi and beef.

What will you do for carbs?

Nuts have carbs.

be sure to catch on video you eatting the beaver fat

Zim, I think I'll miss the beer the most. It doesn't seem right to be at deer camp and not have a case on the back porch.

Since salt doesn't have any calories, I guess I could use it. Plus it will probably make some of the foods go down easier.

Diggerman, my plan is to eat cattail roots as my main source of carbs.

I like your idea and this sounds great . Except for one thing- sleeping in a hammock sounds miserable and hard to stay warm. Good luck

Hey tlguy are you on your wilderness eating week.

I wasn't going to bring it up, bit since you asked...

I'm at home with a belly full of food from the store. The weather threw me for a loop and I overestimated my food gathering abilities. I started Friday morning at 12:01 am, but my last calories were a beer I slammed at 7:30pm before taking my wife to a show in Appleton Thursday night.

I moved a deer stand and did a little grouse/squirrel hunting midday, then sat in the moved deer stand over a food plot Friday evening as the temps dropped and the wind whipped. No luck on deer/grouse/squirrel so I picked a few turnips, boiled em up and ate em with some salt for dinner.

Saturday I did some more grouse/squirrel hunting in the morning and bagged a single grouse. At that for lunch then set some traps in the snow and sat over a different food plot hoping for a deer to come my way. After 3 hours standing in the blowing snow, still no luck.

I woke up around 1 am Sunday morning and was so hungry I couldn't fall back asleep. At around 3 am I decided to throw in the towel. At that point I hadn't used any vacation and could go home with my tail between my legs.

So in the end I made it around 55 hours from when I consumed my last "non-natural" foods to when I had to give in. I was beginning to worry about my safety with the weather, if I was out and about trying to hunt or fish and I passed out or something it could get dangerous real quick.

I will be trying again next fall, probably a little earlier in the season, and maybe with a partner to double the hunting effort.

As a side note, on my way home my wife called crying because my 4-year-old swallowed a marble and they were both freaking out. So I likely would've gone home anyway. Glad I had some food in me before I got on the road. For anyone wondering, that cold front rolled through Friday and the temps dropped 30 degrees during the day and it snowed all day Saturday so I had some unexpected rough weather to start things off.

Thanks everyone for the advice, I'll be sure to reread this thread before next year's trip.

Bummer man. Hope you give it another shot.

This is what I do. I usually go out for week at a time a couple times a year. I bring root veggies, flour, bacon and coffee. I boil up some of the veggies and if I get something that day I throw it in. Each morning I add 1 potato and a couple carrots. Oh....I also bring dried beans too but don't usually end up eating them.