Anyone watching History Channel's "Alone" this year?

[Audie Murphy]

Thanks for the continuing updates. I will find a way to enjoy reruns one of these days.

[mickeyd]

I have been watching since the very beginning.


I always select who I think will win. I make my winner selection in the first episode. I have never selected the winner. My selection usually taps out for some dumb reason like he/she misses the spouse or kids. Come on, it's only several months!

[Raygun99]

We watch it stored on DVR.. More fun to watch a few back to back .. Vs commercials. Always a challenge to pick top 10 things to take. I always say one of them would be a book to counter boredom. I would take a Bible. Other 9 ?

[Ronstar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mickeyd I have been watching since the very beginning. I always select who I think will win. I make my winner selection in the first episode. I have never selected the winner. My selection usually taps out for some dumb reason like he/she misses the spouse or kids. Come on, it's only several months!

I try to pick the winner also. I think it was season 2 - the young guy who howled back at the wolves. He didn't win that season, but he won the season that had the repeat contestants.

This season I picked Jordan. He looked like a sure winner when he killed the moose. But he's now losing a pound a day. How can you lose a pound a day when you have 600 pounds of moose meat?

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronstar This season I picked Jordan. He looked like a sure winner when he killed the moose. But he's now losing a pound a day. How can you lose a pound a day when you have 600 pounds of moose meat?

Yeah, it doesn't seem to make sense, but he lost most of the moose fat to a wolverine, and lean meat alone isn't enough to keep weight on some people. With my fast metabolism, I think I would likely have the same problem, although I've never tried to eat just lean meat for 40+ days to see what happens..........


If Woniya traps a few more rabbits, she could actually win this thing. She seems mentally prepared to stay out there a while longer yet, she has a nice shelter, and she doesn't appear to be losing weight as fast as most of the others.

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mickeyd I always select who I think will win. I make my winner selection in the first episode. I have never selected the winner. My selection usually taps out for some dumb reason like he/she misses the spouse or kids. Come on, it's only several months!

And who did you pick to win it this season?

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RAE Yeah, it doesn't seem to make sense, but he lost most of the moose fat to a wolverine, and lean meat alone isn't enough to keep weight on some people. With my fast metabolism, I think I would likely have the same problem, although I've never tried to eat just lean meat for 40+ days to see what happens.......... If Woniya traps a few more rabbits, she could actually win this thing. She seems mentally prepared to stay out there a while longer yet, she has a nice shelter, and she doesn't appear to be losing weight as fast as most of the others.

I recall reading about some of the military survival training, that some of the desert (spell check - dry places, not sweet after-dinner edibles) rabbits were so lean that a human just could not survive on them. They thought they were getting sufficient calories, their stomachs were full, but the fat content was so low that they ended up 'starving'?

Maybe some of the military people here could chime in and explain if this has any basis at all in fact.

-ERD50

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 I recall reading about some of the military survival training, that some of the desert (spell check - dry places, not sweet after-dinner edibles) rabbits were so lean that a human just could not survive on them. They thought they were getting sufficient calories, their stomachs were full, but the fat content was so low that they ended up 'starving'? -ERD50

I think there is some truth to this. Found this online:

"Rabbit Starvation"

The name "rabbit starvation" may have been coined by an arctic explorer by the name of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who spent many years in the early 1900's living with the Eskimos and Inuits of Alaska and Northern Canada.

Mr. Stefansson wrote, "The groups that depend on blubber animals are the most fortunate in the hunting way of life, for they never suffer from fat-hunger. This trouble is worst, so far as North America is concerned, among those forest Indians who depend at times on rabbits, the leanest animal in the North, and who develop the extreme fat-hunger known as rabbit-starvation.
"Rabbit eaters, if they have no fat from another source - beaver, moose, fish - will develop diarrhea in about a week, with headache, lassitude, a vague discomfort. If there are enough rabbits, the people eat till their stomachs are distended; but no matter how much they eat they feel unsatisfied."

Carbohydrates are formed from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Fats are formed from the same three components.

However, to form proteins, the body must add nitrogen and other nutrients to these three building blocks.

Your body normally burns fats as energy, and your brain burns glucose, a sugar. The body CAN burn protein, but it is not a healthy long-term solution. Protein, when broken down, forms ammonia and other by-products which the body has to cleanse away, straining the liver and kidneys.

The amino acids from protein are converted into glucose by the liver. The process is complex and requires a large amount of energy. ATP (energy molecules) are used to convert amino acids to glucose, and even more are then required to convert the harmful protein byproduct ammonia into urea which is flushed away by the kidneys.

Here's the problem: the body can only supply roughly 1000 calories per day through a protein-only diet because the liver is only capable of producing 250 grams of glucose from protein, no matter how much protein you eat. So, you will still feel hungry, and you'll eat more. Unfortunately, your liver will start struggling and failing to convert the ammonia into urea (not enough ATP) so the ammonia will reenter your blood stream. This starts messing with your nervous system.

According to the Back Across the Line blog,

"Excess intake of nitrogen leads in a short space of time to hyperammonemia, which is a build up of ammonia in the bloodstream. This is toxic to the brain. Many human cultures survive on a purely animal product diet, but only if it is high in fat.

"A lean meat diet, on the other hand cannot be tolerated; it leads to nausea in as little as three days, symptoms of starvation and ketosis in a week to ten days, severe debilitation in twelve days and possibly death in just a few weeks. A high-fat diet, however, is completely healthy for a lifetime.

[Audie Murphy]

Les Stroud talked about rabbit starvation one time on Man vs Wild.

[RAE]

OK, folks, the final episode is coming up next week. Three contestants left - Nathan, Woniya, Jordan. Jordan still seems to be the favorite to win it, at least in my opinion. He made an impressive gill net out of paracord, and managed to set it under the ice to catch a nice lake trout........pretty smart. Woniya is catching a few squirrels to eat, but she's losing 1.5 pounds daily, and I think they may pull her out on the next med. check (as they just did with Barry last week). Nathan also made a gill net, but hasn't caught anything with it yet, and I don't think he has eaten much for some time now. He does not look good.

Conditions are getting pretty brutal. Someone apparently goes out on a stretcher this week.........maybe Nathan? Woniya may then get pulled for medical reasons? Jordan wins it. That's my guess........only a guess.

This season has been interesting to me because the last 4 or so contestants are all fairly skilled and all mentally tough. Any of the last 4 could have probably won it on a different season, I think.

Any other opinions?

[Lakedog]

Also think Jordan has to be the favorite. I really did not think Barry looked that thin when he raised his shirt during that last checkup. Seems like there is room for a fair amount of subjectivity on pulling contestants for health reasons?

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakedog Also think Jordan has to be the favorite. I really did not think Barry looked that thin when he raised his shirt during that last checkup. Seems like there is room for a fair amount of subjectivity on pulling contestants for health reasons?

I think they probably have a few criteria they use, one of them being percentage of body weight lost since the first day. I think Barry had lost 25% of his starting weight, and that may have been enough to get him pulled. But yeah, some subjectivity has to be involved also.

[Raygun99]

Betting on Jordan.. He is damn resourceful and lucky... What a brutal show to be second place!!

[COcheesehead]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ransil Moose dude needs to sleep with the meat /fat. .

You obviously never camped in the wild, have you.

Bears will come in tents for toothpaste tubes, meat smell on your clothes....

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raygun99 . What a brutal show to be second place!!

Yeah, no kidding. From the sounds of it, none of the final four have much money, and all were counting on winning the big $500K prize to change their lives. To go through 70+ days of this and come out of it with nothing has to be devastating.

[ransil]

Quote:

Originally Posted by COcheesehead You obviously never camped in the wild, have you. Bears will come in tents for toothpaste tubes, meat smell on your clothes....

I have camped in tents in the wild.

They are into winter, bears should be hibernating.
they need to pee around the perimeter mark their territory.

I Glamp now, getting too old for that primitive stuff.

[ransil]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RAE OK, folks, the final episode is coming up next week. Three contestants left - Nathan, Woniya, Jordan. Jordan still seems to be the favorite to win it, at least in my opinion. He made an impressive gill net out of paracord, and managed to set it under the ice to catch a nice lake trout........pretty smart. Woniya is catching a few squirrels to eat, but she's losing 1.5 pounds daily, and I think they may pull her out on the next med. check (as they just did with Barry last week). Nathan also made a gill net, but hasn't caught anything with it yet, and I don't think he has eaten much for some time now. He does not look good. Conditions are getting pretty brutal. Someone apparently goes out on a stretcher this week.........maybe Nathan? Woniya may then get pulled for medical reasons? Jordan wins it. That's my guess........only a guess. This season has been interesting to me because the last 4 or so contestants are all fairly skilled and all mentally tough. Any of the last 4 could have probably won it on a different season, I think. Any other opinions?

gill nets should have been made early in the show, the fish resources seem to be good and no one seem to be relying on them, build a fish shack and drop a line in the water.

Woniya was not my first pick ( hippy chick from ca) but she seem resourceful and if she can get past medical check has a good chance.

its Jordan season to lose.

still think they built crappy shelters its showing now.

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ransil gill nets should have been made early in the show, the fish resources seem to be good and no one seem to be relying on them, build a fish shack and drop a line in the water.

Definitely agree with you about that. I think Nathan has been using a gill net for quite a while, but he's the only one that built one early on (or maybe he brought one with him, as one of his 10 items?). Had Jordan done the same thing, he would have been catching more fish (to supplement his moose meat), and would be winning this thing easily.

[Raygun99]

Do you think that the next season many will change strategy based on this season? It appears like if fishing is possible maximum effort with gill nets? and Multiple snares ?

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raygun99 Do you think that the next season many will change strategy based on this season? It appears like if fishing is possible maximum effort with gill nets? and Multiple snares ?

I think some of it depends on what location they take them to. As I recall, when they were on Vancouver Island a few years back, some of the contestants used gill nets, but the huge daily tidal fluctuation ended up destroying most of the nets after a while, or rendering them useless. But in general, yes, I think a gill net is a good idea in many places, since they are always on a body of water that has fish. Hook and line fishing has worked at times for some contestants (and I would definitely bring those), but you end up spending a lot of time trying to catch a fish that way (and bait is not always easy to come by, either). With a gill net, you set it and then go do other chores, and come back to check the net later. Much more efficient use of time and energy.


I don't know how much time each contestant has to select their 10 items after the are told they are on the show? But assuming it is at least a few weeks, I think it would be super important to do as much research as possible on that location, so you can select items that will be most useful. I recall that on Vancouver Island, a bow and arrows were pretty useless........vegetation was way too thick to hunt game with a bow there, since just about any animal would hear you plowing through the brush long before you ever got a glimpse of it. There was just no way to walk through rough terrain and thick vegetation like that without risking injury and rapidly draining your energy, too. This season (and in Patagonia, as I recall), the terrain is much easier to walk through, so hunting is a more realistic option.


Snares seem to work most everywhere, and again, you can set them and come back later, so very efficient. I would probably bring snares wherever they chose as a location.