This isn't an overview about the dynamics of fitness and how they pertain to the wilderness. I am neither a dietitian nor a fitness trainer. Instead this is my 2 cents to this community about something I am experienced in, and I think it can help others too.
In a survival situation, you don't want to be wasting energy and you may be required to overcome some obstacle in your path, or escape a dangerous situation. Anything like climbing a tree to escape a charging animal (maybe not so good for bears...), crossing over a creek or small river in your path, or moving speedily through forests or over boulders can be extremely tiring and dangerous... unless you know what you're doing.
Parkour
For about a year now, I have been practicing a sport called Parkour. If you're google searching this right now, you'll notice it's practiced in urban settings. Please google search rural parkour to find information of a more applicable form... The sport has a simple objective, and it's non-competitive: get from point A to point B. Sound easy? Well now point B is on the other side of the river, or in a tree. If point B is "anywhere away from this angry moose", then speed and wit may play a large role in your success.
*Remember the golden rule if you're looking this up: ONLY what helps you gain ground with minimal effort is parkour, flips, twists, and flashy BS is called free running.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXcdWtecyZI&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9MbrzkOeIA (This video is more a show of the training techniques used to improve your skill)
Why is this important? Well it's important to be fit in general, and if you want to practice fitness that pertains to the wilderness, I can find none better (ironically, since this is an urban sport). The physical skills earned are endurance, cardio, and coordination. The skills of movement learned are endless and can overcome any obstacle you must pass.
It doesn't take much to train this sort of fitness. You simply train full range-of-motion exercises like pushups, situps, pullups, and eventually muscle ups etc. and spend some of your time outdoors goofing around a little. Try doing a precision from one fallen tree in the creek to another so you can finally make your way across. See how fast you can get to the top of the tree in your yard, or test your skills by actually running through the woods, using simple vaults to keep your speed up. Already this covers the 3 examples in the third paragraph. And for those of you who like to do primitive hunting, traceurs (parkour-ers) train silence as a way to improve their efficiency, so your steps will become quite silent even when stalking at a walking pace (or faster, depending on your environment)
It's not something that is necessary, but if you are interested in staying fit and athletic, but your life focus is on wilderness skills, this is a sport that translates directly into your environment. I have found myself able to cross creeks, climb trees, scale boulders, and move quickly and silently even through the woods thanks to the skills I have developed, and I spend very little energy doing it. Sometimes movement is the challenging part of surviving, and Parkour can help you do it easily and quickly.
The Paleo Diet
As for a diet... this is another ironic twist to the sport of Parkour. Though Parkour is an urban sport, many practitioners (known as Traceurs... the sport is from France) obey the "Paleo diet", which is simply eating food that you can find in its current form in the wild.
Meat should be cooked over a fire, of course, but vegetables and fruits should remain raw. The idea is that for millions of years (depending on your beliefs) the human race has adapted to eating the various foods of the wilderness and only now, for 3000 short years, we've decided to switch to bread, koolaid, macaroni and cheese, beer, pancakes, ketchup, mustard, union rings, ice cream, birthday cake, apple pie, yogurt, and other mixes of processed foods.
The diet is high in energy... real energy. Not caffeine energy or sugar energy, or starch energy (depending), but good old fat and protein. Fun fact: dog food is coated with fat because dogs need lots of energy, and even though we are all scared to death of "fat" and "calories", dogs know what's good for them.
Even if you're not interested in the athletics of Parkour, the Paleo diet is a quality diet, which is high in energy, and promotes health and fitness. Just remember that if you eat a lot of meat or fruits, you better be doing something to work it off. The Paleo diet is NOT about loosing weight, it's about feeling energized and healthy. After all, the people who followed this diet since 3 million years ago were getting enough energy to hunt, build, and work all day, every day.
