RE: Food Weights (and rest)

[Joyce Bennis]

I don't know about "much larger" maintenance calorie requirements (you're
right, that is sedentary-lifestyle-type calories), but there is certainly
some variation among the experts' recommendations.  Nutritiondata.com (one
of my favorite websites for this sort of thing) calculates a person 5'2" and
110 lbs. to require 1589 calories/day (or about 14.5/lb.)  Our personal
nutritionist thinks a little less is right.    

In addition to that, of course, your body will burn additional calories when
you are performing additional work in the form of exercise.  This can be
quite a few in the case of a long duration, endurance activity like
backpacking.  Just how many more per hour is a very complicated subject. It
can vary significantly depending on the terrain, weather, level of
individual conditioning (experienced backpackers have likely become more
metabolically "efficient" when doing this activity), body weight, pack
weight, etc.   However, burning 500 - 600 additional calories per hour could
be in the ballpark for a 150 lb. someone carrying a 25 pound load in the
mountains.  

But just because you burn them doesn't mean you have to eat them back again
to stay healthy and energized.  In fact, if you're like many of us, you very
likely shouldn't.  As a practical matter, on longer distance trips, we could
never consume (or carry) as many calories as we were burning and our focus
has always been on how little we could carry and consume without
experiencing fatigue and injury or a negative impact on our overall health
and well being.

With this focus, over the last 10 years or so, my husband and I  made
something of a hobby study of nutrition and exercise (including consulting
directly with some prominent sports nutritionists and exercise
physiologists, including Olympic coaches, etc.)  Some of the critical things
we think we learned were that:

(1)     for most of us who are reasonably healthy and have an adequate (and
likely more!) fat reserve,  it is not necessary to replace every calorie
burned to stay healthy, avoid fatigue and have high energy while performing
an endurance exercise like backpacking (or anything else.)  Your body can
tap into internal fuel reserves (namely that fat) to supply many of the
calories you need. For many of us who are not super lean and muscular,
that's a good thing: we lose weight and achieve a better balance of fat to
lean muscle mass.  That may be  one of the reasons, in fact, that endurance
exercise seems to depress the appetite; you don't actually need to consume
additional calories to fuel the exercise, your body is already supplying
them. The trick seems to be that (1) you do need to consume approximately
(i.e., let's within say 90% - this is not exact)  your  "maintenance" level
of calories or your body may begin to react adversely (slow the metabolism,
etc.) and (2) you need to match the consumption of calories relatively
closely to the timing of the exercise so that food calories consumed are
used as fuel and not stored. More simply put: eat just before, during and
shortly after exercise (e.g., munch on the trail), rather than eating a
whole bunch of calories at once and well after the exercise is completed
(like chowing down at dinner.)  You can, of course, consume more calories if
you want (and want to carry them).  The body will either use them as fuel
for exercise or repair (if the timing is right) and tap into fewer stored
calories or (if the timing is not right) store them.  

(2)    to avoid fatigue, muscle breakdown and injury, adequate rest is
crucial.  We were counseled that, especially for non-professionals who are
not devoted full-time to their sport (that's most of us), it was crucially
important to allow for regeneration following stressful exercise.  And by
rest, they didn't mean just getting a good night's sleep. In the case of a
longer-distance backpacker doing something like the JMT, for example,
resting essentially "in place" one full day after 3 or 4 days or so on the
trail (especially after strenuous pass crossings, etc.) was strongly
recommended.  (We hung out a day in camp and read books.) Our counselors
believed that this was far more important to avoid undue fatigue, "bonking"
and injury than achieving perfect nutrition.

(3)    And, of course, hydrate but don't over-hydrate.   Current
recommendations seem to consume about 1.2 liters (6 to 8 glasses) of fluids
(tea, juice, milk, water, coffee, etc.) per day, plus more if exercising.
When you feel fatigued while exercising, you may actually be dehydrated.  If
consuming larger amounts of water (as when hiking in hot weather), be
careful not to overhydrate and watch your electrolyte balance as well.  

So, in summary,  unless you do not want to lose weight or have lower body
fat, it may make sense to carry and eat fewer calories than you think you're
burning (maybe far fewer.)   If  you want to avoid fatigue and injury, it
may also make sense to hike fewer days in a row and take some time on the
trail to chill out and enjoy or at the very least be sure to take some short
trail days or half days to rest.

We're not scientists. And if there's one subject that's in flux today it's
the science of nutrition and exercise, so I'm very loathe to claim that
anything is "right" or "proven" about any of this. But this framework makes
sense to us and it has enabled us to hike long trails without stress and
injury and finish up feeling great.

   
>Posted by: "Joyce Bennis"  <mailto:joyce%40beedie.com> joyce@...
>Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:00 pm (PDT)

>For what it's worth, our rules of thumb are: 13 calories per pound of
body
>weight per day and, in terms of packing compactly, strive for about 150
>calories per ounce of carried food (stripping out all excess packaging,
>etc.. We're mostly "freezer bag cooking" folks.) . I'm 5'2" and 110
pounds
>and just completed the JMT in late August/ September using these
general
>parameters and was never hungry.

That seems like a small number of calories per day: 1,430 for you; less
than 1,860 for me at 142 lbs. Sedentary, I might be able to see it, but
with the rigors of backpacking I think most people will burn
substantially more calories than that. Certainly the couple of online
calorie calculators that I checked came up with larger calorie
requirements than 13 Cal/day/lb.

I don't question that it worked for you and your friends, but I am not
optimistic about its applicability to other people.

--MKT

[Ralph Oborn]

<snip>
We’re not scientists.
<snip>

I am  :]

And there is no way to nail down all the variables. The exact calorie
requirements of even the same human body day after day will vary a
lot: weather conditions, trail conditions, altitude variations, speed,
gradient, attitude, etc. will vary day by for the same body by large
amounts.
And when you try to factor in the variations between gender, body sizes,
conditioning, pack weights, hiking styles, food tastes, cooking styles etc.
etc. it's obvious there can be no agreement at all. The best we can hope for
is some general ideas based on what works for some other folks. so lets keep
'em coming but take them all with a grain of salt (or two :]  ). Remember
your mileage (and weight) will vary.


Ralph

On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Joyce Bennis <joyce@...> wrote:

>
>
>    I don’t know about “much larger” maintenance calorie requirements
> (you’re right, that is sedentary-lifestyle-type calories), but there is
> certainly some variation among the experts’ recommendations.
> Nutritiondata.com (one of my favorite websites for this sort of thing)
> calculates a person 5’2” and 110 lbs. to require 1589 calories/day (or about
> 14.5/lb.)  Our personal nutritionist thinks a little less is right.
>
> In addition to that, of course, your body will burn additional calories
> when you are performing additional work in the form of exercise.  This can
> be quite a few in the case of a long duration, endurance activity like
> backpacking.  Just how many more per hour is a very complicated subject. It
> can vary significantly depending on the terrain, weather, level of
> individual conditioning (experienced backpackers have likely become more
> metabolically “efficient” when doing this activity), body weight, pack
> weight, etc.   However, burning 500 – 600 additional calories per hour could
> be in the ballpark for a 150 lb. someone carrying a 25 pound load in the
> mountains.
>
> But just because you burn them doesn’t mean you have to eat them back again
> to stay healthy and energized.  In fact, if you’re like many of us, you very
> likely shouldn’t.  As a practical matter, on longer distance trips, we could
> never consume (or carry) as many calories as we were burning and our focus
> has always been on how little we could carry and consume without
> experiencing fatigue and injury or a negative impact on our overall health
> and well being.
>
> With this focus, over the last 10 years or so, my husband and I  made
> something of a hobby study of nutrition and exercise (including consulting
>  directly with some prominent sports nutritionists and exercise
> physiologists, including Olympic coaches, etc.)  Some of the critical things
> we think we learned were that:
>
> (1)     for most of us who are reasonably healthy and have an adequate
> (and likely more!) fat reserve,  it is not necessary to replace every
> calorie burned to stay healthy, avoid fatigue and have high energy while
> performing an endurance exercise like backpacking (or anything else.)  Your
> body can tap into internal fuel reserves (namely that fat) to supply many of
> the calories you need. For many of us who are not super lean and muscular,
> that’s a good thing: we lose weight and achieve a better balance of fat to
> lean muscle mass.  That may be  one of the reasons, in fact, that endurance
> exercise seems to depress the appetite; you don’t actually need to consume
> additional calories to fuel the exercise, your body is already supplying
> them. The trick seems to be that (1) you do need to consume approximately
> (i.e., let’s within say 90% - this is not exact)  your  “maintenance” level
> of calories or your body may begin to react adversely (slow the metabolism,
> etc.) and (2) you need to match the consumption of calories relatively
> closely to the timing of the exercise so that food calories consumed are
> used as fuel and not stored. More simply put: eat just before, during and
> shortly after exercise (e.g., munch on the trail), rather than eating a
> whole bunch of calories at once and well after the exercise is completed
> (like chowing down at dinner.)  You can, of course, consume more calories if
> you want (and want to carry them).  The body will either use them as fuel
> for exercise or repair (if the timing is right) and tap into fewer stored
> calories or (if the timing is not right) store them.
>
> (2)    to avoid fatigue, muscle breakdown and injury, adequate rest is
> crucial.  We were counseled that, especially for non-professionals who are
> not devoted full-time to their sport (that’s most of us), it was crucially
> important to allow for regeneration following stressful exercise.  And by
> rest, they didn’t mean just getting a good night’s sleep. In the case of a
> longer-distance backpacker doing something like the JMT, for example,
> resting essentially “in place” one full day after 3 or 4 days or so on the
> trail (especially after strenuous pass crossings, etc.) was strongly
> recommended.  (We hung out a day in camp and read books.) Our counselors
> believed that this was far more important to avoid undue fatigue, “bonking”
> and injury than achieving perfect nutrition.
>
> (3)    And, of course, hydrate but don’t over-hydrate.   Current
> recommendations seem to consume about 1.2 liters (6 to 8 glasses) of fluids
> (tea, juice, milk, water, coffee, etc.) per day, plus more if exercising.
> When you feel fatigued while exercising, you may actually be dehydrated.  If
> consuming larger amounts of water (as when hiking in hot weather), be
> careful not to overhydrate and watch your electrolyte balance as well.
>
> So, in summary,  unless you do not want to lose weight or have lower body
> fat, it may make sense to carry and eat fewer calories than you think you’re
> burning (maybe far fewer.)   If  you want to avoid fatigue and injury, it
> may also make sense to hike fewer days in a row and take some time on the
> trail to chill out and enjoy or at the very least be sure to take some short
> trail days or half days to rest.
>
> We’re not scientists. And if there’s one subject that’s in flux today it’s
> the science of nutrition and exercise, so I’m very loathe to claim that
> anything is “right” or “proven” about any of this. But this framework makes
> sense to us and it has enabled us to hike long trails without stress and
> injury and finish up feeling great.
>
>
> >Posted by: "Joyce Bennis" joyce@... <joyce%40beedie.com>
> >Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:00 pm (PDT)
>
> >For what it's worth, our rules of thumb are: 13 calories per pound of
> body
> >weight per day and, in terms of packing compactly, strive for about 150
> >calories per ounce of carried food (stripping out all excess packaging,
> >etc.. We're mostly "freezer bag cooking" folks.) . I'm 5'2" and 110
> pounds
> >and just completed the JMT in late August/ September using these
> general
> >parameters and was never hungry.
>
> That seems like a small number of calories per day: 1,430 for you; less
> than 1,860 for me at 142 lbs. Sedentary, I might be able to see it, but
> with the rigors of backpacking I think most people will burn
> substantially more calories than that. Certainly the couple of online
> calorie calculators that I checked came up with larger calorie
> requirements than 13 Cal/day/lb.
>
> I don't question that it worked for you and your friends, but I am not
> optimistic about its applicability to other people.
>
> --MKT
>
>
>