RE: Food weight...

[Joyce Bennis]

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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.  Ditto for my 6'2" , 175 pound husband and
a 5'4", 140 lb. friend.

 

We used oatmeal or trail bars for breakfast, trail bars during the day and
Mountain House Freeze dried foods (with some olive oil added for my husband
to get extra calories.)  Also carried coffee, tea and sweetener but not much
else. We add whey powder to the MH meals to get some extra protein and we
took a "greens" supplement to try to keep anti-oxidant levels up.  We hike
long a lot in Colorado and this is our standard regimen.  We carry custom
trail bars from www.youbars.com, but we also use regular Nature Valley Oat &
Granola and others for variety..our biggest problem is finding bars that are
lower fat and close to the 25% fat, 25% protein, 50% carb balance that we
prefer.

 

With this approach, we still sometimes have to bury or carry out excess
prepared food 'cause we can't finish our dinners.

 

On the JMT, we all lost a little weight (is that a bad thing?), but felt
great.

 


 

[James D. Marco-2]

Joyce,
        Is this by calories or by weight?
        For 8-10 days loosing a bit of weight is expected while hiking.
After a LONG period out (back when I was young and foolish, I spent
>45days out wandering through the ADK's) your apetite will increase
and you tend to put it back on, soo I found, anyway. Olive oil is good,
as Cara mentioned...goes real good on dandelion salad. And fried
mustard greens. (A small bottle goes a long way...)  
        But a couple tbs adds enough Calories (capital C, 1 dietary
Calorie equals 1000 physical calories...usually these are ignored)
to make a real meal.
        Someone else mentioned proteins have 4 calories per gram.
I was always taught 7 on average. Some less, some more. Once the
amino group is stripped away, you end up with a lipid/organic acid,
I think.... roughly speaking. There are a LOT of different proteins.... I
don't really remember as much as I should from my 40 year old
biology and nutrition classes...likely outdated...like me....
        My thoughts only . . .
                jdm
At 08:58 PM 10/20/2009, you wrote:
>our biggest problem is finding bars that are lower fat and close to the 25% fat, 25% protein, 50% carb balance that we prefer.

[Michael Tamada]

>Posted by: "Joyce Bennis" 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

[Frank Looper-2]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 7:00 AM, Michael Tamada <tamada@...> wrote:

>
> >Posted by: "Joyce Bennis" 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

Here's how I do it: 2,000 calories just to stay alive and healthy,
plus 150 per mile.

10 miles: 3,500
15 miles: 4,250
20 miles: 5,000

My methodology for figuring calories per mile was to set a treadmill
at the gym at a 10% grade and set my weight as what I'd be weighing
with my pack. At the end of one mile, I'd burned almost exactly 150
calories.

Here's my sample diet for a 15 mile day.
Breakfast: 2 cups of homemade trail mix consisting of raisins, honey
roasted peanuts, mixed nuts (50% redskin peanuts) and cashews. 1550
cals, 44/97/131 (Protein/Fat/Carb grams).
As I walk the day: 6 snickers bars. 1,680 cals, 24/780/210
Supper: A Knorr's side dish, 7 oz pack of tuna, 1 oz olive oil.
Average (according to which Knorr's you get) 1,185 cals, 46/35/118.
Please note that almost all of the fat at supper is poly- or
mono-unsaturated. Also known as "the good kind."

Yes, the Snickers have some sat-fat. Also a little in the trail mix,
but it is mostly poly/mono unsat as well. The total for all of it
comes up to 4,416 cals, 114/912/459. Total weight is around 36 oz. 1/4
lb. more than the supposed 2 lb. average, but SO well worth it.

As a side note, with that amount of protein (and LOTS of water) I am
not usually even sore the next morning--except for my ongoing PF
nonsense.

I'm certain that only Toey expected this much detail in an answer. But
I hike a LOT, and I try to be good to my body while I'm doing it.

FrankenLooper the NightWalker

[Bill Crawford]

I'm 5'10 and 170 lbs.  Most of my backpacking trips are 10-12 days long.  I always take about 3000 calories per day.  And I always lose about 3 lbs.  If you do the math on weight lost (at 3500 cal per lb of fat) that I am actually consuming ~ 4000 cal per day.  But like most of you, I do not want to carry the weight required to eat the 4000 cal per day.  Besides, it's the easiest way I know to shed a few pounds.

I find it helps to use a simple spread sheet to make decisions on how much of what to take -- the spread sheet calculates cal/day and you just put in so many oz of this or that until you run the score up to the cal/day you want.  If your food weight per day is a little higher than you really want it's easy to go throw a few more nuts in the mix and cut out some fruit, for example, to keep the cal/day the same but cut the total food weight.   The food below was for a 15 day off-trail hike.  It's two dinners short figuring on eating fish a few times with the potatoes and couscous.  This gave a total food weight of 24.11 lbs and 2936 cal/day when divided by 14.5 days.

Bill Crawford
Zachary, LA


      Food                                        Cal.
      12 dinners  (7.0 oz. each) 84 8400
      14 breakfasts 56 5600
      mashed potatoes (1) 4 400
      couscous (1) 4 400
      mixed nuts 28.6 4862
      honey roasted p-nuts 12.2 2074
      Cranberry Jubilee Mix 7 1120
      figs 16 1472
       
      dried cherries 11 1012
      dried cranberries 11 1012
      dried peaches 12.5 1150
      dried pineapple 8 736
      jerky 24 1632
      Crackers (3 runs) 12.6 1675.8
      Gator Aide 39 4212
      Cheese (3 kinds) 28 3080
      Zatarans 1.4 0
      Alum foil (4) 2.5 0
      Olive oil 2 400
      Reeces PB cups, Heath 15 2280
      Thin Mints 7 1050





Food                                                                       cal/oz.
      Muesli 105
      Shredded Wheat 100
      dried whole milk 142
      rice 95
      spaghetti 100
      blueberries 92
      crackers 140
      Gatorade 108
      Heath Bits 150
      jerky 68
      nuts 170
      cheese 110
      powdered butter 189
      powdr. sour cream 110