Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Hiking and weight loss

Rather than resurrect an old thread, I am starting a new topic. The old thread is here:

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It seems everyone tired of this subject 7 months ago. I searched for information about burning calories on the message board and came up with this thread. I was curious about how many calories I had burned on my Sept. '06 dayhike to the summit.

Several years ago I tried a weight loss program that involved reducing calorie intake and burning more calories with exercise. If you think you will be bored by a discussion of the details of the subject, read no further.

There were lots of calorie burn numbers involved with the program and after 10 weeks of weight loss, I felt that I had proven some of them, as if it was a session in a science lab.

The instructors in the program told us that humans required about 12 calories per lb. to maintain a given body weight. For example, I started at about 230 pounds and they said my net daily calorie consumption to maintain that weight was probably about 2760 calories. 230 lbs. x 12.

There were several rates of calorie burn for various exercises. My primary form of exercise was walking and at my weight, I burned about 7 calories per minute just walking at a normal pace on the level. There was no mention of altitude, but I assumed this would be true at most altitudes where people normally live.

I didn't count calories every day, but I ate the same way each day and spot checked my calorie intake and calorie burn a few times. I was consuming about 1800 calories per day and burning about 800 per day by walking about 2 hours, according to the plan. My net calorie number per day was 1000 as compared to 2760 before I started.

The instructors also said that in order to lose 1 pound per week, you had to reduce your net daily calorie consumption by 500 calories. As you can see above, I had reduced mine by 1760. 1760/500=3.52

I was required to log everything I ate and the type and duration of my exercising and report it to an instructor twice a week. This made it easy to spot check my calorie numbers. I was required to weigh in at the start of the program and at each weekly meeting.

Each week, I lost about 3.5 lb. and over the 10 week period I lost 35 lb. This proved to me that the calorie burn numbers we were taught by the instructors were correct.

During my walks, I would occasionally use my gps to check distance and walking speed. I usually walked at a pace of about 3.3 miles per hour or slightly faster. This means that I was burning about 127 calories per mile, if the calorie per minute rate given by the instructors for walking at my weight was correct.

I frequently used a heart rate monitor and became familiar with how I felt at various heart rates. I threw in some varied forms of exercise, including running, bike riding, hiking with a weighted backpack and weight lifting. I could not duplicate the higher elevations of Mt. Whitney, but I was able to hike on trails with hills that were frequently as steep and often much steeper, though not as long in duration.

During a 1999 2 day trip to the summit of Whitney I actually wore my heart rate monitor. I was only age 54 at the time and I observed a few things about my heart rate. On the way up to Trail Camp, while humping a backpack that probably weighed about 50 lb., I found that the maximum heart rate I could sustain in order to feel as if I had any chance of making it to TC was somewhere in the 140s. On the second day, with much less weight, I experience the same level of how I felt at a much lower heart rate. It was as if my heart would just not tolerate higher rates in the thinner air. I suppose it was limited by the reduction of oxygen available to the muscle.

Now back to my September dayhike. I am now age 61 and weighed about 215 lb. on this trip. I know that the maximum heart rate of a person reduces with age and did not wear a hrm for this trip. I do have one that I wear on my elyptical trainer and I am still familiar with how I feel as I approach my max heart rate and it seems a person's max heart rate is reduced by the less dense air.

With all of this rattling around in my head, it does not seem to me that a simple physics calculation of energy burn would provide the necessary information about calorie burn on a hike of the Whitney main trail. There seem to be many physiological factors that would apply also.

It also seems to me that a heart rate monitor with a calorie burn calculation feature would not take into account the effects of thin air on the max heart rate I observed.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just being curious.

Denbo

Denbo, I'm glad you posted. I did not see this thread before and find it very informative and applicable to high altitude physiology on Whitney and elsewhere.

It is true that the ABSOLUTE maximum heart rate falls with significantly increased altitude (we're usually talkin' more than Whitney.) Your comfort level at 140 is not your ABSOLUTE maximum heart rate.

Your COMFORT LEVEL heart rate is related to your ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD, a rate lower than your ABSOLUTE maximum. It is the sustainable rate that you noticed, and yes, it was a bit lower as you ascended higher into thinner air.

Hope this helps.

Harvey (who at the most burns 2 lbs of food and 2 lbs of fat doing Whitney, nowhere near the 5-10 lbs suggested way earlier in this thread)

I hike weekly with a group of Sierra Club members who are retired. They are strong hikers and our hikes are from 12-17 miles with a minimum of 2500 feet altitude again. From start to finish we average 2.5 miles an hour and often faster depending on the leader. Of the 30 people who participate in these hikes only one person is on the plump side (but strong, having summited Kilimanjaro last year) and all the others are lean.

Last year I attended a party where there were both serious hikers and members of a running club. To my surprise the hikers were noticeably leaner although they were older by ten years or more. Most of the hikers try to hike twice a week, doing a shorter hike on the weekends. Running 18-25 miles a week used to be my primary exercise and I had to watch my diet to maintain my weight. By hiking twice a week I can eat without concern and sometimes when my mileage increases I have to eat more to maintain my weight. Hiking 10-12 hours a week burns a lot more calories than three-fours hours of running. Of course, I'm retired and have the time to hike.

Dog,

I agree with that. I think the primary thing you are trying to do with the exercise part of a diet/exercise weight loss program is increase your metabolism and walking does that better than running, because in most cases, you can do it longer.


d-bo

Weight loss/gain is very simple: if more calories go in (consumed) than out (burned) the excess calories are stored as fat. if more calories go out (burned) than in (consumed) your body must access stored fat (considering all glucose stores have been exhausted in your blood, liver, and muscle) to balance the energy equation.

One pound of fat stores 3500 calories. One mile traveled on level terrain burns roughly 100 calories (regardless of speed). Of course, going uphill burns more calories because more work is being done. Carrying weight increases the workload further and burns even more calories. So...to rid yourself of a pound of fat by walking/hiking/running you would need to walk/hike/run 35 miles. If it is uphill carrying weight, then fewer miles are required.

The only reliable way to determine how many calories a person burns while they exercise is to measure how much oxygen goes into their lungs when they inhale and how much is left after the exhale. This is usually done in a lab, but there are portable devices. Nevertheless, you would have to have a tube stuck in your mouth and your nose plugged.

As far as altitude goes, you do not burn more calories being at altitude (maybe just a little more due to the increased rate of heart and diaphragm contractions). Oxygen is necessary to burn calories. When oxygen availability is lowered, your body goes into oxygen debt and you must then rest to repay that debt. At sea level you might have to sprint all out to go into oxygen debt, but at altitude you may only have to jog or even walk. Think of it like a combustion engine. The fuel is there, but the air filter is dirty. Fuel can not be burned without the oxygen.

In summary you must go as far as you can up the steepest hill carrying the most weight in order to burn the most calories.

Hi,

It is great to see a whole lot of biochemical & physiological theory being re-hashed. I speak as a pretty well informed person.

In my teens I was lucky I was introduced to the Mountains, and although as a teeneage I was probably overweight I developed the muscles in my legs to carry me up most things. As I matured I lost weight and in my mind developed fitness, although was it the same muscles just having to do less for longer?

I fell out with the mountains for a few years, I could and did the odd thing, again it was the muscles that I had developed that allowed me to get away short sharp bursts on a mountain, however the increasing bodyweight started to take it's toll in terms of sore knee joints.

This time last year we, not the Royal we, I hasten to add set about planning a trip to Yosemite & Mt Whitney. From my fitness level it was a pretty daunting prospect and to be honest the consequences of my first full day out on a hill were scary, however I was amazed how quickly both mountain fitness, gained over weekend walking and subsequent weight loss occured. Altitude played no effect. Just getting out for a good day with any amount of climbing, between 3-4000ft ascent was ideal.

Walking is a fantastic sport to keep both the body and the mind in trim, not only that but it seems pretty forgiving to us sinners who stumble off the path for a year or ten.

I look back to our ascent of Mt. Whitney in October with pride but also look back to how unfit I was but how enjoyable it was to get fitness back, far better than pounding a treadmill!

Highlandcollie

Congrat mnelson, you've pointed out a fundamental truth that so many people miss - our bodies are fundamentally adding machines that add and subract calories mostly in the form of fat over the long term. It always amazes me that diet books are always among the top sellers when they are all trying to either hide or work around the most important thing that people need to know to manage their weight.

One other point worth noting - most initial weight loss is actually water and not fat. As you begin to diet (consuming fewer calories than you burn), you burn your initial energy storage in the form of sugar (glycogen), which is stored with water. As you burn throgh glycogen storage, you quckly lose the water (which weights 8 pounds per gallon). So people start dieting, quickly lose a few pounds, look a little better, then starting eating a little more and building up glycogen and water weight again. That's why so many people do great on the first week of their diet and then gain it right back.

Weight loss or gain is a simple equation of calorie intake vs your physical caloric requirement. I typically lose weight on backpacking trips because I lose my appetite at elevation and simply do not feel hungry; I have to force myself to eat sometimes.

For example, this summer I did the route from Horse Corral to Portal, going over Colby Pass. We did it at an easy pace, over eight days. My pack started at 47 pounds and finished at 36 pounds. And I started at 156 pounds and finished at 147 pounds, despite never feeling hungry. And that was not just water weight - a month later I was still at 147, and now, almost five months later, I am at 150. I figure that I ate about 2500 calories/day on the trip, so I must have been burning about 6000 cal/day.

Lambertiana,

Off topic but how was the Horse Corral to Portal trip? I have thought of doing this one as well but have not had the chance yet.

Rafael...

Rafael - I really liked the Horse Corral to Portal route. It goes through some great scenery - Cloud Canyon, Colby Lake, the basin below Colby Pass (south side) are all great spots. And there are great views of the Kaweahs from Colby Pass. It is not a heavily traveled route. I can send you some pictures if you want. And most of the rest of the route is well known by most people, especially once you join up with the JMT at Wallace Creek.

The trail is not maintained from where it starts up the Whaleback in Cloud Canyon to where it meets the High Sierra trail at Junction Meadow. Most of it is in good shape, but from just above Gallats Lake to Rockslide Lake there were some spots where I had to stop and look for the trail. And just below Rockfall Lake there is a spot where the trail is washed out, and the only way through (if you don't want to struggle through thick brush) is to jump down into a 4' deep, 4' wide gulley and walk down it for a ways.

We did it at an easy pace, over eight days. The fishing at Colby Lake is fantastic, the fish fight over which one gets to take the lure. All we caught there were Little Kern Goldens. All were caught in the narrow outlet area of the lake, we didn't even try the main body of the lake.

This memory goes back many, many years - well, 1972, I believe.

I don't recall where I was on the High Sierra trail but there was a large metal sign noting "Cloud Canyon" and indicating that back then the trail was not maintained. What was note-worthy and sticks with me all of these years is that someone heavily defaced that metal sign and it must have taken pretty good effort.

They crossed out "Cloud" and deeply scratched in "MOSQUITO" in its place. It just seemed so ADAMANT.

Here's a link that shows calories burned for many different activities: http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist4.htm

I don't know anything about the organization running this website but the information seems credible. I heard many years ago that for through hiking or strenuous backpacking, one should figure their food needs at 6,000 to 7,500 calories per day. According to this website, at 160# I can expect to burn about 500 calories per hour while backpacking. Other posters to this thread, such as Lambertiana, seem to have had similar experiences. Happy hiking!

Lynn Holland

Hey Lambertiana... having crossed the Kern River at Junction meadow twice over the years (back in the late 70s), what did you think of the crossing. Any pictures?

paul

The crossings of the Kern River weren't too bad. The bummer is that you make the first crossing, get your feet dried off to put you boots back on, and then just down the trail you have another crossing.

When we got to the first crossing, there was an aspen fallen across the trail right at the river's edge, with plentiful branches sticking up and down. I looked around to see if there were any other good crossing spots, but everywhere else that I saw had deep pools or other problems. So I had to go back and baton off the offending branches so we could duck under the aspen with our packs (thick brush on either side prevented us from going around right at the edge).

Regarding the mosquitoes in Cloud Canyon - I didn't really see many. I got to Big Wet Meadow at sunrise, and there weren't many there. But I could see that the potential for high populations was there. I went over Colby Pass very early on a cold morning, but others in my group who were about an hour behind me reported vicious mosquito activity in the basin just below the pass on the north side. And the large basin on the south side of Colby Pass had a very very healthy population of mosquitoes.

The worst mosquitoes I have ever seen in the western US were on Bear Creek between Edison Lake and Selden Pass a couple years ago. Hordes of them followed your every move all day long, not just at dawn and dusk. You could spray 100% DEET on your arm, and five minutes later you would have mosquitoes using it as an airport.

Hi;

This is my first post on this site, although I have enjoyed the board for a number of years. Being an Exercise Physiologist, this thread has piqued my interest and I thought I would address a number of issues that have been brought up for clarification.

I think the first thing to understand is that there is variability in the calories that an individual can burn, even if they were to weigh the same. The figure of 12 calories per lb burned may be a popular number for trainers to use, but it doesn’t take into consideration the body composition of the individual, i.e. are we talking about someone with a high percentage of body fat or someone who is lean, i.e. a high percentage of muscle? Since muscle burns many times the amount of calories that an equal amount of fat does, the figure should actually be based primarily on lean body mass, since that is the most metabolically active tissue. To put this another way, a 180 lb individual at 10 % body fat will burn considerably more calories than a 180 lb individual at 30% body fat. Recent studies have also shown that, even if muscle mass is equivalent, there are genetic differences in basal metabolic rates, both between individuals and between the sexes.
I’d like to address a few other issues that have been brought up.

"On the second day, with much less weight, I experience the same level of how I felt at a much lower heart rate. It was as if my heart would just not tolerate higher rates in the thinner air. I suppose it was limited by the reduction of oxygen available to the muscle."

"it seems a person's max heart rate is reduced by the less dense air."


"It also seems to me that a heart rate monitor with a calorie burn calculation feature would not take into account the effects of thin air on the max heart rate I observed."


An individual person’s maximum heart rate is actually an intrinsic value, and does not change with altitude, only with age, dropping ~1 beat per minute every year of life. However, the percentage of the maximum heart rate you are able to work at DOES drop with altitude. This has to do with transitioning from primarily aerobic metabolism, where most of your energy is burned utilizing oxygen, to anaerobic, where the majority of your energy comes from metabolic processes not utilizing oxygen, as H_lankford mentioned. The accepted term in the majority of the scientific community is known as the Lactate Threshold, the point at which your muscles accumulate more lactate than can be cleared out. The acidic byproduct of this anaerobic metabolism, lactic acid, is what causes the burning, stiff, heavy sensation in your muscles. This threshold is affected by the proper training, moving closer to your Maximum heart rate the more aerobically fit you become. However, it is ALSO affected by the amount of oxygen in the air; since the oxygen content decreases with altitude, the body’s energy demands cannot be met aerobically at as high a work output as at sea level; what that means is that you will reach your lactate threshold at a lower heart rate the higher in altitude you go. This is one of the reasons your resting heart rate increases at altitude; your body is trying to deliver the same amount of oxygen as at sea level by pumping more blood.

"I think the primary thing you are trying to do with the exercise part of a diet/exercise weight loss program is increase your metabolism and walking does that better than running, because in most cases, you can do it longer."


It is true that exercise does increase your metabolism, but only for the duration of the exercise and a time period afterwards, known as EPOC or Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption. The interesting, and for those trying to lose weight, unfortunate thing is that as an individual becomes more aerobically fit, they will actually become more efficient and burn less calories due to their ability to expend less energy at a given level of exercise compared to what they were burning at that level when they first tried it; a good thing for someone trying to survive with little or no food, but not so good if you are trying to lose weight! The only way to increase your resting metabolism, i.e. when you are not moving around ( which is the way most people spend their days at work) is by increasing your muscle mass, such as happens with resistance training.

As for the walking vs. running argument in regards to losing weight, let me break it down simply:

You burn more calories running 1 mile than walking one mile, no matter how fast you walk.

The faster you walk, the more calories you burn.

Jogging 1 mile vs. sprinting 1 mile burns ~the same amount of calories.

You can walk more miles than you can run; this is an obvious point. The issue is how to make the best use of the time you have. If you are limited, you get more bang for the buck running.

Running is more stressful on the body (also an obvious point.)

You can only walk so fast on level ground before your body ceases to improve aerobically. The faster you run, the more aerobically fit you become.

Two ways to allow a continued overload and thus adaptation i.e. improved aerobic fitness is to walk at an incline and/or with an additional load. This has already been mentioned.

"if more calories go out (burned) than in (consumed) your body must access stored fat (considering all glucose stores have been exhausted in your blood, liver, and muscle) to balance the energy equation."


During aerobic exercise you are actually burning both fat and carbohydrates. What percentage of each depends on the intensity of the exercise and the availability of oxygen, as well as the fitness of the individual. The higher the intensity, the more carbs and the less fat is burned. The less oxygen i.e. the higher the altitude, the same thing holds. Same for a less fit person. Fat needs a lot of oxygen, and if it isn’t available, the body will switch to more carbs. As the duration of exercise increases, the less carbs are burned and the more fat is burned, provided the intensity is not too high (this is the basis of the practice of pacing yourself). It is actually not possible to burn fat if all your glucose stores are exhausted; this never really happens b/c your body then starts breaking down protein such as muscle and converting it to carbs. This is not a happy situation to be in. Ask anyone who has been on a mountaineering expedition! The act of depleting your muscle carb stores is known in running as “hitting the wall” and your running speed drops dramatically as you cannot get enough energy to maintain your previous speed. Depletion of Liver carbs is known as “bonking” and at this point you are not going to be thinking too clearly.

A few years ago the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual research meeting had a presentation on the Tour de France, and one of the topics covered calorie intake and needs of the racers for the duration of the event. Research done during the race showed that the top racers burned on the order of 9000 calories during the average day of racing. However, even with liquid supplements in addition to regular food, the racers bodies were only able to absorb 7500 calories per day. Given that these individuals have a very low bodyfat percentage, anyone with a lower lean body mass will have great difficulty approaching anything close to this amount.

I hope that this information adds to the understanding of this subject.

Well, I for one enjoyed that .Thanks Ex.

ExPro,

Thanks for the detailed clarification.

One minor point.

"You burn more calories running 1 mile than walking one mile, no matter how fast you walk."

The link below shows that it is true at speeds below 5 miles/hour. At faster speeds, e.g. running or walking at 5 mph or faster, walking burns more calories than running.

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,712"0,s6-242-304-311-8402-0,00.html

Thanks

Hiker;

I haven't been able to open the link; however, you are probably right. I debated whether to include what I felt were "racewalking" speeds as the mechanics of movement are so different from the type of mechanics most of us normally use when walking. I chose not to address it; however, in retrospect, probably should have since I WAS talking in absolutes. I stand corrected. Thanks for the addendum!

Re "You burn more calories running 1 mile than walking one mile, no matter how fast you walk."

To be precise, it seems that this is referring to the calories that you burn from activity above your basal metabolism.

As an extreme example to illustrate the point, suppose you walked very very slowly and you took a day to walk one mile. Then you would burn many more calories walking a mile in a day than running a mile in 10 minutes because your basal metabolism has used up so many more calories during the slow walk.

I suspect that for people laboring at the really high altitudes, like those slow plodding trips on an Everest summit day, the amount of calories burnt depends mainly on the time spent climbing, rather than the distance travelled, because your body is working hard just trying to keep you alive.