Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Trail calorie counting

I was wondering what people on this board do for long trips when it comes to eating enough food, it seems like no matter what I do with food I simply cannot consume more then 2000 calories at best and you burn 4-6 thousand calories on long days of hiking and a reality came to my mind since I may hike the whole PCT next year and that is the reality of if you are not consuming as much or more then your burning then after months on the trail you will consume every ounce of body fat you have and then you will rely 100% on the food you eat for energy and if at that point your not eating enough you will begin getting very weak.

I'm sure we have all experienced what it is like to have no energy at all on the trail due solely to not eating enough, one of my first trips I ate about 600 calories for the day and I was heading up a switch back and could not make it, I didn't need sleep and my muscles were not worn out or hurt but I could not get my body to move and what a horrible feeling that is!

So how can we possibly consume over four thousand calories in a day without eating 6 times a day or bringing a massive amount of food?

What's the secret?

And average hiker meal is say freeze dried food in the morning 800 calories some trail mix 600 calories and more freeze dried food for dinner, another 800 calories.

I once brought U.S. coast guard rations on the trail to help get more but even then each ration cube was only 200 calories more.

I always lose a significant amount of weight on long trips. But there are ways to take in more calories. Choose food that has the highest calorie content per unit weight and volume. For the volume they occupy in your pack, the freeze-dried meals do not pack many calories (I usually eat a two-person meal by myself). Nuts are a good start, and you can get them in sweet or salty format for variety. Other high calorie foods are things like salami, peanut butter, snickers, etc. The trick is finding calorie dense food that you can stomach at elevation. Once I found some calorie dense food that I really like when I'm at elevation, the weight loss on long trips was reduced.

I've never hiked for more than 18 days, so weight loss was usually covered by excess body weight at the start. Actually, it is one of the reasons I do this stuff.

If you don't have a lot of on-body reserves, you just have to pack more. I wouldn't mind having that problem, because the extra 15 pounds I carry at the start of the hike are in addition to the food I'm eating, while if you carry that extra food to cover your nutrition needs 100% would drop rapidly after each food pickup, giving you an overall lower average trail weight.

The freeze dried stuff really is bulky and I ran into that problem last summer when we had one Bearicade Expedition canister for me and my two 10-year-olds. That thing gets filled very quickly if you go with the Mountain House stuff. We used a lot of angel hair noodles and other flat packing asian noodles or rice to bring more stomach-filling food that doesn't need a lot of space in the canister. We still didn't get more than 5 days of food into the canister, which lead us to get a second Bearicade for this summer's trip.

My favorite calorie packers that don't use up a lot of space are

Gatorade powder (the real sugar stuff) - also makes that whole water drinking much more enjoyable and seems to be my best recipe for those low energy moments on the steep switchbacks

gummi bears - lots of sugar and fast conversion to energy

nuts - fats, some metals

Cliff bars - highlight of the day for the kids

peanut butter and jelly - fat and sugar

Scho-Ka-Kola - hard to find in the US - it's a caffeinated dark chocloate German pilots in WW2 already used as emergecny food. Comes in a tin can (leave that at home). Very much an emergency energy booster and doesn't seem to go liquid in the summer heat like other chocolate. A whopping $8 a tin here: http://www.germandeli.com/4001743034013.html (On the back it says 4 pieces are equal to a strong Espresso, 16 pieces in the tin)


None of that really fills your belly, though - high fiber food does. We bring a lot of home-made cereal that contains rolled oats, dried fruits, some sugar, granola, and mix that with real dried milk ("milkman" brand - not that fat free stuff you get everywhere). For the main meal of the day it's always something with fast cooking rice or noodles which bulk up nicely with water and fill your belly. The only advantage of those freeze-dried foods is that you can eat them without cooking, so if you run out of fuel or your stove fails, it's still ok. I usually pack one or two of those meals for a 5 day load, just in case.

Last summer I lost 18 pounds over 200 miles, carrying about 35-45lbs, while the kids did ok and maybe lost 5 lbs max carrying 12-15 lbs packs. We ate similar portions each meal, so I guess I packed in my extra food on my hips :-)

4 months after the hike, my weight was right back to where it was before... ready for 2009 I guess.

The thing about that weight loss is htat once your body weight drops down low enough, your energy expenditure also drops. After about 10 days on the trail, the weight loss usually slows down and the body also adapts in how it processes the food it does get (I am guessing here, but I think the way food is digested becomes more efficient during long term hiking, because the overall expenditure doesn't really drop that much on a 180 lbs adult with a 50 lbs pack if he drops 15 lbs of that in body weight).

How do people do the PCT? They don't eat that much more, all lose a lot of weight, but once you reach a level of fitness that matches the activity, I assume your energy conversion into distance and altitude becomes much more efficient. Those people are not starved to death when they finish, nor do they carry huge amounts of food. Plus, when I read their reports, I frequently read of the "trips to town" where they completely binge on calories to tank up again. Perhaps you should just plan on a 2 day layover at the pizza factory in Lone Pine (meat lovers special... 'nuff said)

this is a significant phenomenon for many of us.

After thousands of miles on the trail, I know to only take 1500 Cal/day as I will not be hungry when backpacking, even hard. This is often a big factor on serious high altitude trips, both my own and in the literature. Other people may have a bottomless pit. In the long run they will maintain stamina better and not lose weight. Me(and it sounds like you) will burn off fat to survive, but as you say, it comes to a point when you can only catabolize your own body but so much. So if you hike really fast and really do exercise 4500 cal/day, only eat 1500 Cal/day but burn 1 lb of fat (worth roughly 3000+ Cal)per day, then yes you could lose a lb a day, or 22 lbs if doing the JMT 10 miles/day. Most people in fact do not lose 22 lbs as they also fatten up at Curry, Tuolumne, Reds/Mammoth, Vermillion, Muir Trail Ranch, and of course at the Portal Store.
No doubt there will be some other strong opinions on this topic. Harvey

I've not done a month-long trip but on our last Philmont trek, 100 miles in 10 days, I maintained weight within experimental accuracy (say 3-4 pounds). They nominally provide 4,000 calories/day in the food provided but I seldom ate a full portion, especially at dinner.

Personally, I find it easier to tank up on trail snacks, whether that's home-made GORP or commercial stuff. Peanuts, almonds, anything with peanut butter in the mix. Sweet-and-salty usually works well for me even at altitude. I also drop my normal low-fat habits and carry hard salami and hard cheese for lunch. More calories/gram from fat, so it keeps the input/output balance without carrying as much bulk/weight.

When I am planning my own menus (as opposed to provided food as at Philmont), I'll carry a bit more fuel and include real pasta for dinners when I'm at a low enough altitude to actually cook and minimize the freeze-dried stuff. Oatmeal for breakfast, the above-mentioned salami/PB/cheese for lunch and a bunch of different trail snax.

I actually was only using freeze dried food as an example because it seems common for people to eat it but myself I can hardly get the stuff down, I have the same problem of how I just wont be hungry and don't want to eat or I come down off a peak completely exhausted and it's so horrible to eat the stuff that my stomach has just rejected it so what I had been doing for almost all of 2008 was bringing bowl noodle soups which only need boiling water added, these of course take up way too much space and I am sick of them so I do plan to try flat packaged noodle mixes or rice etc.

With loosing weight I do like doing so because I am far from skinny, I am probably at least 20 pounds over weight and this whole issue with food does not concern me with the trip I am going to do this summer of 380 miles with I think 39 days *hiking* because I would rather loose the weight.

And yeah I do plan to eat at every restaurant I have the chance to and this would go for the PCT also but I was just worried about the idea of completely wearing out due to food.

It is sort of an odd thought that eating stuff like candy bars is actually a good thing because you need the extra fat and stuff, I had never really thought about bringing any on the trail but i'll have to keep that in mind.

And one more high calorie treat that I plan on taking this year is a jar of Nutella. Just eat it with a spoon.

don't tell my daughter about that - I'll have to carry one just for her in every food cache :-) She eats that stuff on waffles almost every morning and I'm sure the spoon out of the jar approach would even better suit her needs

great idea though - beats peanut butter by a longshot

This is somewhat the wrong place to ask the question, as it tends not to be our focus of experience.

A GREAT place to ask this question, or see others response is at the PCT listserver. you don't have to sign up, just go to this page, and click on the most recent archives:
http://mailman.backcountry.net/pipermail/pct-l/

These folks are now gearing up for this years attempt, starting in about three months, and there is always a huge discussion about food. Maintaining weight can be a huge problem. You should also get Yogi's book.

As an aside, my experience is like many others: I lose about a lb a day. My last 12 day hike from Muir TR to WP, I lost 14#

This is a big problem for runners and cyclists as well. The way some deal with it is through the use of high carb drinks - cytomax, accelerade, etc. I have one that I use every now and then ( Twinlabs Ultra Fuel ) that packs in 400 calories for every 32 ozs. Most are available in powder form and can be used to liven up water (not that High Sierra water needs to be livened up...)