My wife and I can carry considerably less weight than most people (well under 1#/day/person)and we maintain our body weight. We are not big people but we carry much less than most friends we occassionally hike with. We do what many others do as to repackaging and spicing up our food. For weight reduction we follow 3 rules: 1) everything except a lunch trail bar must be dry and light weight (no breads, hummas, meat, etc.) 2)We use Emergency C for drinks and 3) we use a rich food supplement made with fresh barley. There are several on the market but Barley Life is the one we use. We will each have about 3 table spoons of this powder each day on the trail and with it, don't really need much else while hiking. The sustainable energy from this stuff is incredible. We have used it as a regular part of our diet for about 12 years and simply increase our daily intake when backpacking.
