how many calories per pound per day do you eat?

Great thread.

I've been curious about the powdered fuels lately too and have several questions about its use during hiking. How much powdered fuel (of Perpetuem for example) do you typically take for a day of hiking – do you typically take the recommended per hour amount and supplement with snacks or go entirely with powdered supplements throughout the day? Also, how do you store it or carry it during your hikes and what type of water bottle do you typically use to mix it up in? Do you purchase the individual packets or do you just measure out a bunch in zip lock bag? Has anyone used this method with the platypus soft sided bottles?

Sorry for all the questions. Thanks!!!

On the hydration thing, I drink up to 88 oz an hour for the first 8 or so hours of my day during the work week and have no issues. Yes, I pee a lot. No, I don't get hyponatremia. It's probably overkill, even for my level of activity but since I have no side effects….

Jason,

I don't remember the cals per meal on your course since they were split at dinner between actual dinner and a desert. The current meals are dinner only and those and the breakfasts are ~4-5 oz at 125-135 cal/oz so ~600-675 cals per meal. You provided the "lunches" so I can't speculate on the calorie content of those.

-chris

My hikes are around 16-25 mi per day.

I like starting off early, or pack up and hit the trail. Too much time is wasted cooking, heating, eating/drinking breakfast, then cleaning up.

Pre-hike morning
– Mix 3-scoop of Sustained Energy to drink while packing (about 110 kcal per scoop).

Ratio (Hammer Nutrition):

Electrolyte tablets = electrolyte/sodium replacement (o kcal)
Hammer Gel = 100 kcal per serving (pure energy)
HEED= 100 kcal per scoop (mostly electrolyte and energy)
Sustained Energy = 110 kcal per scoop (full meal mixture of protein/carb/fat)
Recoverite = Post hike replacement meal (carbs/protein/glutamine, within 30-min of finish)

– 2.5 scoops of HEED, per hour (250 kcal)
– Hammer Gel flask (5-servings), one serving per hour (100 kcal)
– 2.25 scoops of Sustained Energy, per hour (248 kcal)
– 2 scoops of Recoverite, in 8-12 oz water

THE HIKE:

Starting out hike = 1 bottle of HEED, 1 bottle of Sustained Energy, 1 Gel flask

Each hour:
– 1 bottle of Sustained Energy, in 1-liter or large cycling bottle (28-32 oz)
– 1 serving of Gel
– 1 bottle of strait water
– 1-3 electrolyte tablets

Post hike:
– 1 serving (2 scoops) of Recoverite, another 2-scoop serving an hour later if not full meal by then. Helps if setting up camp, cleaning up, etc.

"On the hydration thing, I drink up to 88 oz an hour for the first 8 or so hours of my day during the work week and have no issues. Yes, I pee a lot. No, I don't get hyponatremia. It's probably overkill, even for my level of activity but since I have no side effects…."

Other than you are carrying around an extra 60 oz. of water sloshing around in your stomach.

Thanks Michael! To confirm your storage process for the powder drinks – do you typically take two cycling water bottles, one to mix HEED and one to mix the Sustained Energy? Also, you have one regular water bottle and then a gel flask for the gel?

I store my fuels:

– "snack" sized zip bags, make sure to "zip" the seal correctly
– 2-bottles, wide-mouth cycle bottles, or flexible Nalgene.
– Steripen Opti, w/accessory filter

– 1-bag, per serving per bag (2.25 scoops of SE, or 2.5-scoops of HEED)
– 1-flask Gel (5 servings)
– "Pill" size zip bags for daily Electrolyte tablets (get at pharmacies), store future day tablets in a zip bag.

Only my first, and maybe "final push" bottle with HEED.

Thanks!

Aside from the "joy" of eating something solid:

– if you eat a 100 +/- kcal bar, snacks, etc.,

– and if the nutrition doctors claim that 40-60% of the food kcal is used just to process the fuel out of the food

– Then your paying $1.00 for about 50 kcal of a bar

– Vs- getting 100 kcal of fuel out of a powder or gel serving

I was a lover of a hot meal in morning, and dried fruits/nuts during hike, with a sandwich mid-day. But miles-per-day suffered, and sometimes already hot at hike start time, after cleaning, packing, etc.

Now, I get up, mix fuels, pack, and "hit the trail". Heck, if it's cold, I'm sitting in my tent, or away from it trying to eat, without attracting bears/critters to food smells spilled on tent, bag, clothing. Also having to wait for the food to process into system before starting out. I'm 3-5 miles down the trail "watching the earth wake up!", and warming the body with effort.

– The deer are going home after their morning eating & water drink
– Bears are wobbling down the trail after last feast of a tree-bagged food source.
– Morning prey "screeching" in the sky hunting for early morning lake-jumping fish, or the bunny/squirrel hopping along.

A final "plus" for liquid fuels, you have to "time" your solid fuel consumption 1/2-hr. prior to climbs so the body can process out the food kcal to use. Otherwise your ascending with food churning in tummy. Liquid fuels & gels are near instant absorbing to system.

I am only using Hammer Nutrition products as an example, there are a lot of providers with same types. I just trust all the research that goes into each ingredant to assure lowest sugars, and no sports-banned items.

I should have also differenced between a long day hike, or if on multi-days.

1-day hikes:

– Gels: only good for that "short kcal need hit". A flask is fine on a 1-day. Or hits of an electrolyte, products like HEED, CytoMax, Accelerade, Powerbar Endurance Sport, etc.
– Fuels; like Sustained Energy, Perpetuem, for the "meal replacement" during the hike.

Multi-days:
– Multi-filled flasks, or a small jug, add too much bulk & weight. If want a gel to top off during a long hill ascent, then single packets are better.

– Start with 1-bottle of HEED-like drink, and the other with a fuel (SU, etc.)

– Reason many like Perpetuem-like fuels is that they make up a super concentrated paste in flask, or bottle, as an "all day fuel container", and periodically "take a hit", with using SE-like item in other bottles.

– Some have bottles of plain water, and "tap" the concentrated container for the actual fuel. Saves on storage weight and container space.

"The idea of not 'eating' anything all day seems intuitively odd"

Actually you are, James. You are metabolizing body fat in conjunction with the Perpetuem or whatever carb drink you take in. The neat part is that it doesn't involve your digestive system-straight from fat stores into the blood stream and on to the working muscle cells.

"Reason many like Perpetuem-like fuels is that they make up a super concentrated paste in flask, or bottle, as an "all day fuel container", and periodically "take a hit", with using SE-like item in other bottles."

Pretty much how I go about it. I mix Perpetuem double, sometimes triple, strength in a wide mouth bottle, and take a mouthful every 20-30 minutes, diluted with 2-3 mouthfuls of water, depending on whether I'm doing double or triple strength Perpetuem. Perpetuem does not supply adequate electrolytes, IMO/IME so, for electrolytes, I add 1/4 tsp of Mortons Lite Salt to my 24 oz Propel bottle of water. It provides ~290 mg of sodium and ~350 mg of potassium. For calcium and magnesium I rely on supplements at either end of the day. 5 oz of Perpetuem keeps me going while on the move for up to 14 miles/day, a typical day for me at this point in my life. Longer days = more Perpetuem. I weigh 137#. The amount required will vary by weight, metabolism, hiking speed, terrain, etc. Each person is an experiment of one.

Chris,

How do you manage to put 88 oz/hr of water through your system without bloating? That's amazing. Do you add any electrolytes to guard against hyponatremia?

Chris wrote: "On the hydration thing, I drink up to 88 oz an hour for the first 8 or so hours of my day during the work week and have no issues. Yes, I pee a lot. No, I don't get hyponatremia. It's probably overkill, even for my level of activity but since I have no side effects…."

Tom wrote: "How do you manage to put 88 oz/hr of water through your system without bloating? That's amazing. Do you add any electrolytes to guard against hyponatremia?"

As I read Chris's post, he's saying he drinks 88 oz in 8 hours, not 88 oz in 1 hr.

Here is a scientific paper about the commonly held belief that people need to drink "8×8," i.e., eight 8-oz glasses of water per day: http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/283/5/R993

8×8, spread over 16 hours, would be about one third of the hourly consumption that Chris is talking about. The conclusion of the paper is that the need for 8×8 is an urban folktale, and that there are nontrivial hazards to doing it, which outweigh the benefits (the benefits being zero). The paper is about everyday life for people with typical lifestyles, not strenuous exercise in hot sun — but everyday life was what Chris was referring to as well, I guess.

Ben wrote:

"As I read Chris's post, he's saying he drinks 88 oz in 8 hours, not 88 oz in 1 hr."

Chris wrote:

"I drink up to 88 oz an hour for the first 8 or so hours of my day"

Uh, Ben….?

Tom, Hammer Nutrition now makes the Electrolyte in powder form, for adding into hydration bottles.

I use the capsules, and just pop 1-3 per hour.

I haven't read the entire thread, but if still collecting data I will add mine.

I've pretty much fine tuned my food needs to 20 oz/day at about 125 cal/oz. This puts me at 2500 cal/day. I weigh 160 lbs putting me at 15.625 ~ 16 cal/lb/day. I typically hike in excess of 20 miles/day so I know I am not getting near enough calories, but typically am only out for 2 to 4 days at a time.

It's strange, even at this deficit I typically find myself significantly less hungry than I do during a typical day at the office. I never feel starving and rarely feel hungry.

Jamie

Tom,

I think my body has just gotten used to it over time. The ability to hold so much is nice for backcountry trips though. I can camel in camp and do long stretches without needing to refill my water supply.

"Tom, Hammer Nutrition now makes the Electrolyte in powder form, for adding into hydration bottles.

I use the capsules, and just pop 1-3 per hour."

I know, Michael, but they're beaucoup expensive. Mortons Lite salt and CalMag supplements cost pennies by comparison. It's easy to approximate the dosage by extrapolating the numbers from the Hammer labels or getting them from other sources.

"I can camel in camp and do long stretches without needing to refill my water supply."

I wish I could get away with that. It's a real advantage if you can pull it off.

Tom, you're right that I didn't read carefully enough, and that 88 oz/8 hrs isn't a possible literal interpretation of what Chris wrote. On the other hand, I refuse to believe that Chris routinely drinks 5.5 gallons of water in eight hours. Chris, you're pulling our legs. April 1 was four months ago, dude.

I have fined tuned my food intake on the trail at 2,200 cals per day (18oz food) up to 10 days with no resupply. It takes me about 3-4 days to get my appetite back and by day 8-10 I spend more time thinking about food than normal but don't necessarily "feel" hungry. I am actually in motion hiking/scrambling about 7 hours per day. With most of my trips off trail and at altitude (10.5k-12.5K), mileage becomes somewhat irrelevant but on maintained trails I hike at a 3 mph pace and would typically cover 20-25 miles a day depending on elevation gains/loss. For comparison sake I am 5' 9" 170lbs, about 10% body fat, and almost 50. My base pack weight is 9-12lbs and I rarely carry more than a liter of water or a fully loaded pack over 25lbs.

It's been a while since I have been able to get out longer than 10 days but on the PCT and the CDT I was at about 3,500 cals per day and gorged myself when food was available that I didn't have to carry. I started both at about 160lbs and ended at 140lbs or so with half of the loss split between lean upper body tissue and fat. Based on basal metabolic rates and exertion levels, I should have come back lighter than air so I have always viewed them with a grain of salt. The human body has an amazing capacity to adapt to environmental conditions which would certainly explain much of the variance between individuals. When backpacking with my son who is 12 and half my weight, he eats some 1,200 calories more per day (mostly sugar) and is always complaining about being hungry but needs much less liquids than I.

When out with my hiking partner or son, we do hot breakfasts and dinner, but when solo I prefer a no cook approach except for winter. I am going to certainly pursue the gels/powders mentioned here and see how that goes as I have a hard time forcing myself to eat during the day while backpacking. I have been a big fan of "liquid" meals for the past 30 years and have breakfast and dinner pretty much everyday that way at home. In all fairness though these "drinks" are very high in solids, I just prefer the convenience and speed of a drinkable meal. I also eat bars for lunch (protein, Cliff – eating one as I type this!, Odwalla, etc) at home and take the same on the trail. Actually, the only thing I take on the trail that I don't eat at home regularly are freeze dried dinners. I think I will try the bars for breakfast and dinner and then drink calories during the day. My next trip is 10 days in Sept, a perfect time to try something new and gives me enough time to start drinking them while riding my bike and working out to see how it goes.

Here's an updated compilation of people's data from this thread.

Ben: 15-18, 135
Chris: 16-24, 143
Brian Senez, 26-47, 149
John Vance, 15-23, 150
Derek: 22, 154
Jamie Shortt: 16, 160
James MacDiarmid, 18, 175
Christopher Shive: 17, 180
Chad Miller: 17, 235
Tohru: 11-14, 135

7 out of 10 people report figures in the range from 15 to 20 cal/lb/day.

[EDIT] I put in Tohru's body weight based on the graph he posted later.

"7 out of 10 people report figures in the range from 15 to 20 cal/lb/day."

I made a plot:

"I used to achieve a much higher energy density with my food until someone here on BPL pointed out to me that a healthy diet should have proportions of about 50-35-15 calories from carb-fat-protein."

I don't think you can specify a ratio like that for all backpacking trips. So much depends on the speed you are hiking at, elevation gain, weight carried(including your body weight which has to be moved by energy, just like your pack, etc), and duration of trip without resupply. A blanket ratio like this for a long, unresupplied trip could land you in serious trouble by forcing your body to burn all body fat and, eventually, lean muscle to meet your energy demands. The general principle is that the amount of carbs required varies with the intensity/speed of the hike. Conversely, the slower and less intensely you are hiking, the more you will depend on fat to supply energy, until you have depleted it, at which point you will begin to catabolize lean muscle mass in a serious way.

Yup, I misread it, Ben. Relevant text deleted.

One thing that seems to be missing in the calories/lb calculations is that it does not account for body fat as a source of calories, unless I have missed something.