Help Pimp my MTR to Whitney Food System

But, really…. I know some really fit guys that are younger and bigger, with higher metabolisms and carrying more pack weight without 'spare tires' who don't eat more than 2,000 cal per day on an 8 day trip.

I wonder if being acclimated to higher altitude makes for more efficient use of calories? We all live at about 6,000 ft.
billy

"I know some really fit guys that are younger and bigger, with higher metabolisms and carrying more pack weight without 'spare tires' who don't eat more than 2,000 cal per day on an 8 day trip."

They losing weight every day if they are covering any miles. They might not feel hungry, but if they are moving, it takes energy, and that has to come from somewhere. If they are big young guys, 2000 is basal. The rest can be computed by adding about 100 calories per mile.

I've done enough low calories 10 day hikes to know it can be done, and, with a smile. But if you find a scale before a Burger King, the truth will become evident.

"Not if you're the average woman… Marko, now all the females (all 5 of us, LOL) on BPL hate you! ;^)"

I seem to have that effect on women more often than I would like, but 5 at once may be a new record for me!

If they are big young guys, 2000 is basal. The rest can be computed by adding about 100 calories per mile.

any idea what 'basal' would be for my 65 year old carcas would be?
billy

So I went to
http://www.livestrong.com/article/244637-how-to-calculate-how-many-calories-i-should-eat/
Used their formula to calc resting calories for my 65 year age…. result: 800!
That's 1200 lower than the 2000 which you guys have been suggesting as base resting.
that would seem to explain why I am happy w 2000 cal per day when others need 3000.
billy

Ran the numbers again and came up w 1400 resting calories.
that's still 30% less than the 2000 number that has been talked about as the norm.
anyway, moral of the story is, if you are small and old or extra large and tall your caloric needs (and food volume) may vary from the average.
billy

"Sub 2,000 is my typical for an 8 day backpack in the Sierra. I have read that you should eat more, but really I could not force myself to eat more. Totally satisfied."

How much, if any, weight do you lose?

del

Billy, I'm going to humbly suggest you may still be misusing that calculator. Do you still come up so low on this one:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/calorie-calculator/itt-20084939

I basically came up on the setting one notch more active than "couch potato", at 2100. Unless you are a very small guy 1400 is like the very harsh end of of a CR (caloric restriction) diet.

It may be so, just remember the work you do backpacking would be added onto this. Might want to also add the weight of the pack you your weight.

Don't realy have hard numbers on that, but itbseems like I may lose about 8 lb in 8 days. Though some of that may be dehydration.

Ah, Ok. That is a great weight loss program. I wish I could "do it with a smile" as Greg says for a couple of weeks. The scenery would have to be pretty distracting.

Rick… at 80% hr for my age I my stair master says I burn about 600 per hour.
but I am quite certain that my hr is more like 60% when backpacking…. judging from the hr on my treadmill while wearing a full backpack.
there is also the possibility that the machine sales people skew the numbers upward to make you feel good about using/buying the machines.

My treadmill tells me that at my age, I'm lucky to have a heart rate at all.

–B.G.–

Marko, I really don't feel like it is a sacrifice at all. In fact, I could not eat more even if I carried it. I eat all that I could possibly want….. including many fatty and sweets that I will not allow myself at home… I actually look forward to pigging out om my backpacks… at 2000 cal/day
billy

Marco,
I went to the mayo clinic web calorie calculator… came up with 1700 for inactive, which i take to be resting, and 2350 for 'very active', the highest category.

So what does that mean? one web site says resting is 1400 for me and the other 1700.

Seems there is variability in both the calculators as wells as individuals.

In any case, I have been backpacking for 40 years and have never taken less for to save weight or to lose weight. I always take what I want to feel full and never hungry. What can I say? That comes out to about 2,000 calories per day, regardless of what the calculators come up with or what the recommended averages are in backpacking nutrition books. I'm not going to force myself to push more food down my throat… then I would be unhappy out there.

So… the only reason I brought all this up was that I noticed that your stated 3,000 calories was so different than my personal experience and I guess I wondered if I was so far off the norm or if you were getting that from your experience or from some book stating averages. While all this does not appear to advance your original question, it may be helpful for others to know not trust the published numbers completely and look to get the own experience of what their body need while out there.

billy

billy

"Don't realy have hard numbers on that, but itbseems like I may lose about 8 lb in 8 days. Though some of that may be dehydration."

If you allocated half of that pound to dehydration and half to body fat, you'd be burning ~1700 calories/day of body fat to supplement your 2000 calories of food carried. Subtract 1400 calories or whatever for basal metabolism, and you're using ~2300 calories/day for hiking. Sounds like a reasonable number to me. I'm in the same ball park, and I weigh ~137#. These are all rough estimates, however. The only way to get reliable numbers would be in a controlled environment, and even there it would be hard to set up a test that accurately reflected hiking up and down on rough terrain at altitude. My carried food is 2200-2300 calories, and I generally lose about 4 pounds on an eight day Sierra trip, most of which I attribute to body fat loss, although I could be off on this if dehydration is a significant factor. In any case it seems close enough for real world calculations, as I never suffer from lack of energy or hunger. Beyond that, the weeds get pretty high, and the number of angels dancing on the head of that pin begins to increase logarithmically. ;0)

Billy, my usual calories for a regular backpacking trip come to about 2500 – and like you this is just what works, its not scientific. Often I have food left over at the end of a shorter trip. With that amount I don't really notice a desire for more.

But my trip this summer is going to be 40 – 47 days straight and figured I should pay more attention and up the calories a bit – so as not to be grumpy several weeks in. But on the other hand, I will not be doing a ton of miles per day, and will also get to pig out at a few places like Reds and MTR so not anyway near as important to get right as it would be if I was a real through hiker going for 6 months.

Plus if I'm not unhappy I would be perfectly good with loosing the extra weight.:-)

The last time I had to worry about being underweight was about about 1998, and as I have gotten older Ive come to realize that is probably not going to be an issue me in the future. But as you say, the extra weight is useful for backpacking. Does this mean that older people are better long distance backpackers? I wish.

Marco….
40 to 47 days !!!
Wonderful…

People keep talking about (boasting?) doing the JMT in 5 day or less…
The first time I did it in 22 days… actually cried when I had to cross the bridge at Happy Isles.
If I do it again I want to take 30 or more !
I mean, who really wants to come back across that bridge?

One odd thing I've found with the food. I actually eat more on layover days than on hiking days… too much time on my hands to snack… the same reason at home that I am a bit heavier than I'd like…

billy

There is a semi-ok full length documentary on the JMT on you tube and I think iTunes made by/about some high school kids from the midwest who basically had no idea about how much food to bring. They were constantly almost out, and to my eyes some of them looked very thin by the end.

Anyway, when you take out the interviews they did, it seemed about %50 of the remainder of the hour 1/2 documentary was them talking about how hungry they were, about how they were running out of food, of how they could not eat that snickers because they had to ration to last to Whitney, including one film sequence where every one of them describes in great detail what they will order when the get to the Burger King in Lone Pine, not to mention plenty of film of them cooking and eating, including some horrible glop they picked up in a left behind barrel at MTR and though was ambrosia. It was annoying to listen to and watch, and I assume it was even more annoying to live. So trying my best not to do the same.

Then again, I've heard stories of backpackers hiking the JMT and packing little or no food. Their strategy was to bum extra food off others on the trail. I'm told it worked and they met a lot of nice people without having to carry the weight of food.

Billy

I hiked the JMT last year with a friend of mine – 63 years old, decent middle-of-the-back-of-the-pack runner for his age (5 hour ish marathons, etc).

His body fat was <2% by the end of the trip (he's normally around 10%) – he was literally skeletal. And he took way more food than I did… and I only lost 10 pounds (though I was hoping to lose more).

Jerk.

I guess that is one advantage people with a few extra pounds have. Landmark has a funny video on her food planning where she claims she purposely gains weight before hand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eXqQ2BbXts

Some of her other backpacking videos are pretty entertaining as well.

Mark,
I appreciate the link. Interesting numbers on calories, days, miles, body weight, etc.

What really stands out to me is how she "gets it done", without being "perfect". There is So much that could/would be criticized by BPL …. yet she solos the JMT, in her own way, and has fun doing it. Regardless of how much "better/easier" it could have been, it works for her. Kudos.

I learned a lot.
Thanks.

"yet she solos the JMT, in her own way, and has fun doing it"

And she is a woman that does mostly solo trips, and several long ones, if there are women out there that need a great example of this. She did both the TYT and JMT without resupplies, just because. Pretty cool in my book.

She has a very excellent attitude about things, but seems like a regular nerd. On the other hand she carries a freakin' Crocodile Dundee style knife because "it makes her happy". Not sure whether to be afraid, or weirdly turned on. :-)

It might be because I (also) was slightly drunk when I first watched them, but her series on how to make your own knife was freaking hilarious. Best quote: "the best thing is now when ever you think about "my little pony" you will think about knives, and that is awesome!" First vid (of 3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtV8fV68ikA

In the meantime my logistics have firmed up and as it turns out my longest resupply stretch will be 9.5 days – so the packing problem is more like 8.5 days. Pretty much the rest of the resupplies will be no-brainers, so I can go with the traditional "repackaged but modular" configuration I usually use – everything repackaged, but bagged up by days. This is very convenient for grab and go trips.

When I dished out the mula for the Weekender I did so with the conviction that I did not really want to carry more that 7 or 8 days of food if I had a choice, and like having an UL pack this kind of forced me to consider things carefully.

When doing this exercise I discovered that my "luxury foods" – coffee, hot cocoa and electrolytes are what put me over the top. They take up a lot of space if done in the default inefficient individual packet mode.

Anyway, here is what 8.5 days worth of food (~ 3000 cal/day) packet like I have taken for years, very space inefficiently, looks like in full bagged mode(a.k.a. anti-environment terrorist mode):

Obviously the packing method while logistically nice is not good for packing density. The simplest idea was, without changing what I take, was just to further repackage – to take 3 different dinner types and package them in 3 separate loose bags of 3,3 and 2 dinners each. One bag of trailmix for the whole time, and so on. Also to pack all the small items – coffee, cocoa, electrolytes packets, pure carbs, and so on loose in the can. Loosing the ridiculous number of bags as well. That looks like this:

So I got it (almost all in the can). The bag on the outside, again, is just the coffee, cocoa and electrolytes. For the big/long resupply I will again try to loose the variety and just pack 3 bulk bags for the coffee, etc. Still, it doesn't look like it will fit unless I sit on it, or compromise on some things. Basically this result has been achieved without changing WHAT I eat, just strategizing how it is packed, and maybe not having quite as much variety. The latter seems like it will be less important for many days – I think 3 different dinners for example, and 1 type of coffee is probably plenty.

I'm still thinking about changing WHAT I eat. It seem clear I could get a lot more into the can if I changed that. Since I am right on the edge for this trip, and since the only time in question is right after MRT where I can hang, I think I will probably just hang the overflow for a day or so, and be done. My brain hurts and maybe I will switch to worrying about something else.

However I feel like after all this I have very fine understanding of how much I can and can't do working with the weekender, and the tradeoffs involved.