Electrolyte needs and real food

Tom, any electrolyte supplements to go along with the malto/whey during the day?

Best,

Bill

"Tom, any electrolyte supplements to go along with the malto/whey during the day?"

Yes. I don't get very much salt at home, and am prone to leg cramps when hiking, especially if I don't supplement my salt intake. So, I add 1/2 tsp. of sea salt to each liter of water I drink. Also, at breakfast and dinner, I take a calcium tablet. Around midday I take another calcium tablet. At breakfast and midday, I take a magnesium tab as well. All the calcium tabs supply 330 mg of Ca, and the magnesium tabs supply 250 and 90 mg of Mg, respectively. It probably sounds like a lot of Ca, but I am borderline osteoporotic, and the doc recommends around 1200mg per day. The Mg helps the Ca absorb more efficiently, and also supplies on of the 4 main electrolytes. Since I started adding salt to my water, I have had a lot less trouble with cramps.

"If you believe workout rules of thumb, you should be consuming a number of grams of protein that is 75%-100% of your body weight in pounds. (E.g. a 180# man should be consuming 135-180 grams of protein per day.)"

IMO, it's worth examining those rules of thumb closely, both for relevance (whether studies are about what's needed to support high activity vs what's needed to build muscle mass in a weightlifting program) and for resolution (some of the studies cited in support of high levels of protein consumption have a small number of widely separated reference points, so don't provide much resolution). AFAIK, the data aren't all that great, but things like ACSM recommendations for endurance athletes tend to be on the low end of the numbers above or a bit below them. (ACSM guidelines also acknowledge the data aren't that great.)

I'm not all inclined to skimp on protein while backpacking, but there are several potential costs to going beyond what's needed.

Cheers,

Bill S.

" Looked at another way, 150 calories per ounce (better than many of us do) x 1.5 lbs = 3600 calories per day."

My sense is that 150 calories/ounce would require food with very high fat content, to the extent that you would have trouble including enough carbs to support its metabolism at any normal hiking pace.

"Whether that is enough or not, if drinking my calories while hiking is going to work for me I need to come to grips with the bulk and weight issues."

It might be informative to analyze your food to see what percentage is carb, fat, and protein. It would be a good starting point for getting a handle on the issue. The second step would be to determine your percentage of body weight that is fat. The difference between that number, expressed in pounds and around 10% of your body weight expressed in pounds is the number of pounds of body fat you can spare for fuel. Multiply the number by 3500 to get the number of calories available from body fat and then start to look at how many calories of carbs must be supplied to metabolize them. Then you will need to calculate the total calories you need to hike 25 miles per day. The difference between the two calorie counts is the number you will have to supply from carried food. The percentage of the carried food supplied by carbs should probably be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% of your total daily carb requirement if you hike at a normal pace of 2.5 mph or so. the faster you hike, the more carbs you will burn. It's a trial and error exercise to get it dialed in for your particular metabolism, pace, terrain typically hiked. In any case, the only reason I brought this up is because I think you might be surprised by how much less food you will need to carry if you make use of body fat and supply adequate carbs to metabolize them.

"I was reading something by Malto saying that he alternates hours, meaning he is using something more calorie-dense for half the hours."

Malto is on another level entirely. That said, he is very knowledgeable and willing to share what he has learned. I'd highly recommend getting in touch with him, because your 25 mpd hiking style is much closer to his than mine.

"I'm not all inclined to skimp on protein while backpacking, but there are several potential costs to going beyond what's needed."

+1 to your whole post, but particularly the quote above. If you do go the high-pro route, make sure you stay well hydrated, for the sake of your kidneys.

Some very interesting points being brought up. I am thinking about some of them, and trying to find further information, before replying. Tom — do you have any references on how best to encourage use of body fat?

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Protein figure — as to bulking up, I have seen recommendations of 2X for that. Not interested. Looking at the 1X figure — that is 170 grams for a 170# male. 170 grams is 680 calories. That is only 17% of 4000 calories or 15% of 4500 calories. Those figures do not seem to me to be excessively high. I commonly see things like normal diets should include 10%-30% of their calories from protein. Here is a Mayo Clinic recommendation I just ran across:

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Recommendation: Emphasize plant sources of protein, such as beans, lentils, soy products and unsalted nuts. These high-protein foods have the added bonus of being higher in health-enhancing nutrients than are animal sources of protein. Eat seafood twice a week. Meat, poultry and dairy products should be lean or low fat. Get 10 to 35 percent of your total daily calories from protein. Protein has 4 calories a gram. Based on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, this amounts to about 200 to 700 calories a day, or about 50 to 175 grams a day.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/how-to-eat-healthy/art-20046590
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Note that protein sparing becomes important at some point — that is why Hammer includes protein in Perpetuem (intended for use after 2 hours).

–MV

"Malto is on another level entirely. That said, he is very knowledgeable and willing to share what he has learned."

One thing I found was a post of his about maltodextrin. It addressed one of my issues — easy dissolving in cold water. I have been using NOW Carbo Gain — a maltodextrin powder. The problem with it is that it does not dissolve well in cold water. No problem at home (gym or day trips) — use a blender. Big deal when backpacking.

Malto mentioned agglomerated maltodextrin dissolving well, and being what many of the commercial products use. (It also pours better — think small water bottle neck.) The only example seemed to be QD M500. That is hard to find, and then only in 100# bags. Granted the price that way is good, but who needs 100# of maltodextrin? Does anyone know a sensible way for me to purchase QD M500 (or any other agglomerated maltodextrin, if other products exist)?

Tom — what do you use for maltodextrin, and how do you deal with dissolving it in cold water?

–MV

"It might be informative to analyze your food to see what percentage is carb, fat, and protein. It would be a good starting point for getting a handle on the issue."

This point is important enough that it merits discussion before trying to specify diets for comparison. If the goal is to maximize calories per gram on a diet (or snack regimen) composed entirely or almost entirely of carbohydrates and protein, you're not going to beat isolates (e.g., maltodextrin and whey protein) that remove everything or almost everything else. There are few things in the right ballpark, but most don't make easy snack foods. If that's the goal, then we could pick the best real food alternatives (ideas other than some type of non-fat cracker plus jerky?) and see where that leads, but I'm not sure it's not that interesting a quesion.

If you want to get anywhere near 150 cal/oz, though, or even 130, you'll be optimizing along different dimensions. You can't get north of about 110 without bringing in fat. Make the target 130 with some reasonable specified ratios of carb, fat and protein and the comparisons get more interesting.

Bill S.

Tom,

Thanks for opening up this line of discussion. I was aware that I wanted to get my body to use body fat, but had never looked into quantifying how to go about that.

My 250 calories per hour figure is actually a pretty common one — you commonly see figures like endurance athletes needing to consume 240-280 calories per hour CHO, even though they are using more calories than that. You also see discussions of how many calories the body can consume, getting into isotonic concentrations and that complex (maltodextrin) can supply a lot more calories than simple sugars can.

Malto was pretty consistent with that. He aimed for 300 calories per hour the first part of his trip (and lost weight). He doubled that for the latter part of the trip and no longer lost weight — presumably a good thing by that point.

=====
Hammer has some good white papers discussing the science behind their products. I found one that is pretty consistent with what you are saying: 5 Secrets of Success for Endurance Fueling. I am a bit concerned with a couple of things it says that I do not understand, but overall it agrees with what you are saying.

* It suggests drinking 20-25 oz per hour — a pretty common non-controversial value

* (p. 9) it says “The trouble is, at this weak concentration (6-8%), not enough energy is available for working muscles. To obtain enough calories during exercise, you would have to consume about two bottles of fuel per hour, increasing your risk of fluid intoxication.” I do not understand that. 24 oz at 8% concentration of dextrose has about 240 calories — well above the amount they are suggesting you should limit yourself to. As far as I can see, they may be correct about maltodextrin being better, but that is not the reason why.

* (p. 9) it says that maltodextrin has a GI of 100 — that is at odds with everywhere else I have read that says maltodextrin has a GI of 130 and empties significantly faster than glucose. The paper’s conclusions are not affected, but it is disconcerting to see such a discrepancy.
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Getting a bit quantitative (and simplifying) things look pretty consistent with both conventional caloric requirements and the Hammer paper if I assume that backpacking say is divided between in-camp (requiring town-level calories and food), and on the trail (requiring athletic level calories and food). The bottom line looks like approaching backpacking nutrition this way would consume about 0.5 lbs body fat per day. Is that consistent with your experience?

–MV

Would be interested in knowing what Tom considers "high protein"? Very little chance of ketosis if a hiker is eating more than maybe 30g a day which is really easy to achieve. For hard working athletes the grams of protein per pound of body weight should be at least 0.8:1. And this would be for endurance athletes.

Tom, did I read correctly that you're not adding any significant extra potassium, just sea salt, calcium and magnesium? Not too surprising, since you're probably getting plenty of potassium from your meals, but if that's the case, it's an interesting data point.

Best,

Bill S.

Tom,

I have been thinking about this, and doing some figuring based on the Hammer article I cited (which seems close to your ideas — enough CHO to allow most of the energy to come from body fat). I do have some questions about the way you described it.

"Remember, the malto/whey is designed to supply enough carbs to burn body fat, which will provide you with the majority of your calories. In my diet, I am using only enough malto/whey(4.5 oz.), about 460 or so calories, to support the metabolism of a little over three times that number of calories provided by body fat. The malto will be supplemented by muscle glycogen if that is not enough, up to the point where I run out of muscle glycogen. So far, I have never bonked, so I'm pretty certain I have never depleted it all. I have another ~800 calories of carbs available at breakfast and dinner to either replenish muscle glycogen overnight or, in the case of breakfast, directly supply glucose to the brain and working muscles as it is absorbed into the bloodstream in the small intestine."

As I understand what you wrote, you count on approximately:
* 450+ calories from maltodextrin & whey while hiking
* 1350+ calories from body fat while hiking
* 800 calories from breakfast and dinner combined

That is a total of 2600+ calories per day. Isn't that a little low? That is only a few more than common values for in-town calories. Usual backpacking estimates are more like 4000-4500 calories per day.

I notice that you are using a 25%:75% ratio of maltodextrin/whey calories to body fat calories burned. Hammer's upper end is 35%:65%. Yours actually seems reasonable in light of Hammer's statement that increasing intensity requires a higher proportion of carbohydrate.

Another observation– if I start with the lower Hammer number (120 calories per hour), your maltodextrin/whey is only good for a little less than 4 hours of hiking. Either you are hiking pretty short days, or else you are doing fine on way fewer calories (less than half) than Hammer suggests as a minimum.

–MV

Robert B. –

Just in case you haven’t found these –

Caloric Deficit, n+1

Caloric Deficit, n+2

There are others. “Caloric Deficit” will find them

Thanks for references to previous threads, Greg. One I remember pretty well, but the other I had missed.

IMO, the evidence is not at all clear how much carbohydrate or protein is required in order burn fat. It may be less than most people would guess. If anyone knows of good studies that address it, I'd appreciate having them pointed out.

The 4-day starvation diet and heavy exercise paper looks interesting, but may not be highly relevant, given the experimental conditions – it apparently was set up to answer very different questions.

Cheers,

Bill S.

"do you have any references on how best to encourage use of body fat?"

I could probably go back and scrounge some up, but it would be time consuming for me.
Ryan Jordan wrote about it in his Arctic1000.blog; Richard Nisley has commented on it at some length and provided a table showing approximate ratios of fat and carb burn at different MET levels. I also read the relevant chapters from a college level exercise physiology textbook. What I learned is that the MET level of your exercise is the primary factor determining the ratio of carbs to fat as an energy source. You can improve that ratio to some degree by increasing your cardio vascular fitness, but the basic variable will always be the intensity of exercise. It is how we have evolved.

"Protein figure — as to bulking up, I have seen recommendations of 2X for that. Not interested. Looking at the 1X figure — that is 170 grams for a 170# male. 170 grams is 680 calories. That is only 17% of 4000 calories or 15% of 4500 calories. Those figures do not seem to me to be excessively high. I commonly see things like normal diets should include 10%-30% of their calories from protein."

2X is so far beyond what I have read is necessary for a healthy diet or endurance exercise, that I cannot begin to comprehend where it would fit into a diet for low intensity endurance activity. I can speculate that the intended audience is body builders/weight lifters, but beyond that I am mystified. I am right around the 10% figure for my diet, which has worked very well for me so far.

"Note that protein sparing becomes important at some point — that is why Hammer includes protein in Perpetuem (intended for use after 2 hours).

"Tom — what do you use for maltodextrin, and how do you deal with dissolving it in cold water?"

I use Carbo Hit from Mega Pro International. I assume it is agglomerated, because I have no trouble dissolving it in cold water. It is quite easy to work with. I buy it in 3# tubs when it goes on sale for $11-12.

"If the goal is to maximize calories per gram on a diet (or snack regimen) composed entirely or almost entirely of carbohydrates and protein, you're not going to beat isolates (e.g., maltodextrin and whey protein) that remove everything or almost everything else."

That is where I have ended up.

"If you want to get anywhere near 150 cal/oz, though, or even 130, you'll be optimizing along different dimensions. You can't get north of about 110 without bringing in fat."

+1

"Make the target 130 with some reasonable specified ratios of carb, fat and protein and the comparisons get more interesting."

Yes. Getting the ratios where you want them while maintaining palatability can be quite a challenge. I have ended up at ratios of ~55%/10%/35% for carbs/protein/fat, respectively, yielding around ~2200-2300 calories for 18 oz. @122-127 calories/oz.

Tom,

Sorry I was not more explicit. The 2X figure is for body builders trying to bulk up. You are quite right that it has no relevance to nutrition for endurance activities.

–MV

"Thanks for opening up this line of discussion. I was aware that I wanted to get my body to use body fat, but had never looked into quantifying how to go about that."

It's a neglected subject that is far more important than most think. I'm just happy to have some folks who are willing to discuss it.

"Getting a bit quantitative (and simplifying) things look pretty consistent with both conventional caloric requirements and the Hammer paper if I assume that backpacking say is divided between in-camp (requiring town-level calories and food), and on the trail (requiring athletic level calories and food). The bottom line looks like approaching backpacking nutrition this way would consume about 0.5 lbs body fat per day. Is that consistent with your experience?"

As it happens, .5 pounds of body fat/day is what I have arrived at, by trial and error over the initial 3 years I used this approach.

"Would be interested in knowing what Tom considers "high protein"?"

My own criterion comes from what I have read along the way, plus talking with a few docs. The standard I go by is 1 gram of protein/kg of body weight. In my case that works out to around 62 grams of protein. My backpacking diet supplies 70 grams, +/- 2 grams to allow for more tissue repair when backpacking.

"Very little chance of ketosis if a hiker is eating more than maybe 30g a day which is really easy to achieve. For hard working athletes the grams of protein per pound of body weight should be at least 0.8:1. And this would be for endurance athletes."

I don't know, David. That sure seems like a lot of protein to me, but then I am not a hard working athlete. They very likely require more than regular people, but how much more would vary with the sport they are participating in. MY own guess would be that endurance athletes are at the low end of the spectrum in this regard.

"Tom, did I read correctly that you're not adding any significant extra potassium, just sea salt, calcium and magnesium? Not too surprising, since you're probably getting plenty of potassium from your meals, but if that's the case, it's an interesting data point."

Bill- I started out using lite salt, which supplied about 350 mg of K per 1/4 tsp. and 280 mg of Na. I still got cramps more than I thought was necessary; the reading I did seemed to indicate that minimal K was lost during exercise, so I switched to sea salt. It improved things for me. Yes, I am operating on the assumption that I am getting adequate K from my solid food. K is a critical component of plants, and the foods derived from them, so I don't worry much about a K deficiency. My K levels are always normal when I get blood work done, which leads me to believe I'm not too far off the mark.

"As I understand what you wrote, you count on approximately:
* 450+ calories from maltodextrin & whey while hiking
* 1350+ calories from body fat while hiking
* 800 calories from breakfast and dinner combined"

Bob-I am copying below what I said earlier. My carbs during the day come from 3 sources, malto, muscle glycogen, and glucose from the metabolism of carbs in my breakfast. The total is sufficient to get me thru my 10-14 mile days, with enough in reserve for the occasional 18 mile day, should it be desirable/necessary. The fat comes from two sources, body and dietary.

###In my diet, I am using only enough malto/whey(4.5 oz.), about 460 or so calories, to support the metabolism of a little over three times that number of calories provided by body fat. The malto will be supplemented by muscle glycogen if that is not enough, up to the point where I run out of muscle glycogen. So far, I have never bonked, so I'm pretty certain I have never depleted it all. I have another ~800 calories of carbs available at breakfast and dinner to either replenish muscle glycogen overnight or, in the case of breakfast, directly supply glucose to the brain and working muscles as it is absorbed into the bloodstream in the small intestine.###"

"Yours actually seems reasonable in light of Hammer's statement that increasing intensity requires a higher proportion of carbohydrate."

Yeah, we're both reading from the same page. That is a proven concept.

"Another observation– if I start with the lower Hammer number (120 calories per hour), your maltodextrin/whey is only good for a little less than 4 hours of hiking. Either you are hiking pretty short days, or else you are doing fine on way fewer calories (less than half) than Hammer suggests as a minimum."

See the above copy of what I posted earlier, about the 3 sources of carbs in my system. It adds up to 1200 calories of carbs +/- for a day, sufficient to support the metabolism of 3600 calories of fat. I couldn't do fine on only 460 calories of carbs for very long. Physics is physics.

"Just in case you haven't found these –

Caloric Deficit, n+1

Caloric Deficit, n+2"

Thanks, Greg. You just expanded the conversation exponentially. Lots of good info over there.

"IMO, the evidence is not at all clear how much carbohydrate or protein is required in order burn fat. It may be less than most people would guess. If anyone knows of good studies that address it, I'd appreciate having them pointed out."

Bill-It's primarily a function of exercise intensity, secondarily a function of cardiovascular fitness. Carbs require less O2 to metabolize than fat. The fitter one is the more O2 one can deliver to the mitochondria. The more O2 is present, the more fat will be preferred as the source of energy, because it yields more energy/gram of substrate. Evolutionary efficiency. That said, it will always be a mix of carbs and fat that varies with those two factors, and carb metabolism increases for everyone at some level of effort, no matter how fit they are.

"It's a neglected subject that is far more important than most think. I'm just happy to have some folks who are willing to discuss it."

It gives one a bit to think about, and the discussion helps me. I'm happy to discuss it. You have obviously done a lot of work in this area, so thanks for your input.

One thing on my mind is muscle sparing when deliberately operating at a caloric deficit. I have been reading some of the old BPL threads and came across one that addressed that. The general opinion appeared to be that operating at a significant caloric deficit would result in the body using both body fat and muscle to make up the difference. The opinion there was that is inevitable — no amount of exercise / muscle use would prevent it, nor would ingesting protein.

The Hammer paper I cited has what I see as contradictory information in it (I sent email to support, but I doubt I'll get a reply before sometime next week). In one place they say that after about 2 hours the body will will get about 5% – 15% of its total caloric needs from protein — either muscle or ingested. They also specify that you can expect to supply 60%-65% of total caloric needs from body fat. When they specify what they think you should ingest they specify an 8:1 ratio of CHO:PRO (that's why Perpeteum includes soy protein). Now 8:1 is about 11% protein BUT that is 11% of ingested, not 11% of total — it is more like 4.5% of total. How do they expect ingesting 4.5% of total need to cover the body trying to use 5% – 15% of total need?

(There is also the difference that BPL folks say to cannot escape the cannibalism, while Hammer says you can.)

–MV