Calories Per Day???

[Double Bow]

I've got my food nearly set for my trip in a couple weeks, but I want to make sure that I'm bringing enough food. I know everyone's needs are different, but I'm looking for some sort of baseline.

FWIW, I'm a 5'9" 165lb male who's a regular hiker in the White Mountains of NH and I plan to be doing roughly 15-20mi a day from Damascus, VA to Vermont.

Any suggestions of roughly how many calories I might I might want to figure for planning purposes?

[garlic08]

I'm 5'9" 150 lb and I carry 3500 calories per day plus/minus 500, and supplement that heavily with town food. I spent nearly as much on town meals as I did on trail meals. That's easy to do in that stretch, part of which I called the "deli-a-day" tour. I gained weight there. One of the big variables is your pack weight.

[Tinker]

Most folks who have tried to answer this question say somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000. Ymmv.
Since there's no real practical way to carry a healthy balance of that amount of calories, most hikers carry lots of fats (peanut butter and cooking oil) and add them to anything they possibly can. Straight sugar, or the closest thing to it, hard candy, is good for boosting the simple carbs, and, of course, as much pasta as you can stomach. Hard cheeses and over-processed sausages are good, too.

[Double Bow]

I should add that for the most part, my diet is going to consist of couscous, packets of tuna, salami, bagels, protein bars, Fiber One bars, trail mix, and a couple Mountain House meals a week.

I'm expecting my pack to weigh around 40-45lbs.

[Spokes]

I agree with garlic08 and tinker on this one. Sufficient calories are hard to get on the trail especially when you hit your stride. By the end of my thru I was devouring a couple jars of peanut butter a week and adding olive oil to every dinner. I also loved mincing up fresh garlic cloves to my dinners. Yum!

I craved orange juice whenever I got into town followed by wherever the biggest cheeseburgers could be located.

All the Best!

[Pedaling Fool]

I've got my food nearly set for my trip in a couple weeks, but I want to make sure that I'm bringing enough food. I know everyone's needs are different, but I'm looking for some sort of baseline.

FWIW, I'm a 5'9" 165lb male who's a regular hiker in the White Mountains of NH and I plan to be doing roughly 15-20mi a day from Damascus, VA to Vermont.

Any suggestions of roughly how many calories I might I might want to figure for planning purposes?

I can't tell you how many calories per day, nor can I tell you how many pounds per day, but I'm sure it's less than the recommended (at least the recommendations I've seen) quantitiy of 2lbs per day.

However, I do know how much rice I eat a day, about a 1/4 cup, mixed with a pinch of various dehydrated veggies and jerky. The veggies don't have much calories, but they are packed with nutrients and rice only has about 160-200 calories per 1/4 cup and that's the bulk of my food for the day, at least the main serving. Other than that I may eat a spoon full (or two, no more than 4) of PB per day that's probably about 500 calories and the rest of my calories come in the form of a couple granola bars a couple handfuls of gorp and a package of oatmeal.

Not sure what that comes up to, but I know it's way less than the calories I burn. Everything you read says how important it is to carry enough calories or weight of food per day. But I consume much less and I believe that's the best part of my hike...the hunger created from the calorie deficit diet. At first it really sucks, but your body (I believe) becomes much more efficient, simply because it has to. Of course this is not sustainable, but that's what towns are for. And that leads to one of my favorite things about the trail -- hiker's appetite.

So, in short, don't worry about it, it hasn't killed me yet and in a funny way that hunger feeling gets a little addictive.


...Almost forgot...I don't consume much per day, but it's all healthy. I would never recommend becoming one of them hikers that consumes tons of candy bars.

[Pedaling Fool]

BTW, forgot, I'm also one of them oil-eating hikers...with every batch of rice I mix in some olive oil.

[Double Bow]

Thanks. I had thought about adding olive oil to my couscous (planning on a 1/3-1/2 cup a night for dinner). Y'all just sealed the deal there!

On the "hiker's appetite" thing, one of my goals on this trip is to eat a pie. Yup, a whole pie... by myself.

[WingedMonkey]

On the "hiker's appetite" thing, one of my goals on this trip is to eat a pie. Yup, a whole pie... by myself.

It has to be pecan in order to knock you out, peach or apple is for light weights.

[Double Bow]

It has to be pecan in order to knock you out, peach or apple is for light weights.

Oh yeah. Hoping to find some chocolate pecan pie and to top it with vanilla ice cream!

[map man]

I'm 6'0", 165 pounds, typically hike 10 to 12 miles a day on semi-rugged trail, eat 4000 calories a day when I'm on the trail, don't pig out in town (pigging out is hard to do in small trail towns when you are a vegan), and I typically lose a pound a week while I'm hiking. I'm guessing I would need to eat more like 4500 calories a day to avoid losing weight, or eat the same 4000 calories a day on the trail and consume 6000-8000 calories a day every time I hit a trail town. YMMV.

[MEB]

Hey Double Bow...supplement your diet with lots of beer when you go through towns! Those were always my favorite calories to consume. On a serious note...olive oil and lots of nuts are always a good high fat/calorie food. Have fun and maybe I will see you out there!

-MEB

[chasegru]

Double Bow,
See Attachment. I did have your age so I put in a generic 30. With the number you provided your daily caloric expenditure is around 4200.

[chasegru]

That's to say "I did not have your age..."

[Daydream Believer]

Double Bow,
See Attachment. I did have your age so I put in a generic 30. With the number you provided your daily caloric expenditure is around 4200.

Where do you access that page? I'd love to plug in my stats. I'm a smallish woman so I suspect my numbers would come out quite different.

On carbs...I'm no longer eat grain or dairy. I have Celiac and don't digest any of that well regardless of whether it's gluten free or not. Best thing I ever did was the Paleo Diet and gave all that up. My challenge will be carrying enough carbs and starch to keep myself going. I will carry a lot of dried fruit which is high in sugar/starch and certain protein as dried meats and packaged tuna. I can eat potatoes so can carry some meals with potatoes. Nuts are high in calories and fat also.

One thru hiker I met last year was carrying avocados and that is a great way to add healthy fat also.

[chasegru]

Where do you access that page?

The program's on www.thruhikercaloriecounter.com.

[gregpphoto]

The program's on www.thruhikercaloriecounter.com.

Expensive! Try this one, its free http://www.hikingdude.com/hiking-food.shtml

[Daydream Believer]

Thanks for the sites!

[klpicktown]

On the "hiker's appetite" thing, one of my goals on this trip is to eat a pie. Yup, a whole pie... by myself.

mmmmmmmm a whole pizza pie mmmmmmm

[So There I Was]

This is has been a big question for me in my planning. In the Army we plan for about 5k-6k calories a day during operations. In short, 3 MREs. I have packed a weeks worth of MREs before and they can take up a lot of space!! Even after broken down.
I have been thinking about dehydrating as much meat as possible and going with Pasta, enriched minute rice, MacnCheese, powdered potatoes. That stuff can be compressed and last forever. That will do for dinners along with foil wraper spam/tuna/chicken. Tortillas with Nutella and PB, dehydrated fruit, and nuts throughout the day.
I am going to do a week - two week trial with that on a few shorter trips before I decide that is what I am going all in with...
Your body should tell you quickly when you have too much of a calorie debt.