View Full Version : Still struggling with food weight
My daily list from last time:
1. Gorp consisting of 1/4 cup ish of each: Jelly Bellys, peanut MM, seasame sticks, granola, walnuts, dried mango, craisins, seasame almonds, honey cashews
2. tortilla
3. almond butter packet
4. Pro Bar
5. Olive oil
6. Tuna packet
7. AlpineAire dinner
Where can I save some weight, what am I doing wrong? I would like to hike the Smokys this Spring without going off of the trail.
Thank you.
Odd Man Out
11-12-2017, 18:56
I think of food weight this way. The vast majority of what is in your food bag is either carbs, protein, fat, water, and packaging. Carbs and protein have about 4 cal/g; fats about 9 cal/g; water and packaging zero cal/g. The rest will be things like salts, fiber, and flavorings - good things that don't weigh much so don't worry about them.
If your objective is to minimize food weight, you really want to maximize calorie density (cal/g). A balanced diet of carbs, fats, and protein will be between 4 and 9 cal/g. Add more fat to raise this. What lowers this is the water and packaging. Fat, carb, and protein g/serving are on the product label. Subtract these from the serving size to get an estimate of water content. You may be surprised how much water is in what you thought were dry foods. Then subtract weight of package contents from total weight of package to measure packaging weight. This adds up too. Do the calculations and measurements with what you have selected and you might see where there is room for improvement.
Whats wrong with what you are doing now? Aim for 100 calories an oz. or greater. Figure about 1.5 pounds of food per day. If you out longer than a week, add half a pound per day. Start off having about 2400 calories a day and finish with 3200 calories a day. Make sure your meals have a mixture of fats, carbs and protein. Dried fruits and nuts are good, calorie dense foods. So are oats. Tuna, although low in calories, is an almost pure protein source and full of good fats. Get the tuna in sesame oil.
What you didn't mention was how fast you moved on your two day hike. Depending on how long it takes you to complete the ~72 miles is also going to factor into the food weight.
I went from NOC to Fontana Dam in 1.5 days
I assume no cook based on list. Try pre cooked bacon (I like boars head). It's like 2.5 oz for 350 calories. More importantly, one of the most delicious treats you could ask for at any meal on the trail
Slo-go'en
11-12-2017, 21:20
Short section hikers tend to carry too much food. You hit the trail well feed and likely with a few pounds to spare around the middle. The sudden onset of strenuous physical activity often suppresses the appetite initially. "Hiker Hunger" and related "Trail Legs" don't kick in for most people until a good 2-3 weeks into the hike.
So, cut back a little on what you think you'll need for the first 2-3 days and that should save at least a couple of pounds. If I'm reading this right, you have a 1/4 cup of nine ingredients per day? That's a lot of GORP and is likely the bulk of your food weight. Sub corn chips for most of the GORP. I believe corn chips are the ideal hiker lunch food.
You could live without the olive oil for a few days too. The rest of the menu looks pretty standard. I wouldn't bother with the tortilla bread and almond butter, but that's my personal tastes. I'm not big on power bars either, but I keep a couple on hand along with a candy bar for emergencies. You can skimp on food for a week long hike and then not feel bad about having a really big meal in Gatlinburg when your done.
jjozgrunt
11-12-2017, 21:21
Also not all those dehydrated/freeze dried meals are the same. I've found that Hawk Vittle meals are a lot higher calorie/meal than most of the others for similar weight.
I assume no cook based on list. Try pre cooked bacon (I like boars head). It's like 2.5 oz for 350 calories. More importantly, one of the most delicious treats you could ask for at any meal on the trail
The precooked bacon keeps well on the trail?
Absolutely- took it this past August on one of those "hey man theres no water and it's 100 degrees up here trips and in October in cooler weather... both times was a great.
Plan on adding to tortellini dinner next time.
rocketsocks
11-12-2017, 22:12
Loose the jelly bellies, pure crap.
Where’s the beef?
Beef, pork, turkey and salmon jerky. Spread it out in your GORP ration.
When I discovered that tuna was not for me, I found 1.75 ounce individual serving Summer Sausage at Cost Plus World Market.
Where’s the cheese?
Welcome to the club! We all carry too much food in the beginning. Someday I’ll get up the nerve to load my food into two bags. Then leave one in the car.
Good luck.
Wayne
AllDownhillFromHere
11-12-2017, 23:24
egilbe totally nails it.
Also, don't fall for the "dehydrated" fallacy.
garlic08
11-13-2017, 00:06
Over the years I've developed a "miles per pound" equation, rather than the usual "pounds per day" equation. For most conditions, I can hike 10 to 12 miles on one pound of the no-cook food I carry. It's high in fat with lots of nuts, about 125 Cal/oz average. Heading into the Hundred Mile Wilderness, for instance, I carried eight pounds of food. I ate my last cashew about five miles from Abol Bridge and arrived hungry, a perfect resupply in my experience.
I no longer think of meals or days, rather I gauge my progress as I heft my food bag every night--should be about half way gone when I'm half way there.
I've also learned that I won't blow up and the world won't end if I run out a day early. I consider it a failure if I arrive with an extra day's worth.
Feral Bill
11-13-2017, 00:18
If your tuna is packed in water, rather than oil, you are losing a few calories. Otherwise, pack less overall. If you get hungry, pack more next time. FWIW I almost always over pack on food.
I dont mind carrying an extra meal or two out of the woods. Especially, if I get two unplanned meals during the hike (trail magic) when I didthe HMW sobo, I did start to resent those two meals I carried over the Chairback range, but it didn’t kill me. I guess I carry my fears and giung hungry for more than a day is oneof them.
I went from NOC to Fontana Dam in 1.5 daysSo based on 29 miles in 1.5 days, I would say that you could potentially do the GSMNP section in 3.5-4 days. Which is very similar to the pace we did it in July:
Day 1: Left the dam at 13:00, got to Mollies at 18:00.
Day 2: Mollies - Double Spring with a 2 hour delay at Derrick(Lightning and high wind gusts)
Day 3: Double - Pecks We ended up hitching from Clingmans to Newfound as we had already hiked this NOBO and SOBO the previous year. Additionally, my wife and the third member of our group were both having knee issues.
Day 4: Peck's - Davenport We wanted to push out of the park minimum, get to Standing Bear best case but the knee issues had gotten worse so we pulled up a mile shy.
I carried 3.5 days of food for this section specifically to end up at Standing Bear after eating my last meal or have to walk there in the AM like it worked out with only water and electrolytes.
I'm still working on dialing my food in. I still end up with too much at the end.
HooKooDooKu
11-13-2017, 13:04
TSWisla,
Have you taken the time to look at your food packaging and write down the calories/gram? It shouldn't be difficult to get most of your foods to have a calorie density of 4 calories/gram or better.
Even once you've picked a particular food (tortillas for example) you need to check various brand names and compare calorie density (at my grocery store, Old El Paso tortillas were the most calorie dense).
As a general statement, chocolate and nuts tend to be very calorie dense. Something I found particularly dense was sunflower seed kernels.
Something else to possibly consider is volume. This won't be a huge issue for you since a GSMNP hike doesn't require your food to all fit within a bear canister. But if you do find your food bag getting a little too fat, consider foods that are not only calorie dense by weight, but also calorie dense by volume. You might find that you need to skip foods that contain lots of air like crackers, pretzels, and seasame sticks. (I recall this was part of the reason I selected sunflower seed kernels and Plain M&Ms... because those foods had as much calorie density as Peanut M&M's, but I could pack more sunflower seeds and Plain M&Ms in the same volume because their smaller size allows then to pack tighter).
TwoSpirits
11-13-2017, 13:45
Perhaps most important: Pack foods that you'll eat.
Sounds silly and simple, but I often find that on any given day of any given hike, I can look into my food bag and not really want a lot of the stuff in there. It's weird but it happens. If I'm not interested in eating it (or cooking it or cleaning it), then I don't, and that leads to obvious problems...like not having enough energy to haul around all the food I'm not eating!
jimmyjam
11-13-2017, 14:02
Something else to consider. Since you are just starting out you will not have the hiker hunger and will not eat as much food as you would if you had been hiking a month or two.
Assuming you do not have heavy low calorie food like fresh fruit or vegs that have water weight in them, I think you will find that 1.5 to 2 pounds of dry (dehydrated or freeze dried) foods will be enough to keep you from being hungry on trail, especially if some of the dry food is high in fat (cheese, nuts, nut butters, oils, etc). If you are not overweight and do not have body fat to help fuel your furnace (or you do but lose the excess fat along the trail), you may need to go to 2 to 2.5 pounds of food per day.
nsherry61
11-13-2017, 17:13
My daily list from last time . . .
1) Did you eat all you took last time?
2) We all carry our fears and the fear of running out of food is one of the most ubiquitous fears we have on the trail.
3) If you didn't eat all your food last time, plan on shorting yourself a day's food the next time and see how it works out. What you will likely discover is that you will finish eating the snacks and meals that you managed to get by not eating last time and still don't run out of food. If you run out of food, the goal of this exercise, you will discover how freeing and powerful feeling it is to know that, even if a bit uncomfortable, running out of food is no more a big deal that running into a rain storm when you have the gear and the experience to manage it well. Sure, it's uncomfortable, and taken to the extreme can be dangerous, but a day or two without food isn't particularly dangerous.
4) If you are uncomfortable going to a day without food on the trail, start at home. Pull a 24 hr fast on your next day off and go hiking and have fun with just water to fill your stomach. It's really not to horribly bad. Heck, it can be downright religious. ;)
5) Of course, if you know you are a day short on food, you can always plan ahead a bit and save a bit of food from your previous days to help hold you through your fasting day. But, don't cheat and bring more than you think is the right amount for each day just so you have some left over.
Finally, if your current trip is not one you want to use for personal food training, don't get all worked up about a couple extra pounds and bring the food you want, promising yourself that you will plan some overnight trips in the future with the specific goal of training yourself for minimalist food carrying and consumption.
Go have fun.
All great info, thank you. I did calculate that I had about 3200 cal/day. I am trying to force myself to eat because I have been cold at night and I felt that it was due in most part to poor nutrition.
AllDownhillFromHere
11-13-2017, 20:54
Good idea. Also, a quick way to warm up your bag is to do pushups in it.
All great info, thank you. I did calculate that I had about 3200 cal/day. I am trying to force myself to eat because I have been cold at night and I felt that it was due in most part to poor nutrition.
Without knowing the particulars, and please tell us the details, my money is on your sleeping system or you are a cold sleeper. It’s a vicious cycle. You sleep cold. You need a better sleeping system. You need hot food at bedtime. You need a stove.
I could go on.
Back to your food bag. Were you able to eat all 3,200 calories in a day? Another guess on my part: You’re getting too much “teaching” from the internet. Learn by doing for yourself. We are all different. Find out what works for you.
Cheers!
Wayne
You say you're struggling with the food weight, but nowhere did you tell us how much your food weighs! If that's your daily food, and it satisfies you and keeps you moving, that's the main objective. How much does it weigh?
Slo-go'en
11-13-2017, 21:54
Ditto on the "you need a better sleep system if your cold, not more food". If you have to force yourself to eat, then you don't need it. It could actually be counter productive, having to digest that food. Unless it's mostly pure sugar. I like to have a couple of cookies before bed.
I did not weigh my food bag, but it is bulky and heavy as hell. There is a lot of good information here for me to ponder. Thank you again.
HooKooDooKu
11-13-2017, 22:46
Were you able to eat all 3,200 calories in a day?
Were you?... I found it difficult to keep up with a 3,000 calorie diet hiking the JMT where I was averaging 13 miles and 2,500' climb per day (but I also lost about 1/3 pound of body weight per day).
Am I reading this right that this is a food per day list? I didn't make it past the 4.5 cups of gorp per day. This just seems way too much to me. Even during my worst hiker hunger I don't think I could have eaten that much gorp.
Am I reading this right that this is a food per day list? I didn't make it past the 4.5 cups of gorp per day. This just seems way too much to me. Even during my worst hiker hunger I don't think I could have eaten that much gorp.
2 1/4 cups of gorp per day. That does seem like a lot.
egilbe totally nails it.
Also, don't fall for the "dehydrated" fallacy.
So what’s the fallacy?
I dehydrated all my dinners for the entire AT. No nutrition lost and reduced my daily food weight considerably.
So what’s the fallacy?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
My two cents.
1) way too much fat. Unless you are in single digit body fat % you have plenty of fat to burn. Your body needs carbs not fat, it has plenty for a short hike like the GSMNP?
2) you have said if you ate all that food. If you didn't, then cut out what you didn't eat. When your body is stressed you generally don't eat as much. It takes long distance hikers a couple weeks for hiker hunger to kick in.
3) you didn't say anything about your energy level when you hiked. If everything was good then why change. If it's just to go lighter than cut out the fat per 1 above.
I am 5'10", 150 lbs. I have very little fat. Previously, I took very lean foods, no carbs, mostly high protein. I was a little gassed. This last time, with the about daily food, I had plenty of energy. Where is there too much fat in what I brought? I will certainly ditch the Jelly Bellies, but the rest was nuts and lean foods in general, I thought...
I will certainly cut down on the Gorp, maybe that was my problem.
Very informative and helpful thread. Thanks.
I am wondering about chocolate selection -- thinking of trying out a chocolate high in flavanols, which is supposed to help with blood flow. Has anyone tried these guys out? https://flavanaturals.com/ The bars look to have about the same calories per gram as M&M and are super high in flavanols.
Just to throw it out there. The other issue I have had/seen with GORP is that the mice/rats/squirrels really seem to like nuts and they destroyed multiple bags to get to them. This was with bags hung correctly and on bear cables as well. I started carrying pringles and have since swapped to fritos scoops as they are a bit more dense and I don't seem to tire of them. They double as a fire starter if needed as well.
Slo-go'en
11-14-2017, 11:55
It is amazing how mice can zero in on exactly where the nuts are in a food bag and chew a hole directly to them.
DuneElliot
11-18-2017, 17:26
Other than the insane amount of GORP you are carrying I don't see too many places to cut back.
Eat when you are hungry, not to force it down. Improve your sleep system. I have to carry a 10* bag because I get cold, even at 30*.
My daily food this year:
Breakfast: Two 180 calorie granola bars
Snack: Peanut M&Ms
Lunch: Jerky, cheese sticks x2, cookies
Snack: Nuts/chips
Dinner: FD or dehydrated meal, pack of cookies
This weighed in at about 7lbs for 7 days in the Wind River Range
I learned a lot last year that I was taking too much food. I struggle to eat in the first day or two and want something in my pack that is actually yummy, not good for me so I actually ingest SOME calories. I am certainly in a place I can't really afford to lose any weight at all and I still lost some in the WRR somehow. But I also won't force myself to eat.
Other than the insane amount of GORP you are carrying I don't see too many places to cut back.
Eat when you are hungry, not to force it down. Improve your sleep system. I have to carry a 10* bag because I get cold, even at 30*.
My daily food this year:
Breakfast: Two 180 calorie granola bars
Snack: Peanut M&Ms
Lunch: Jerky, cheese sticks x2, cookies
Snack: Nuts/chips
Dinner: FD or dehydrated meal, pack of cookies
This weighed in at about 7lbs for 7 days in the Wind River Range
I learned a lot last year that I was taking too much food. I struggle to eat in the first day or two and want something in my pack that is actually yummy, not good for me so I actually ingest SOME calories. I am certainly in a place I can't really afford to lose any weight at all and I still lost some in the WRR somehow. But I also won't force myself to eat.
Every word is true.
OP: If you don’t have a kitchen scale get one.
One thing I have found that makes filling my food bag quick and easy is buying food in single serving packaging. It may cost more, but makes my life easier.
Clif, Lara & Kind bars, 2/day
Krave Jerky, Various flavors. ~ 2 ounces/day
Summer Sausage, 1.75 ounces each, every other day
String cheese. 1-2/day
Planter’s Nuts, 1.75 ounce package, 1/day
70% Cocoa, Lindt brand 1 bar.
Mountain House & Good To-Go individual meals.
One more thing:
Food for a week is actually food for 6 days. 5 full days and two half days.
Wayne
wordstew
12-13-2017, 22:52
If you really want to function with less food weight and higher physical energy convert you body and diet to keto...
Tons of research on the web about it check it out
Starchild
12-14-2017, 08:34
What I did on my thru, after getting the meals in my cart at the store was to weight everything and used the 2lbs/person/day rule to get a estimate if I had enough with usually the produce scale in the store. Sometimes I found the weight was way too high, it's easy to overbuy when you are hungry. If it was too high or too low I would correct that before buying.
It does involve getting the 'correct' food, and food without much water weight, but that comes with experience.
A guideline could be to start with freezedried foods as you know they are complete meals and you know what you are getting, and just add in a bit of supermarket foods for a meal or two. Not so much for weight savings, but to get a better 'feel' for what makes a good meal without too much risk of messing up.
I dont mind carrying an extra meal or two out of the woods. Especially, if I get two unplanned meals during the hike (trail magic) when I didthe HMW sobo, I did start to resent those two meals I carried over the Chairback range, but it didn’t kill me. I guess I carry my fears and giung hungry for more than a day is oneof them.
Make those extra meals freeze dried then. It will be the lightest weight for something you may be carrying for a long time. On my thru I carried one for several weeks as I was making it to town sooner then expected as I was getting faster and never got to that one for quite a while.
lonehiker
12-14-2017, 08:57
I am 5'10", 150 lbs. I have very little fat. Previously, I took very lean foods, no carbs, mostly high protein. I was a little gassed. This last time, with the about daily food, I had plenty of energy. Where is there too much fat in what I brought? I will certainly ditch the Jelly Bellies, but the rest was nuts and lean foods in general, I thought...
I will certainly cut down on the Gorp, maybe that was my problem.
Sounds like your food per day is working for you? You indicate that last time you had plenty of energy. Food is always your heaviest item but through the magic of consuming it, it decreases quickly. Stay with what is working for you. Nothing wrong with the jelly beans BTW.
Ditto on the "you need a better sleep system if your cold, not more food". If you have to force yourself to eat, then you don't need it. It could actually be counter productive, having to digest that food. Unless it's mostly pure sugar. I like to have a couple of cookies before bed.
I'm going to have to uhhhh, disagree with you on this. This is probably true if you're young and in good shape but not everyone is and not everyone reacts the same when they are hiking. You really should have a rough idea of how much energy you are outputting and how much food your taking in. A small deficit isn't bad, especially for a short hike. Running a big calorie deficit over an extended period really depletes your energy, makes it tough to recover, and even keep your body temperature up. If you're one of the folks who have this problem simple carbohydrates are your friend because they are usually the easiest to digest: Gatorade, Honey Stingers, jelly bellies, whatever is appetizing. Sugar is easily digestible fuel. GORP is great but sits heavy - I have a hard time eating it while hiking myself. I find that I need about 1.5 lbs of food per day even with lots of dehydrated and freeze dried stuff in there.