Trail Nutrition

This discussion of trail nutrition comes on the heels of my gear shakedown post. What you bring with you and what you put into your body are the two main variables that one can control in the woods. While I feel like I got the gear 85% correct, I failed pretty spectacularly on the nutrition front. Over the course of 14 days on the trail I managed to lose 5 pounds. That would be great if I were overweight and actively trying to shed the pounds, but I started off at 150 pounds so there wasn't much to lose to begin with. Clearly that burn rate was entirely unsustainable!

Let's do some math in order to help understand what I need to change for when I get back on trail:
1 pound of fat  = 3,500  calories (approximately)
5 pounds of fat = 17,500 calories
(17,500 calories) / (14 days on trail) = 1,250 calories per day

That would be an additional 1,250 calories a day (at least) that I need to consume in order to help keep on the weight. Likely I need between 1,500 and 2,000 additional calories daily. That's because included in those 14 days are two half days of hiking and a day that I wasn't on trail at all. So, the denominator should be more like 12, which would yield 1,459 calories per day. Let's go with an increase of 1,500 calories per day.

That brings us to the question: "What I was consuming each day while on trail?"

Obviously, I had a different menu every day on the trail. There were, however, consistencies in my daily diet. Plus, the calorie count for most of the meals were fairly similar, so plowing ahead should get me a rough idea of where I was.

Breakfast:
2 packets flavored Quaker Oats                       320 cal
1 black tea                                            2 cal

Lunch / Snacks:
3 granola / protein bars (~180 cal each)             540 cal
1 oz beef jerky                                      120 cal

Dinner:
Backpacker meal                                  500-700 cal

OR one of the following:
Mashed potato side                                   440 cal
Rice side                                            450 cal
Couscous                                             570 cal
WITH precooked chicken                                80 cal

Breakfast   325
Lunch       660
Dinner      650
Total      1635

Holy freaking moley!

I was running a deficit for a normal 2000 cal / day daily intake while strenuously exerting myself. I was running on 1/2 the required calories, no wonder why I lost so much weight!! 

I feel like a total dolt for not doing the bean counting before now. I have done lots of hiking before and had similar menus so didn't give it much thought. Of course, day hiking or overnight camping excursions almost invariably ended with a large restaurant meal on the way home

OK, so let's take a crack at reconceptualizing a daily trail menu that meets the required 3250 calorie intake. 

I like the oatmeal packets for breakfast, but the calories are just not there. And of the calories that are there, 1/3 are from added sugars. To make matters worse, I feel unproductive if I spend too much time lingering for snacks during the day, so I'm definitely going to have to juice things up for breakfasts. Surely, I can do this with items easily found in small town grocery stores.

Breakfast
1 c. instant oatmeal                                 300 cal
1 packet Carnation Breakfast Essentials              220 cal
2 oz raisins or dried cranberries                    175 cal
2 tbsp honey                                         120 cal

Now then, that's more like it! An 815 calorie breakfast oughta go pretty far.

As for lunch, I think I'm going to stick mainly to the granola bar approach. I know I should be taking it easy out there, but I feel unproductive lingering about preparing a proper meal in the middle of the day. I'll probably be going with 2 granola bars, a meat product of some sort, and GORP.

Lunch
2 granola bars                                       360 cal
1 oz beef jerky                                      120 cal
1/2 c. peanuts                                       365 cal
1/2 c. raisins                                       228 cal

Adding in a cup of GORP really helps up the on-trail calorie intake. I'm up to 1073 mid-day snacking calories.