We live in a modern society that provides us with a vast variety of abundant foods. Unfortunately, many of our food choices are not the best for achieving and maintaining optimal weight and health. Many foods are highly processed, high fat, high carbohydrate and loaded with salt, while appealing to our taste buds, do nothing but help us to get fatter.
I have been battling a weight problem most of my life, and judging from the posts found at Whiteblaze, and many other hiking and backpacking forums, I am not alone in this situation. This article, and the accompanying spreadsheets, is the product of an extensive search for a method of weight loss that would work for me. I would like to share my results with the outdoor community.
I have tried many types of weight loss programs and diets, among them,
Weight Watchers,
Opti-Fast (a.k.a. The “Oprah” diet), high-carbohydrate, low-fat (
The Rice Diet,
Dr. Mirkin’s Low Fat Diet), hi-fat, low-carbohydrate (
The Atkins Diet), skipping breakfast, skipping lunch, skipping dinner, skipping all meals (
fasting), and on and on…
While all of these diets initially seem to work and may allow for a dramatic loss of weight (usually
water weight), they are often quite difficult to stay on due to a variety of reasons. Among them, lack of variety, expense of certain “necessary” foods required by some diets, nutritional unbalance, boredom, and stress-induced eating “
binges”. Many of these diets offer little, or no, training in
modification of poor eating habits. Sometimes you feel like you are on a hamster wheel, getting nowhere fast, as the weight comes back!
I concluded that the best diet for my circumstances would incorporate familiar foods, be adaptable to different eating situations, and based on counting calories. I also wanted a method that would make me aware of
appropriate portion size, and the
percentage content of five basic food values:
Calories,
Carbohydrates,
Proteins,
Fats and
Sodium (Salt). This would be very useful in changing my eating habits.
That is why I started listing the nutritional values of my food choices in a separate spreadsheet (
FoodList.xls). (Most of the values came directly off of the nutritional labels found on almost every food item sold today. If you want a comprehensive food listing, you can download the
USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference Release 22. You can look up the nutrient content of 7,538 different foods {BTW, this is the “short” version :D} If you prefer a more compact listing, I recommend
Corinne Netzer’s The Complete Book of Food Counts.)
The next question is determining how to achieve a specific weight loss goal and one source that put together all the required criteria for determining how many calories would be needed to maintain that goal weight was
Jim Wood.
Jim, an avid backpacker and accomplished outdoorsman, is probably best known for his invention of a backpacking favorite…the
Super Cat Stove. But his website and discussion forum
jwbasecamp.com is a bonanza of useful backpacking information and projects. His article, "
Backpacking and Weight Loss", lists several equations (which he refers to as “The Simple Math” :eek:) which determine
Basal Metabolism,
Thermic Effect Metabolism and Activity-related metabolism. With his permission, I used his original material as a basis for the spreadsheets. I also added several other criteria that I wished to track: the
percentage of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in my diet, and
Body Mass Index (BMI),
daily water required for a specific weight and the amount of time needed to meet a specific goal weight.
The spreadsheet(s) incorporate the formulas of the
Harris-Benedict equations for determining
daily basal calories for an adult male (or adult female), current
BMI,
calories/day/pound needed to maintain current weight, and your
daily water requirement. (Since there are varying opinions as to how much water that you should drink, I picked a figure of ½ liquid ounce per pound of actual body weight per day. This is adjusted to 80 % of the calculated amount on the assumption that 20 % of your the will come from the metabolism of food consumed.)
Using the Spreadsheet(s)
Download the applicable spreadsheet, either the
MaleAdultDietLog.xls or the
FemaleAdultDietLog.xls. Also, download the
Averageweights.xls, the
ExpandedNutribase.xls, and the
FoodList.xls. Open all of the spreadsheets.
Go to the
Male (or Female) Diet Log spreadsheet and scroll down to the outlined box labeled “
Enter Your Current Weight” and enter your weight. Continue entering your
Height in inches, your
Age and your
Ideal Weight in the appropriate boxes. (Consult the
Averageweight.xls chart to determine your ideal weight {This chart combines and averages three popular formulas [Devine, Robinson and Miller]}), or, just enter the
target weight that you are trying to attain.
After you have entered this initial data, the spreadsheet will calculate:
- how many pounds you are over, or under, your goal weight,
- your Basic Daily Basal Calories requirement,
- your Daily Water Required, (in ounces, glasses and liters).
- the Calories/Day/Pound requirement for weight maintenance,
- and your Current Body Mass Index.
Enter your Desired Weekly Weight Loss, or Gain, goal, and after consulting the
ExpandedNutribaseTable.xls enter a figure that approximates the number of calories that you will expend in exercise-related activity during the week. (I have taken
the original Nutribase table and using the charting capabilities of the Excel spreadsheet program, I increased the weight ranges and highlighted several of the categories:
Backpacking,
Cross Country Skiing,
Hiking,
Running, and
Walking.)
The spreadsheet will then generate the time, in weeks, that is will take to reach your desired weight, and the
Daily & Weekly Goal Calories that you will be allowed to eat to attain your diet goals. (This figure is adjusted upward by 10% to allow for the thermic effect of metabolizing the food consumed.) (If you enter “
0” as your weekly weight loss goal, meaning that you want to maintain your current weight, you will see a row of
xxxxxxxxx’s appear in the “
It will take” box of the table.)
Enter the number of
Goal Grams of carbohydrates, protein and fat that you would like to eat daily. The spreadsheet will then calculate the percentage that the goal grams represent in your desired eating plan, and will also represent those percentages as calorie amounts of
Carbs (Carbohydrates),
Protein and
Fat. The figure for
Sodium intake is based on the recommended maximum of
2,500 mg/day, and is not adjustable by the user.
You are now ready to entering data into your
Daily Food Log sections of the spreadsheet.
Scroll down to the
Day 1 section of the
Daily Food Log and enter the date and your weight. There is also a section for
Diet Notes to record your observations, etc.
To record your
Food Item(s), I have found it easiest to construct my own
FoodList.xls. You can directly enter the food values or just highlight the food item that you are eating off of the food list and copy and paste it over to the diet log spreadsheet. You can then specify the
number of portions consumed either as a whole number (
1 being the default), or as a decimal (e.g.: 0.5, 0.334, 1.4, etc.), or as whole number fractions (1/2, ¾. 1 ½, etc.). You can then record
When you ate the particular item, either as the time of day, or as a meal category. I use
B for breakfast,
L for lunch,
S for supper and
SN for snacks.
Feel free to modify the
FoodList.xls as you see fit. This particular list reflects my food choices. Most of the values came directly off of the
nutritional labels found on almost every food item sold today. The unprotect code for the
FoodList.xls is:
12345 (Clever…eh?:rolleyes:)
As the week progresses, your diet entries will appear in the
Weekly Diet Progress Re-Cap section of the spreadsheet. Any quantities within the allowable diet goals will appear as a
black value number. Any quantities over the allowable diet goals (e.g.: a weight gain) will appear as a
(red) value.
At the end of the week, save the spreadsheet under a different name such as
Week1.xls,
Week2.xls, etc. You can print it out as the spreadsheet is formatted to print on 3 sheets of paper. You can start another blank spreadsheet for the next week of your diet.
In wish you much success in your quest to attain your ideal weight!
(BTW, I am 31 pounds lighter since I started this project! :banana )
Why Backpackers Lose Weight
Take the example of a 180-pound man, 40 years old and 5’ 10” (70") tall. He is planning a weeklong hike of 7-hour days carrying a 35 pound pack. The spreadsheet calculates his daily basal calorie requirement at 1,831 calories. The ExpandedNutribase.xls chart gives a figure of approximately 446 calories/hour x 7 hours/day x 7 days for a total of 21,830 calories to be expended in exercise. To this figure add the basal calorie requirement of 1,831 calories x 7 days (21,830 + 12,817=34,647 total weekly calories. This equals a requirement of 4,950 calories per day and factoring in the 10% thermic effect, 4,950 x 1.1= 5,444 calories needed per day. Since the typical backpacker carries and consumes around 3,500 calories/day (according to many posts on the forums), we see that there will be a calorie deficit of 5,444 - 3,500 = 1,944 calories/day, or 7 x 1,944 = 13,608 calories for the week. This results in a weight loss of 13,608/3,500 = 3.89 pounds for the week. Multiply this through a 4, 5 or 6-month thru-hike and you can see why backpackers experience large weight losses. :eek:
