Odd Man Out,
I figured that might have been the reason and glad you're here. There seems to be a fixation with the odd-ball diets, when a simple plan of variety works well if the quantity of food is adjusted for the activity.
Simple is good.
Lil bit of this and lil bit of that
Back in my day it was salt pork and hardtack,,, and maggots were considered condiments.
And weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee liked it.
I've always found that fat is jet fuel for hiking. More so than carbs. You don't want to get energy from protein, it's for muscle repair...
Fat also gives you fuel without the insulin kick from carbs--Sure Little Debbie tastes good, but do too much of that and you're diabetic.
Be careful lumping all carbs, or for that matter all fats or all proteins into a single category. Some carbs may lead to an "insulin kick", as you say. Other carbs are much more complex, break down more slowly and provide a wonderfully stable energy supply. Some fats are good for you, some not so much. Some proteins are critical to consume, others your body can manufacture. . .
And, sadly having a personal stake tied to your last comment, eating carbs DOES NOT LEAD TO DIABETES. Eating lots of carbs, especially quickly digested carbs, when you have diabetes or pre-diabetes can absolutely complicate your health care. BUT, if you are not already heading toward becoming a diabetic for other reasons, eating lots of carbs will NOT lead to getting diabetes! . . . sorry, this is just a little myth that pisses me off due to my family history and my associated education.
I'm not lost. I'm exploring.
Do you realize 700 kcals/hr is about 75-80% of VO2 max for most people? This represents a very high level of exertion over 10 hours, one that only elite athletes can put out.
I am in my 60's. My VO2 max is 61 ml/kg. I am accustomed to exercising for long periods of time. Unless you are very young and a world class athlete, you are not burning 7000 calories just hiking and you certainly would not be doing it day after day. How do you know you burn that much?
I'm no nutritionist. I just pulled that figure offAtlas Guides website. https://atlasguides.com/how-many-cal...e-thru-hiking/
I don't know if I burn 700 cals per hour, but I do know I lose weight on every week+ hike I've ever done. I guess my point is that I can't carry enough calories to replace the calories I burn. Shooting for 100+ calories per ounce and 2 pounds per day is a good start.
.
http://www.trailjournals.com/flapjack
Thanks. 700 calories per hour is around 6 mph on the flats or probably around 4-5,000 vertical feet per hour depending on weight.
Your point that it is impossible to replace the calories is so true and an excellent point. Studies (I will try to find) have shown that on long endeavors like thru hiking or cross country bicycle rides, after some days or maybe a week, the most one can assimulate is 4500-6000 calories total per day. The key is frequent nibbling of a 150-250 calories per hour, not massive meals. What I found is after a few weeks, I get weird cravings, so, I just let my eyes look at stuff in the grocery store when resupplying. If my eyes say buy it, I assume my body needs it. I tend to like disgusting fatty foods when the body starts to get really lean, stuff like half a dozen egg mcmuffins or 3 quarter pounders with cheese and the big vanilla shake. It goes into pot belly stove and goes, "poof"
They found that no matter the event, energy expenditure sharply leveled off after about 20 days, eventually plateauing at about 2.5 times an athlete’s BMR. At that point, the body is burning calories more quickly than it can absorb food and convert it into energy, representing a biologically determined ceiling on human performance, the researchers report today in Science Advances. After an athlete hits this ceiling, their body must dip into fat reserves for energy.This was a study of 6 runners who ran a marathon a day all the way from the West Coast to the East Coast. They burned around 5,500 calories per day. Interestingly, they could only eat around 2.5 times their basal metabolic rate. To the OP's question about what to eat, whatever and whenever you can.We found that sustained energy intake was similar across studies (2.36 ± 0.59× BMR) and independent of event duration (Fig. 3B), consistent with an alimentary mechanism limiting SusMS.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019...uman-endurance
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/6/eaaw0341
((Calorie intake per day - Calories burned per day) X Nunber of days hiking per week) / 3500 = Lbs gain or loss during the days hiked per week.
If you know, or can approximate, 3 of the 4 variables in the above formula you will get a good estimate of the remaining variable; it takes a little algebra.
Simple is good.
This should give a decent estimate of calories burned.
https://www.outsideonline.com/239493...-burned-hiking
I came across this website, it has an enormous and remarkable amount of helpful food planning tools and spreadsheets. The dataset on various foods is mindblowing (to me)
https://www.lengthytravel.com/free-l...resupply-tool/