What one day's worth of food looks like for us

[Becca]

I have been organizing food and gear to get things ready for multiple trips we have upcoming, the first of which is an 18 day sheep/caribou hunt via backpack and packraft. I get a lot of questions and PMs about food, as far as what we take with us when we are living out of a pack so I thought I would post up what one days worth of food looks like for Luke or I. Keep in mind that the calorie counts are going to vary based upon specific entree or snack choices. I usually bring an assortment, and try to eat the higher calorie stuff on days we hike further or pack a heavy load. Over the years we have pretty well fine tuned how many calories we need... We just don't consistently eat more than about 2500 calories per day in the field, so I don't bring along too much extra anymore. Keep in mind that depending on your size, metabolism and energy output you might need more calories than what we bring along.

Here is an example of all the food I pack for one person for one day:

We typically eat breakfast and dinner, but no formal lunch (just snack all day). Here are the calorie breakdowns, remember the specifics vary from day to day. These were all middle range choices calorie wise.
MH two serving entree: 640cal
Snickers: 280cal
Pb pretzels: 280cal
Lara Bar: 200cal
Nut&Seed Bar:190cal
Gu: 100cal
Coffee mate:20cal
Vitamin mix: 25cal
1 c Granola w powdered milk:480+80=560cal

Total= 2190 cal

Weight=20oz
So 2190calories/20 oz comes out to approx 110 cal/oz

Here is what 18 days of food for the two of us looks like:

When rafting or for shorter trips, we also bring along some heavier "extras" like cheese, pita bread or tortillas. Usually also have along some hot cocoa or cider, enough for one every few days. Those of course will increase the weight, and impact the calorie counts, for so the sake of simplicity I omitted them here.

Hope this is helpful for folks, and would be interested to hear what other people are doing that is the same or different.

 

[dreamingbig]

Looks very similar to what I take along. Thanks for posting.

 

[pyroducksx3]

I'm tired if carrying to much food also, i just never eat as much as i think i am. I usually eat a half of an Elvis sand which for lunch a couple fruit leathers and small snacks, going to try honey stingers for breakfast this year and a mountain house and that's it

 

[luke moffat]

I'm tired if carrying to much food also, i just never eat as much as i think i am. I usually eat a half of an Elvis sand which for lunch a couple fruit leathers and small snacks, going to try honey stingers for breakfast this year and a mountain house and that's it

WOW man...I don't know about you but my body needs more calories than that to function on a normal day at home. Let alone week long hunts backpacking in the mountains. Even if you ate 3 honey stingers for breakfast and a mountain house you are looking at less than 1200 calories for a day. For backpacking I'd say that is pretty low in my experience. I don't get tired carrying 1 pound snacks in my pack. I do find I get tired if I don't have that one pound of snacks in my pack to eat throughout the day though.

 

[Daniel_M]

Man I'd starve. Did I mention I'm packing a 6# bacon bomb next month??



I sealed up 18 lickey n chewey packs last night. 2/3 cup trail mix, 1 Snickers, 1 tube nuts and 2x Sweet n Salty bars. Good for ~1200 cal.

 

[luke moffat]

Man I'd starve. Did I mention I'm packing a 6# bacon bomb next month??

View attachment 9375

I sealed up 18 lickey n chewey packs last night. 2/3 cup trail mix, 1 Snickers, 1 tube nuts and 2x Sweet n Salty bars. Good for ~1200 cal.

Leave the Bacon bomb at home, carry my Sailor Jerry's.

 

[Daniel_M]

Leave the Bacon bomb at home, carry my Sailor Jerry's.

I'll never bitch about carrying an item of food/drink that will lower my overall pack weight going in

Daily outlook:
Breakfast 500 Cal
1/2 cup Dry Oats w/ craisins, walnuts, shaved almonds and brown sugar ~250 Cal
2x Starbucks Via w/ 2 tbsp dry french vanilla creamer. ~240 Cal

Lickeys n Cheweys 1430 Calories
2/3c Costco Trail Mix 480 Cal
1 Snickers 280 Cal
1 Tube o Nuts 330 Cal
2 Nature Valley Sweet n Salty bars 340

GU Gel 100 Cal

MH Pro Pak 1 serving - 500 Cal
2TBSP Olive Oil 250

2630 Total

I'll supplement in something else if it's a long hard day with wiggle room for 200 more.

Some dinners will get a package of sealed tuna or chicken.

Oliver Oil - Solid additional to ANY meal. Help skeep your innards lubed up, 250 Calories on 2TBSP. Just add it to yer Dinner.

PackitGourmet is a sweet little shop that sells serving sizes stuffs. Might not be the cheapest route, but the weight savings will make up the cost.

 

[rodney482]

I have been organizing food and gear to get things ready for multiple trips we have upcoming, the first of which is an 18 day sheep/caribou hunt via backpack and packraft. I get a lot of questions and PMs about food, as far as what we take with us when we are living out of a pack so I thought I would post up what one days worth of food looks like for Luke or I. Keep in mind that the calorie counts are going to vary based upon specific entree or snack choices. I usually bring an assortment, and try to eat the higher calorie stuff on days we hike further or pack a heavy load. Over the years we have pretty well fine tuned how many calories we need... We just don't consistently eat more than about 2500 calories per day in the field, so I don't bring along too much extra anymore. Keep in mind that depending on your size, metabolism and energy output you might need more calories than what we bring along.

Here is an example of all the food I pack for one person for one day:

We typically eat breakfast and dinner, but no formal lunch (just snack all day). Here are the calorie breakdowns, remember the specifics vary from day to day. These were all middle range choices calorie wise.
MH two serving entree: 640cal
Snickers: 280cal
Pb pretzels: 280cal
Lara Bar: 200cal
Nut&Seed Bar:190cal
Gu: 100cal
Coffee mate:20cal
Vitamin mix: 25cal
1 c Granola w powdered milk:480+80=560cal

Total= 2190 cal

Weight=20oz
So 2190calories/20 oz comes out to approx 110 cal/oz

Here is what 18 days of food for the two of us looks like:

When rafting or for shorter trips, we also bring along some heavier "extras" like cheese, pita bread or tortillas. Usually also have along some hot cocoa or cider, enough for one every few days. Those of course will increase the weight, and impact the calorie counts, for so the sake of simplicity I omitted them here.

Hope this is helpful for folks, and would be interested to hear what other people are doing that is the same or different.

a lot like my food....

 

[fillthefreezer]

good lord, i think id starve with that little bit of food....

 

[Coyote Commander]

I can't carry enough food.

On a 2000 cal/day diet I'm loosing over a pound a day.

I'm trying to consume 2000-2500 calories a day, and trying to keep food I carry to minimum of 100 cals/oz. My caloric requirement for longer trips is a real bearcat.

Last year while hunting out of a truck base camp (food weight not an issue), I lost 15 lbs in 8 days. I was consuming 3k or better calories a day.

Thankfully, my water requirements aren't that high.

 

[luke moffat]

good lord, i think id starve with that little bit of food....

How many calories per day and weight per day of food do you find you need?

Just curious, its nice to hear how others caloric needs differ.

 

[Daniel_M]

Everyone is different, Luke isn't a big dude and spends a lot of time in the woods packing around a load, his body is likely accustomed to his intake and he functions just fine.

I'm sedentary by trade M-F, 730-430. So when I put a pack on, my tape-worm and I want some freakin' calories.

 

[fillthefreezer]

How many calories per day and weight per day of food do you find you need?

Just curious, its nice to hear how others caloric needs differ.

im still working to dial in exactly what i need, 2 weeks ago scouting i ate all of the 3000 i packed, whereas last weekend was a leisurely hike at the wifes pace, i ate about 2500. last year i lost about 1lb per day of the trip. (wasnt necessarily a bad thing haha)
im hoping to have it dialed in before season as in past years i have not been happy with the food packing results. with the food i like, 3000 packed for me is about 27oz, im hoping to pack 50/50 2500/3000 cal days for the hard v. easy days. im also working to change up a few things in the menu as id like to see no less than 125 cal/oz

 

[Shrek]

Ahmen Daniel ! I'm 6'4" and down to 263lbs Sunday morning. Just tooling around town I burn 3000 cal easy. Add in way outside of normal exertion and I'll be smoking the calories. The first thing your body cannibalizes is your muscles. If you rapidly loose weight while hunting you are sapping your strenght and endurance. My goal is to not loose weight while hunting. I remember a thread at the end of last season where Mike at Hells Canyon was run down . Bottom line was that he had been hunting his butt off and not getting enough calories. I'm sure I will have to force myself to eat when I'm exhausted but if I don't I'll be less effective. You can get away with not eating much for a couple of days but more than that it's going to catch up with you.

 

[Daniel_M]

Another big calorie counter is float hunting. You've got 4-6-8 hours a day runnin the sticks with not a whole lot of exertion but under colder temps ~35-55, your body wants some calories. Last fall I ate like a horse but lost 26#.

Best thing for anyone is to get out there and know what your needs are. You're either gonna pack way much or starve.

 

[HellsCanyon]

I remember a thread at the end of last season where Mike at Hells Canyon was run down . Bottom line was that he had been hunting his butt off and not getting enough calories. I'm sure I will have to force myself to eat when I'm exhausted but if I don't I'll be less effective. You can get away with not eating much for a couple of days but more than that it's going to catch up with you.

Last year was a bear for sure... 16 days hunting over 4 weekends (after hunting most of september!) and I was down to 150 lbs at 6'0" tall. I'm normally 165 lbs at around 9% body fat so there wasn't a whole lot there to burn. At the end of that hunt I couldn't even pinch the skin on my ab muscles above my belt line. Even hiking uphill from the boat to camp 100 yards was embarrassing because we were running on fumes. But then again we were burning 7k+ calories a day, averaging 2000-2500 intake, and I wasn't recovering trip to trip with good food and good sleep. Finally the last week before I tagged out I was eating nothing but whole grains and protein for 3-4 days and finally felt like I was recovered a bit.

I can get away with 2000-2500 calories a day for 3-5 days of hunting but after that I need to take a day off and eat from dawn till dusk or start upping my daily calorie intake.

Mike

 

[Daniel_M]

Something else to add....but your pre-hunt dietary habits will play a major role in what your requirements can be in the woods. You can also train your body to get doan and handle X amount of calories.

 

[Becca]

Best thing I can recommend if you are trying to fine tune your calorie needs, is to trying counting calories in your everyday life. Try keeping track on "regular" days and then days where you do a lot more activity. I know I have said it before, but I am a huge fan of myfitnesspal., and this year I have been tracking my activity with a fitbit too. You start to figure out how many calories your body really needs at different levels of activity. Also helps you recognize when you need to eat in the field (I don't always feel "hungry", but I do often hit a wall if I don't eat enough).

Caloric needs are a very individual thing, and different people react differently to a calorie deficit. We have fine tuned what our needs are over several seasons, and so we know for sure what we need to eat to still feel and perform at our best. Also, for the two month period in the fall where we backpack nearly nonstop, we do bulk up our eating at home between trips a bit since we can't really keep up with our activity level. That being said, Luke usually only loses around 10 lbs during hunting season, and I typically lose around 5. That's over the course of trips spanning Aug-October with very little time between trips, so that's not a tremendous weight loss. As an interesting aside, Luke typically packs on "winter weight" of 10-20lbs almost on purpose, while I try to maintain my body weight within about 5lbs all year long.

 

[Shrek]

Mike , do you have a new food plan for this season ? How many calories and where from ? You have been at the pointy end of too little food so I'm interested in your plans.

 

[fillthefreezer]

Best thing I can recommend if you are trying to fine tune your calorie needs, is to trying counting calories in your everyday life. Try keeping track on "regular" days and then days where you do a lot more activity. I know I have said it before, but I am a huge fan of myfitnesspal., and this year I have been tracking my activity with a fitbit too. You start to figure out how many calories your body really needs at different levels of activity. Also helps you recognize when you need to eat in the field (I don't always feel "hungry", but I do often hit a wall if I don't eat enough).

Caloric needs are a very individual thing, and different people react differently to a calorie deficit. We have fine tuned what our needs are over several seasons, and so we know for sure what we need to eat to still feel and perform at our best. Also, for the two month period in the fall where we backpack nearly nonstop, we do bulk up our eating at home between trips a bit since we can't really keep up with our activity level. That being said, Luke usually only loses around 10 lbs during hunting season, and I typically lose around 5. That's over the course of trips spanning Aug-October with very little time between trips, so that's not a tremendous weight loss. As an interesting aside, Luke typically packs on "winter weight" of 10-20lbs almost on purpose, while I try to maintain my body weight within about 5lbs all year long.

counting calories is very hard for me, A. i have a flip phone B. i only eat home cooked meals and attempting to put caloric value on that is such a feat i doubt id have time to cook them