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

[cmeier117]

I basically take what you guys are taking but one of my bars is a Metrx protein bar that is about 450 calories and small bags of trail mix, which gets me to about 2700 calories a day. Doesn't look like much food, but its all you need.

 

[rodney482]

my fitness pro app is great for folks who have a smart phone

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.

 

[HellsCanyon]

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.

Honestly we ate pretty healthy and smart on our trips while hunting. But when you are averaging 3k' elevation gain days you just won't keep up. My biggest issue is recovery while at home. LOTS of steak, chicken, whole wheat noodles, wheat bread, butter, milk, and some fruits and vegetable in the biggest quantities I can handle was the best thing for recovery. If my lunch or dinner was less than 50% meat then something was wrong! Lol

Mike

 

[Becca]

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

I suspect Luke feels the same way you do except he is rokking the sweet slider phone, instead of the flip but it still doesn't do much but make calls...

Again, I am sure lots of people get by without calorie counting. But I feel the information I have gained from counting calories (even for just a brief period of time, say one week) has been invaluable in helping me fine tune my caloric needs in the field. Just another tool in the kit so to speak.

For what it's worth, I am fairly active on a daily basis, and I typically only consume 1400-1800 calories each day and maintain my body weight. Granted I am not very big, but still...I think caloric needs are very individual.

 

[luke moffat]

cA. i have a flip phone B. i only eat home cooked meals /QUOTE]

YAY!!! I'm not the only one with a dumb phone....except mines a slider. Not texting keyboard either.,

 

[Daniel_M]

No wonder why I never get a text back.

 

[Rucker61]

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:

Just one coffee a day?

 

[pyroducksx3]

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.

An Elvis sand which has a ton of calories ( a bagel with lots of peanut butter chocolate chips bacon and honey) and buy light snacks I mean like a protein bar or two or a granola bar with one if those single peanut butter cups. I'm at about the same calories as you are. Also I only get to get into the backcountry for a few nights at a time. Being a single dad the longest I get out for has been 3 nights unfortunately.

 

[TheRambler]

I think i would darn near starve to death if I only brought that much food per day. I easily eat almost double that after I have been out for a day or so. I am definitely closer to 2lbs a day of food vice 20oz. I usually do 2 coffees and granola and blueberries with milk or pancakes and syrup for breakfast, usually have a hardboiled egg or two, foil packs of tuna in olive oil with mayo,mustard,relish and crackers for lunch, a cliff bar type of thing here or there, some dark chocolate covered almonds, goldfish, beef jerky for snacks, and usually 2 MH or my own homemade dehydrated meals for dinner.

Especially after a day or two my appeptite kicks into high gear and i become ravenous, lol.

 

[Daniel_M]

FYI Regarding the GU Gels- the Jet Blackberry tastes like 2 scoops of ass.

 

[luke moffat]

An Elvis sand which has a ton of calories ( a bagel with lots of peanut butter chocolate chips bacon and honey) and buy light snacks I mean like a protein bar or two or a granola bar with one if those single peanut butter cups. I'm at about the same calories as you are. Also I only get to get into the backcountry for a few nights at a time. Being a single dad the longest I get out for has been 3 nights unfortunately.

Gotcha....makes sense now. Just read this " 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" the wrong way to think you were just going with Honey Stingers in the morning and a MH meal at night and doing away with the Elvis sandwich this year. Makes sense now....I'm just not a very good reader

 

[rjs34]

Cool thread. Here is the food I packed for my wife and I on our recent 5 day/4 night ruby crest trail hike. I kept 1 dinner meal and 1 breakfast meal in the MH bags and vac sealed the rest and reused the 1 bag for each. I also added quick mashed potatoes to each dinner. Did the same as you for lunch, just snacked on dried fruit, nuts, bars and jerky for lunch. I didn't do caloric intake on it all but the dinner meals (MH and mashed potatoes) was 51 oz, Breakfast was 36 oz, and snacks was about 75 oz, so roughly 10 lb total. It came out to about 1 lb per person per day. We supplemented it with trout a couple of the nights.

 

[pyroducksx3]

I'm bad at communicating, just ask my girlfriend. I used to have the breakfast oatmeal cookie for breakfast, whole Elvis sand which for lunch mountain house for dinner with two bars, dried fruit, some jerky and trail mix for each day and I was always bringing back food and more than just a little. So a honey stinger, a bar , 2 fruit leathers and a mountain house with tortilla is all I really need. With some filler trail mix and a couple extra bars seems to work well for me

 

[Becca]

Just one coffee a day?

I usually throw in a few extra, nice to have more than one cup of coffee if the weather is bad. They weigh next to nothing, but don't offer much in the way of calories either.

FYI Regarding the GU Gels- the Jet Blackberry tastes like 2 scoops of ass.

Haha...I don't mind them, but I do think all the flavors taste pretty much the same. Like cake frosting someone stirred sugar into. Make sure you have water to wash them down, otherwise you might never be able to swallow. They are my go-to for when Luke won't slow down enough for a real snack and I need a quick boost of calories and energy...they are easy to stash in my waist belt pockets and slurp down on the move.

 

[trk3263]

This might be a dumb question but are you adding water to your granola breakfast or just eat it dry? I am looking for an oatmeal alternative and this sounds good and more calories.

Also the olive oil things is a good easy calorie adder but I often forget mine because I keep it in a bottle that ends up in the bottom of my food bag. It works great in spuds.
You can ask for oil and vinegar packets at subway they keep them behind the counter. I think this is my plan for this year since I forget to use the oil from the bottle.

 

[Daniel_M]

Granola and powdered milk- hot/cold water.

 

[Becca]

This might be a dumb question but are you adding water to your granola breakfast or just eat it dry? I am looking for an oatmeal alternative and this sounds good and more calories.

Also the olive oil things is a good easy calorie adder but I often forget mine because I keep it in a bottle that ends up in the bottom of my food bag. It works great in spuds.
You can ask for oil and vinegar packets at subway they keep them behind the counter. I think this is my plan for this year since I forget to use the oil from the bottle.

I prefer to eat the granola and powdered milk cold. I was looking for something that felt and tasted different from oatmeal, because I was sick of it and needed variety. Hot water works too, but the granola gets soggy and isn't crunchy anymore. I am also doing some instant grits packages with bacon bits for added variety.

 

[rodney482]

FYI Regarding the GU Gels- the Jet Blackberry tastes like 2 scoops of ass.

Thank you
I needed a good laugh this morning

 

[RyanC]

I made the terrible mistake of not packing enough food on my first sheep hunt a few years ago. My partner and I both lost 15 pounds in 10 days and we were consuming about 2300 calories/day. Well getting ready to head back to the sheep mountains and I will not make that same mistake again. I packed about 2lbs of food per day for 4000+ calories/day. I'm on my way to work so I'll post a pic later with details.

 

[Slim Jim]

I prefer to eat the granola and powdered milk cold. I was looking for something that felt and tasted different from oatmeal, because I was sick of it and needed variety. Hot water works too, but the granola gets soggy and isn't crunchy anymore. I am also doing some instant grits packages with bacon bits for added variety.

Thank god we have you Becca! The backcountry diet hasn't been to bad since watching some of the meals you've prepared in the past. When will the book be finished?