As with everything else in my approach to hiking, the goals are comfort first, weight second.

For me, comfort, as it pertains to food, can be defined as fast, tasty, filling, and easy to make. I pack along a stove, but only use it for boiling water, which is then used to make various "instant" meals - I do not get into complex "ingredient" type backcountry cooking. If I want to get fancy, I'll stay home and use the BBQ. By keeping it simple, preparation and cleanup times are kept to a minimum.

From a pratical standpoint, your food will need to provide you enough energy to get you through the day. For the hiker, energy and endurance are of primary importance.

Before getting into food selection, menus, recipes, etc, it is important to have a basic understanding about the nutritional makeup of food, the best food combination for maintaining energy levels on the trail, and at what times various types of food should be eaten.

Neglecting the basics will take a toll on your health, performance, and enjoyment of the wilderness experience - It is critical to consider how to optimize nutrient quality, while minimizing the weight/bulk of the food being carried.

The key to having enough strength to hike that final mile, or get over that last hill, is for your body to be adequetly "fueled" - Fuel, as far as your body is concerned, is made up of carbohydrates and fat.

Why worry so much about fuel? Well, think about it. When you're at home, maybe you're sitting in an office all day long... Daily exercise might be defined as running from your car to the door if it happens to be raining. Even for those of us who go to the gym regularly, you're only working out for a few hours.

In backpacking, you're spending the better part of the day doing nothing but exercising. And, you're doing all that exercise while carrying an additional 20-35% of your normal body weight.

Add to the weight factor other characteristics, such as uneven or steep terrain, and it's clear that you're going to need a lot more fuel than you typically rely on to keep you going through a day at the office.

The good news is that you can pretty much eat constantly without worrying about gaining any weight. In fact, you'll probably end up losing weight... specifically that abdominal flab. You'll also be hardening the thighs and quads. Not a bad deal at all.

If there's anything to worry about as far as eating is concerned, it's not consuming enough food.

If you seriously undereat day after day, your body will compensate by taking the most expendable fuel available. This happens to be glycogen and fat stored in adipose (fat found directly below the skin) and muscle protein. Neither one is a good choice.

The adipose fat surrounds the internal organs and acts as a cushion - It provides some protection from jarring. It also is an especially important heat insulator in the body.

Tearing down your own muscles means you have less endurance, compromising your own performance. Less muscle means a weaker body, which translates into less miles per day, and more work per mile, requiring even more energy, thereby starting the vicious cycle from the top.

How much food do you need?

I recommend 3000-4000 calories/day for women and 3500-4500/day for men, minimum. Furthermore, you should strive for an energy laden distribution of calories between carbohydrates, fat, and protein - 55%, 30%, and 15% is a good goal.

This may sound like a lot of food to be carrying around but it really isn't. The trick is to select calorie dense, or high fat, foods. Such foods can be identified as having above 5 calories/gram. Ounce for ounce, a high fat diet will weigh about 20% less than a high carb diet. The weight difference can be directly attributed to the amount of water in the food, as carbohydrates and protein are more likely to bind water.

So... what's all this 55:30:15 stuff all about?

Simple. It represents the caloric distribution of carbohydrates, fat, and protein in your diet - A proper balance is necessary in order to achieve maximum performance over the long haul.

To be able to do the math, you'll need to look at the "Nutritional Facts" label on any given piece of food. Notice the number of Calories listed. In this example, it's 140. Now for the math. The amount of calories from carbohydrates and protein can be calculated my multiplying the number of grams of each of these components by 4. So, we have 56 carb calories (14 x 4) and 16 protein calories (4 x 4). As for fat calories, multiply the number of fat grams by 9 - In our example we have 72 fat calories (8 x 9). Wait a minute - On the the label, it indicates that there are only 70 grams of fat. Why the difference? It's to make the numbers easier to digest for consumers. The public likes nice, easy, numbers. So, the values are rounded.

Once you've calculated these basic values, divide each of them values by the total number of calories (in this case, 140) and multiply the result by 100. Carbs ((56/140)*100), Fat ((72/140)*100), and Protein ((16/140)*100). Our distribution, for this one item, is 40:51:11. Yes, the numbers don't add up to 100% as they should. Once again, the base numbers given on the label aren't exact - they too have been rounded to nice looking values. This rounding is what schews our results. Even though the numbers are slightly off, we can still get a pretty good idea of what our "fuel" mixture looks like.

Now that you understand how to calculate nutritional balance, let's continue to discuss the three basic elements - Carbs, Fat, and Protein.

Carbohydrates:

Carbohydrates come in two families: Simple (sugars) and Complex (starch, whole grain, "high fiber" foods). Cereals, grains, fruits, and vegetables are all good sources of carbohydrates. Carbs supply fuel in the forms of glucose, lactic acid, and glycogen.

Glucose is another name for blood sugar. It is the preferred fuel for your brain and muscles during high intensity exercise.

Lactic Acid is half of a Glucose molecule. It is produced when the oxygen supply is limited and the glucose cannot be completely combusted. Once you're done huffing and puffing, and your blood's oxygen supply returns to normal, the lactic acid can be recycled back into glucose by the liver. By regularly exercising, you can maximize oxygen delivery to muscles and possibly bypass the production of lactic acid altogether. The more oxygen, the more efficiently your energy will be produced. This, in turn, will allow the fat to burn more efficiently, sparing carbohydrates, leading to greater endurance.

Glycogen, or animal starch, is composed of many glucose molecules joined together. It is stored mainly in the liver and muscles. Glycogen can really give you an edge - As blood glucose levels fall, the liver will share its supply with the rest of the body, thus sustaining blood glucose levels and keeping your brain and muscles happy. You can think of Glycogen as your "spare tank" of gas... it keeps you going over that last hill. Glycogen level is the most critical factor in determining your endurance. When your body needs more fuel, it turns to glycogen first. To avoid depleting your glycogen level, snack (20-30 grams carb/hour) frequently *while* you are hiking, and eat a high carbohydrate meal within an hour after quitting for the day.

Because carbs are especially important during exercise, be sure to keep your levels high by snacking regularly while on the trail. The sugar can come from complex or simple carbohydrates, but you're better off in targeting the source to be from complex carbs, as they release sugar over a longer period of time and are better nutrients all around. Simple carbs, on the other hand, release a big dose of sugar all at once. Basically, all other things being equal, select the foods with the higher "Fiber Grams" count.

You don't have to worry about the fat portion of the balance when snacking - Just go for as many carbohydrates as you can get. The body has an ample supply of fat stored up so, even if you don't eat any fat, there's plenty available in the bloodstream. This is not the case with carbs - Compared to fat supplies, you have very little carbs in your system at any given time. Be sure to load up on the carbs when snacking.

As a final note on carbohydrates, never eat a high sugar snack just before exercising. Postpone your breakfast until after you've been out on the trail for an hour or two. The reason is Insulin - A hormone released when sugar is injested. Insulin stimulates cells to absorb glucose from the bloodstream, causing blood glucose levels to fall. The net effect is that your fat is locked away in storage rather than being available to your muscles. Once you begin to excercise, your glucose levels will fall even further, decreasing your overall endurance.

Fat:

When it comes to fat, a high content is a good choice for hiking food. Fat slows down digestion, allowing your body to absorb fuel at a more even distribution. Fats can be readily found in oil, butter, cheese, nuts, egg yolks, ice cream, donuts, etc.

As for any health concerns that a high fat diet can create, remember, you'll be constantly exercising - You will be maintaining, even losing, weight. The fat you are ingesting is not likely to accumulate on artery walls ("atherogenesis"). Rather, it will go where it is most needed - As fuel for the working heart and skeletal muscles. Once again, fat and carbohydrates are the preferred fuels for muscles.

Once you're off the trail, however, be sure to start avoiding fat in your diet again. On the trail, your body quickly becomes efficient at pulling fat out of your bloodstream and putting it into your adipose cells - The fat found directly below the skin. If you continue with your high fat diet, and cut the heavy exercise simultaneously, you'll pull an "Oprah" - your weight will rebound, most likely beyond the level that it was at before you went out into the woods.

The moral here is to eat a high-fat diet when on the trail but, once off the trail, do the oposite and avoid those high-fat foods. Try to maintain an exercise program that will sustain your new muscles and burn off any extra calories.

Here are some simple examples of choices that you can make to increase the fat content of your diet without necessarily added to the weight or bulk that you are carrying:

Protein:

As far as protein is concerned, you don't need a lot. Proteins contribute very little when it comes to meeting your energy needs. Again, the main components that fuel your muscles are fat and carbohydrates. Proteins, on the other hand, are important for building muscles - They are not a significant part of your fuel source.

The general US-RDA for protein is 1 g protein/kg body weight or 12-15% of your diet. Most Americans regularly consume twice that much in their diets. On the trail, you can have considerably less protein that you would normally eat and still supply more than an ample amount of protein for the muscle building and energy needs of your body.

There's really no justification for consuming extra protein - Your body will just remove the excess nitrogen and treat it like a carbohydrate. However, in order to get rid of the nitrogen waste you have to drink extra water, and water means weight. So, by having too much protein in your diet you're not only cheating yourself on fuel, but you have to carry more weight in the long run.

If you find the 15% Protein diet difficult to acheive, try:

Now that you're an expert on the basics of nutrition, we can get to the fun stuff:

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