How many calories?

[comanighttrain]

Odd question,

How many calories do you guys generally consume when out and about?

[Martin]

The true answer is more than enough. The slightly more scientific answer is that a normal adult male will consume about 2500 kcal per day under normal conditions. Obviously, if you are a building site labourer or a polar explorer you will consume far more than this and if you are a desk jockey like me you will consume far less.

When I am doing vigorous physical exercise, my heart rate rises from its resting rate of around 60 bpm to around 160 bpm, which I can sustain for extended periods. When I am working at this rate, I burn calories at a rate of about 900 kcal per hour. Therefore, on a days hard graft on the moors, it is not inconceivable for me to burn in excess of 6000 kcal. Of course, for short periods of time, this is not a problem and is even considered beneficial when your a fatso like me, but after a while you will start to lose muscle mass and it will seriously impair your performance.

I have got into this subject quite a bit over the last year as I normally wear a heart rate monitor when I go running which allows me to gauge how hard I am working very accurately and allows me to train to a plan rather than just seeing how much I can sweat which can lead to injuries and over training.

Hope this helps

Martin

[comanighttrain]

wow looks like you go into greater detail than me!

As I also tend to be up and down hillsides I'd make a similar estimate... I generally aim to cram in about 3200kcal per day on big slogs, with about 100-120g of protein. Weight loss is pretty unavoidable.. Army rations generally are around 4000kcal per day and I'd imagine they generally dont need as much as hikers.

Yesterday was terrible. Only ate about 1200kcal and no protein, made the dumb mistake of thinking ill cook when i'm higher up, but ofcourse higher up is wet/cold/windy!

[Martin]

Yeah, the last thing you want to be is hungry. My rucksack has great pouches built into the hip belt. I can keep half a dozen Tracker bars in each one which seem to give a great energy burst. For lunches, I really like some crusty bread rolls and a big lump of cheddar. It's got most of what you need for a day out and is fairly light and doesn't really matter if it gets a bit squashed in your pack. Even with best intentions before I set off, I can rarely be bothered to fire my stove up so this sort of grub suits me.

Martin