Food energy values

[dancier]

Unfortunately it's in calories per ounce, maybe a mathematically minded person can provide the formula to convert it into Kilojoules to grams, I tried but my head is not in the right space.

I normally allow 3000 calories a day but looking at the chart, I'm well under what I should be taking, but I'm never hungry or craving food, I just get thinner.

Food energy values
http://web.archive.org/web/200504080609 ... lories.htm

Energy needed
http://web.archive.org/web/200412141634 ... riesII.htm

[Orion]

Just multiply those values by 0.15 to get kJ/g.

[Empty]

Unfortunately it's in calories per ounce, maybe a mathematically minded person can provide the formula to convert it into Kilojoules to grams, I tried but my head is not in the right space.

I normally allow 3000 calories a day but looking at the chart, I'm well under what I should be taking, but I'm never hungry or craving food, I just get thinner.

Food energy values
http://web.archive.org/web/200504080609 ... lories.htm

Energy needed
http://web.archive.org/web/200412141634 ... riesII.htm

From what I have read the average recommended daily calories for an active male is between 1600 to 2000. You are eating 3000 and getting thinner? Half your luck mate. It's a problem I'd like to have! (assuming you are otherwise fit and well?)

[icefest]

1600-2000 calories per day is the recommended diet for a sedentary male youth or a slightly more active male quadragenarian.

A male youth exercising heavily can easily burn 3000 calories in a day. I lose just under a kg a week at 3000 calories/day when doing a hard bushwalk.

[photohiker]

1600-2000 calories per day is the recommended diet for a sedentary male youth or a slightly more active male quadragenarian.

A male youth exercising heavily can easily burn 3000 calories in a day. I lose just under a kg a week at 3000 calories/day when doing a hard bushwalk.

So in a couple of years you'd disappear altogether?

[icefest]

That would entail years of nonstop hiking. Hmmm. Doesn't sound too bad to be honest.

Honestly, I don't get more than 6 decent weeks of hiking done a year, so I gain the weight again during the semester.

[Empty]

1600-2000 calories per day is the recommended diet for a sedentary male youth or a slightly more active male quadragenarian.

A male youth exercising heavily can easily burn 3000 calories in a day. I lose just under a kg a week at 3000 calories/day when doing a hard bushwalk.

So in a couple of years you'd disappear altogether?

Yes you are right! I was looking at the line on the chart that applied to a male 4 to 8 years of age! Not sure how much food 3000 calories is but I am rarely hungry on walks. Do tend to eat a lot of muesli bars, Summer Rolls, honey nougat bars, toberlones, chocolate, oat slices, ANZAC biscuits to name a few. They must be more filling than I thought

[Orion]

Most people lose weight while bushwalking. As long as you're only out for a week or two it probably won't matter and in fact most people are really happy to come home skinnier. But if you kept up that level of activity you'd eventually be forced to start eating more. I usually budget about 3500 Calories per day. On strenuous trips with a very large pack I eat more. On easier trips I get by with less. 1600-2000 Calories is less that what I eat at home most of the time.

By the way, it's Calories with a capital C. Lower case calorie is 1000 times smaller. I know that's silly and confusing but that's how it is.

1 Calorie = 1000 calories = 1 kcal = 4.184 kJ

[Giddy_up]

Most people lose weight while bushwalking. As long as you're only out for a week or two it probably won't matter and in fact most people are really happy to come home skinnier. But if you kept up that level of activity you'd eventually be forced to start eating more. I usually budget about 3500 Calories per day. On strenuous trips with a very large pack I eat more. On easier trips I get by with less. 1600-2000 Calories is less that what I eat at home most of the time.

By the way, it's Calories with a capital C. Lower case calorie is 1000 times smaller. I know that's silly and confusing but that's how it is.

1 Calorie = 1000 calories = 1 kcal = 4.184 kJ

Thanks for that Orion, I had no idea about the Calorie, calories thing. Looking at my Easter waistline I have been eating enough to fatten a walrus............

[wayno]

you can burn anything up to 350 calories an hour from body fat, if you're fit for endurance exercise and you arent exercising too intensely, but you need a certain amount of carbs, sugar or protein to break down to glucose to feed your brain as it can't obtain energy from fat... above a certain exercise intensity, your fat metabolism drops as the body prioritises burning sugar...

[icefest]

I'm usually pretty good using metric for everything, it's just food energy that I find kj hard to use.

I didn't know about the capital thing, though I do know that 'Dietary calorie' is valid too. I usually just make sure that the context makes it obvious.

[jjoz58]

There are a few sites that convert activity into calories burnt besides the one shown. I just did 3 days in Lamington NP and did 21, 18 and 22 km on 3 consecutive days. According to these sites with the wt I'm carrying, speed etc I burnt 4500 - 6000 calories just for the walking part. Add what you burn the rest of the day and there is no way I can carry enough food to replace what I burnt roughly 5500 - 7000 calories a day. With a 29 day walk at the end of the year food is fast becoming my bugbear. I have worked my daily food up to 3500 - 4000 cal/day on average, with a good balanced meal plan. With 1 kilogram = 7700 calories I'd be loosing a couple of kilograms a week at least. Do these figures make sense? Looked at the calorie/ounce chart and unless you have a diet of oily/sugary food you just can't eat that much. Maybe I will just have to plan more caches so I can carry more food, I was planning one every 6-7 days.

[icefest]

There are a few sites that convert activity into calories burnt besides the one shown. I just did 3 days in Lamington NP and did 21, 18 and 22 km on 3 consecutive days. According to these sites with the wt I'm carrying, speed etc I burnt 4500 - 6000 calories just for the walking part. Add what you burn the rest of the day and there is no way I can carry enough food to replace what I burnt roughly 5500 - 7000 calories a day. With a 29 day walk at the end of the year food is fast becoming my bugbear. I have worked my daily food up to 3500 - 4000 cal/day on average, with a good balanced meal plan. With 1 kilogram = 7700 calories I'd be loosing a couple of kilograms a week at least. Do these figures make sense? Looked at the calorie/ounce chart and unless you have a diet of oily/sugary food you just can't eat that much. Maybe I will just have to plan more caches so I can carry more food, I was planning one every 6-7 days.

Hmm, TBH it sounds a tad too high.

How far did you say you'd be walking with how much weight?

[jjoz58]

I used the link at the start of this thread - http://web.archive.org/web/200412141634 ... riesII.htm

After converting to Kg ( I presumed the chart of wts is in pounds) - With pack I'm 235 pounds or 106.5 kg. That was 5974 calories over 8hrs or 4480 over 6hrs.

I also checked it on this site - http://www.8700.com.au/balance-and-burn ... omparison/ and it was 4672 - 6230 calories for the above wt over 6 - 8hrs. Most other sites where you can do these comparisons are in the same range.

I'm doing the AAWT in Nov - Dec Mt Hotham - Tharwa with 3 rest days so 26 days of walking and with the side trips I have planned 496.5 km or roughly 19.1 km/day. My pack for that will increase the total wt to 110.4kg. I'm not a sprinter so I was looking at 6-8 hrs walking a day.

[wayno]

question is how many calories can you digest in a day?.... can you actually eat enough calories to keep up with energy output.. with some of the no's on how many calories you can expend in a day bushwalking, i wonder if i could actually digest that on a daily basis, i think i'm lucky if i can regularly eat more than 3500 kcal a day. I know i can eat a lot more in a day but usually the following day i'm struggling to eat as many calories, take a while for my stomach to make room for more calories... i dont function well on high sugar or high fat diets.
most of my calories come from carbs

[Orion]

question is how many calories can you digest in a day?.... can you actually eat enough calories to keep up with energy output..

That sounds like a pie eating contest.

I always come home leaner after a bushwalking trip. Part of that is because the food sucks. It's lightweight, dehydrated, freeze-dried, pseudo-food. Even when I do my best to be a gourmet in the bush it's NEVER as good as what I can get in town. Oh, what I'd give for some freshly fried fish & chips sometimes. Maybe Phil with his oven can do better, but most of us just get by. And I think it makes a difference in how much you eat. If you could get really tasty fresh food you'd eat more. But instead all you have is that nasty reconstituted glop. If you're at significant altitude (not an issue in Australia of course) then it is compounded by altitude related appetite suppression.

On a month long bicycle trip near sea level with easy access to markets I was free to eat as much as I wanted. I didn't even have a stove so most of my food was cold. But it was fresh and abundant. I ate big every day and at the end of the trip I weighed the same as when I started. That's quite different from a typical bushwalking trip for me. I kept a food diary and I averaged 5000-6000 Cal. One particularly long day I ate about 10,000 Cal. That would never have happened on a mountaineering trip, no way.

[jjoz58]

question is how many calories can you digest in a day?.... can you actually eat enough calories to keep up with energy output..

And the other thing is the type of food you need to supply all the other elements you need in your diet. If it didn't matter what you ate then to eat 7000 calories is about 1.24kg of ruffles potato chips (high calorie count of 160 cal/28 grams). I know I couldn't live on that or carry it on an extended walk. If you look at a meal plan of 100cal/28 grams (ounce) you need to carry nearly 2 kg of food per day.

Most freeze dried meals I've eaten, I usually eat a whole 2 man pack, are 500 - 700 calories. I'm looking at a couple of packs from Backpackers Pantry.
1. Jamaican Style Jerk Rice and Chicken for 2. Wt of food 182grams, calories 620. That's only 3.4 calories per gram which is not high but very nice eating. With packaging it's 212 grams.
2. Chicken Cashew Curry for 2. Wt of food 148 grams, calories 580. That's 3.9 calories per gram which is higher. With packaging it's 182 grams.

I just can't eat enough or if I could my pack would be very heavy. I'll just have to pig out leading up to the walk and throw in lots of luxury, high cal foods at the caches and maybe add a couple of more caches.

[dancier]

Just multiply those values by 0.15 to get kJ/g.

Thank you for the value.

I like the foods that are over 20 kj/g and one of them, that I like the most, is the Brazil nut, weighing in at 28 kj/g.

[icefest]

Compare that to olive oil with 38kj/gram.

[north-north-west]

Just multiply those values by 0.15 to get kJ/g.

Thank you for the value.

I like the foods that are over 20 kj/g and one of them, that I like the most, is the Brazil nut, weighing in at 28 kj/g.

I think Macadamias are supposed to rate very well in this sort of thing, too. Plus, they're delicious (if a little expensive).

[dancier]

These guys allowed 4200 to 4400 calories per day for the Continental divide trail.

http://urbyville.com/for-trail-eyes-only-part-4-food/

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9hQkwz ... lKMUE/edit


I was reading an article similar to the one below where Jennifer Pharr did the Appalachian trail on 6-7000 calories plus per day, mind you she set a record time of 46 days.

http://espn.go.com/espnw/athletes-life/ ... ales-trail