Because Momma and I have been working on weight loss together, I’ve been using the My Fitness Pal app on my droid phone.  I love numbers and am a huge data nerd, so playing with intake & burn is fun for me.

I found this article from 2005 by Jim Wood and decided to play around with some numbers.  I’ve done all of my food shopping already – basing it only on what I know I’ll like.  As earlier entries suggest, I really really love food.   Backpacking is a great excuse to eat badly.  Here is my food bag all done up in Excel:

I took Mr. Wood’s calculations for determining daily basal calories, thermic effect metabolism, and activity related metabolism and created a formula in Excel.

For a 50 mile trip spread out over 5 days and 4 nights (assuming half-days on the first and last day), I came up with a total burn of 28, 618 calories.  As you can see, my rather opulent food bag there comes in somewhat short of that amount.

That is why a love of food and a love of backpacking go so well together.

And I likely won’t eat all of that food.  In fact, I know I won’t.  Chances are, I’ll only be able to stomach half of the Cliff bars.  I like them well enough, but the last hike I was ravenous that last mile or so but couldn’t force myself to eat another Cliff bar.  The Gatorade powder is only for the end of the hike if those uphills get tough.  I prefer water (with that nice little hint of iodine), but it is good for a little turbo boost if I need it.   The pepperoni, smoked mozzarella, and Heath bars are as good as gone though.

Total estimated deficit (not counting pre- and post- hike gluttony) is 18, 828 calories.  Divided by 3, 500 (one pound of body weight) comes to 5.4 lbs.

We’ll see.   I plan on making up at least 3, 500 of that on the celebratory meal of Belgian waffles with a side of cheeseburger at Susan’s Restaurant in Springdale.