For the first few weeks anyway I’ll have about 1/2 my food delivered, 1/2 I’ll purchase along the trail.
For food you can pre-plan: What are you using for carb / protein / fat ratios? At minimum, what % carbs?
My plan is to mix a little of this, a little of that, but check that over any resupply package ( 3 - 5 days) I get a balanced diet.
This is particularly important to me, as I am a Type 1 diabetic. Any other diabetics out there - I would love to hear your strategies.
Joe B.
Joe B.
Best of luck on your hike. My wife is a recently diagnosed “brittle” Type 1 and she’s trying low carb and is having a hard time finding a trail diet. We thru-hiked the PCT together in '04, pre-diabetes.
Look at Whiteblaze.net and you’ll see at least one thread about diabetic trial diet.
As a non-diabetic, my concerns deal mainly with calories per unit weight. Assuming carbs are about 100 kcal/oz and fats about 200 kcal/oz, I shoot for a mix that gives about 130 to 140 kcal/oz. The ratio calculation is left to the interested hiker. That gives me about 2200 kcal/pound, or up to 4500 per day. I supplement that heavily with town food, of course.
I don’t even think about protein, even though I’m vegetarian. Much of my fat is cheese, nuts, and peanut butter. Much of my carbs are rolled oats. You eat enough calories of that stuff for a thru hike, you get body-builder levels of protein. You can do that on a diet of Snickers bars, too.
I try to eat as much “real” food as I can. My “junk” foods are white flour tortillas and Wheat Thin crackers. I don’t buy sweetened, packaged products except the occasional Little Debbies brownies (and Ben and Jerry’s in town, of course). I try to carry something fresh every day, if just a carrot, stalk of celery or piece of fruit.
I buy as I go as much as possible. I didn’t do a single food drop on the AT. I also didn’t loose more than a couple of pounds on the AT, so it worked for me. (The PCT was tougher on me, but it was my first long hike.) I’m also stoveless, for what that’s worth.
I don’t know if any of this applies to your diet, but best of luck anyway.
Garlic
Settled on 65% carb, 25% fat, 15% protein. Walked up and down the isles of Costco and Winco and bought everything I thought looked like trail food. About 200,000 calories worth. Put in all into a monster spreadsheet and doled it out into resupply bags.
Anyone is welcome to use the spreadsheet. Just email me.
Joe B.
Joe B.
I think this is a link to my new blog-like-thing, where you can download my food spreadsheet.
Phil- got your email, but it came in with a do-not-reply address, so I could not respond directly.
Joe B.