Tourist in MSN

I think I run a calorie deficit of maybe 500 to 1000 calories a day when bike touring in remote areas where food is difficult to find or when backpacking. I bring the same type of food when canoeing or kayaking, but that is a lower exertion activity so the deficit is smaller. But I have plenty of extra calories in body fat that I can afford to lose.

I was chatting with a couple of neighbors a few years ago, learned that they did the AT. I asked her what their packs weighed at the end, she started to say - we started with, ... you asked at the end? I said yeah, I don't really care what the start was, but I was curious about how little you had at the end. My memory of the exact numbers could be wrong but I think that she said hers was 12 pounds and her husband's was 16. I assumed that was without food or water. She said they did not have any extra clothes, wore the same clothes every day. (I suspect they had extra socks.) She said about once a week they would stay at a motel, one would put on his or her rain gear and sit at the laundromat while their clothes were getting washed, the other waited naked in the motel. And at the end, they would have had to have warm clothing, so that probably made the packs heavier.

Last summer when I was backpacking on the Superior Hiking Trail, every through hiker I saw, I asked how many days of food they typically carried, ranged from 4 to 6 at the start of a segment.

Yesterday I spent a few more hours planning my backpacking trip this coming summer. My plan is to start with six days of food on each segment, but I plan to do each segment in five days, the sixth day of food is contingency if my knees blow out or for some other reason have to travel slower. A couple of the campsites are dry, will have to carry water a couple miles to each of those, was mapping out water spots as way points in my GPS route yesterday to make sure I have water when I get to the campsites. Planning for three segments, five or six days each, or a bit over two weeks in total.

Some months ago, someone asked what I carry if I am carrying over two weeks of food which I have done for biking in remote areas or kayaking where there are no stores. I am sure both of you have it all figured out for food, but if you are curious what I use, that write up is here:
https://www.bikeforums.net/21674202-post25.html

After my Iceland bike tour my Dr told me I was low on protein, so I specifically include counting grams of protein per day in my planning. And that in part is why some meat with lunches and suppers, along with plans for a protein bar each day.

And I have diabetes, need to run a low carb diet. Typical american diet is to get 45 to 65 percent of your calories from carbs, when at home I try to average around 30 to 35 percent from carbs. Biking or backpacking for hours each day helps burn off excess carbs so I can eat more carbs on such trips than I can eat at home. That said, I still can't eat the typical american diet that is very carb heavy, even when biking or backpacking or whatever. The pasta noodles I bring are Dreamfields that somehow makes the glycemic index on their noodles lower, so even though pasta meals have lots of carbs, that brand of noodles does not mess with my blood sugar as much.

Backpacking, I carry the butane mix types of stoves to keep weight down. Backpacking last year burned 38 grams of fuel per day, bring 50 grams per day to make sure I have enough. Bike touring, kayaking and canoeing if I am bringing liquid fuel stoves, I am more wasteful in my fuel use, occasionally have some extra coffee or some hot cider, those trips range from 46 to 56 grams per day of fuel, plan for 65 to make sure I have enough.