Appalachian Trail Thru Hiker's Plan For Food

what's up everyone welcome back to the channel my name is kelly hayes i'm a registered dietitian and today i'm going to tell you guys about what my plan is for food on the appalachian trail before i jump into the video i want to just say a huge thank you to everybody new on here that's followed me i got a lot of new subscribers over the past couple weeks so that is awesome thank you guys so much for the support and i'm so excited to have you guys along for this journey it's going to be so much fun i also want to say a huge thank you to everybody who has donated to my channel guys that means so much to me and i thank you so much from the top to the bottom of my heart i can't say it enough i'm blown away by the kindness of this hiking community it truly is special okay so let's get into it today i'm going to be talking about what i'm going to be bringing for food on the appalachian trail like i said i am a registered dietitian so i thought this video would be fun to make because i love food and so does everybody so yeah let's let's hop right into it i'm going to talk about what i'm bringing for breakfast lunch dinner and snacks first and then i'm gonna go into a little bit of the nutrition side of it and talk about how i have a calculated calories as far as like how much my body is going to need on trail how i estimated it and came up with those numbers and all those kind of things okay so breakfast kind of just gone off of what i bring on backpacking trips now i'm not a huge breakfast person one of the things i'm really going to be prioritizing while i'm on trail is making sure that i get enough protein protein is very important i think it's one of those macronutrients that gets kind of overlooked on trail most foods that everybody likes to eat has fat and carbs and you need those obviously for energy carb is the preferred macronutrient for energy fat is really great on trail because it's nine calories per gram so that gives you enough calories and one of the easiest ways to get enough protein in your diet in any situation is to start out having a good high protein breakfast i normally just do a bar or oats that's like what i normally do for breakfast so i bought one of these these are really good containers to bring on trail because they're light and they screw on and i can use this to make overnight oats so i brought obviously i'm gonna bring oats this is kind of i took this out of my backpacking thing right now and it's got oats in it this is flaxseed and chia seeds these have really good omega-3 fatty acids that are good for your brain and they're just like those healthy fats that your body needs this also has a little bit of protein in it so this is good to dress up your overnight oats and i've got a little protein pack in there that i can add to the oats as well i have these hemp seeds that i can add now and now some of this stuff i'm not gonna be able to find on trail i do plan on sending myself like two packages a month with various items that i cannot get on trail another thing speaking of that is my protein powder so this is another thing like my go-to breakfast one scoop of this protein powder has 22 grams of protein and you mix it with hot water this is hazelnut coffee or something like that um i think i use bomar nutrition protein it's my favorite protein you buy it in bulk you buy like a five to a five pound tub it's massive so one of those will last me the whole trail and i'll just mail that to myself in bags like this and just mix it with in my cup i'm bringing this collapsible cup so that with a good bar or these waffles with 10 grams of protein with a you know this has 200 grams of or 200 calories in it 6 grams of protein 16 grams of fat this is great that's a full breakfast right there so i brought granola here this is a high protein granola this is a lot of calories in it too a lot of the stuff that you bring on trail you know you want to think about weight and calories and how much it's giving you and if it justifies its weight so all this stuff walnuts this this is probably 300 calories 300 or 400 calories it adds up really quick when you're with nuts and things that have high fat i have this peanut butter um cliff bars it's coffee i am bringing these little folgers coffee it's always good to have coffee in the morning i'm gonna need that caffeine and then obviously y'all i have everything in their boxes but i wouldn't take the box i would take all of these out and just put them in my food bag you know not have extra things that you're not going to need on trail with you all right so that was breakfast like i said i don't eat much breakfast but i'm definitely going to make sure that i eat breakfast on trail it is vital to get enough calories for the day and also have enough energy to start out strong lunches i like to do something quick and easy i still want to be moving through lunch so i'll probably have again protein bars i really like tuna wraps for lunch on trail we'll see how long it takes me to get so tired of these but i also like these wild caught salmon packets from chicken of the sea this thing has 20 grams of protein in it and it's only three ounces so these taste really good with some tortillas and then you can also buy in bulk on amazon mayonnaise packets soy sauce packets hot sauce packets i am a sauce person i love swisses so i'm gonna probably be buying all these bulk sauces from amazon and that'll be another thing that i can resupply with my little box and then also when you go into town and um go to like taco bell or whatever you just like grab a big thing of mild sauce and take it with you in your pack give me that sauce i love pepperoni and cheese the lenny and larry's cookies that's a good supplement to all this because it's carb heavy and protein heavy um i also have like chips summer sausage just things like that probably just graze on dried fruit along with my lunch you always do peanut butter and tortillas for lunch as well dinner is when i like to cook my hot meal there's nothing better than getting home home as in camp and cooking yourself a nice hot meal after hiking all day so some of my favorite things for dinners on trail i like to do these rice packets so this is already cooked rice you just warm it up it's a little heavy but i mean this is there's 500 calories in this thing so it's kind of it's it's a meal and then you mix it with some beef jerky and like i was talking with those soy sauce packets mix that up and it's like hibachi chicken and rice so freaking good so i'll be doing added some beef jerky now it's like kabachi steak rice that's what we're gonna pretend tastes pretty good freaking good i'll be doing that another favorite thing for me to do is mashed potatoes and mac and cheese mix these together heaven so good like i want to make that tonight for dinner but again i would take i would buy this box of mac and cheese and then just pour the pasta into a plastic bag a hiker's best friend and um it makes it a lot easier to be packed out and a lot lighter and then of course i'll be bringing ramen i'm going to try to get some refried beans i like to eat that with fritos so with a meal like this i might eat a tuna packet or one of these epic bars just so that i'm getting some protein along with all these carbs and then of course i'm gonna be bringing some backpacking meals this is my favorite one it's pad thai with chicken it's so good y'all they give you this little lime packet a sriracha packet and a peanut butter this is a five star meal on trail but it's also five star price so this thing was like 11 bucks however i think i'm gonna just buy a bulk order of these which makes them a little bit cheaper other just random snacks and stuff i like these little planters various nuts nuts are great because they're lightweight they've got good sources of fat and protein and calories of course trail mix i talked about these epic bars it's basically just like a beef jerky stick these are a little pricey but this little thing has 13 grams of protein and these are really good protein bars sour patch kids these are my favorite troll snack ever another one of my favorite snacks are these little go-go squeezes these i almost like almost they they don't really justify their weight because this packet it's got this plastic it's pretty heavy and there's only 60 calories in this thing but it's got fruit and vegetables in it and these are just kind of like one of those splurge things that i want to take on trill because i like them so i might be taking these every now and then out there just so that i feel like i'm getting some fruits and vegetables speaking of that extra nutrition stuff i am bringing these green powders also by beaumar nutrition and this is a greens powder it just has all like the micro nutrients that you would get from vegetables obviously i'm not going to be eating as many vegetables as i normally do in normal life on trails so this is a good little supplement for that the serving size is very small so a bag of that could last me a long time and you just mix it with water so that could be another thing that i send in my little resupply packages to myself as far as hydration goes i really love these propel packets that you just mix in water they're good for electrolytes especially in the summer when you sweat a lot you'll definitely need to be replaced i'll definitely need to be replenishing my electrolytes so i have these little packets for that hydration is also very important especially when it's hot outside you lose a lot of water if you're hiking all day you're burning so many calories you're losing so much water so typically in a clinical world you recommend one milliliter per calorie recommended so that's like 3.5 to 4 liters a day a gallon but i'll probably need more of that i don't know if that's feasible on trail because sometimes there's not water sources or whatever but i'm going gonna be trying to drink as much water as possible so water bottles i'm bringing my smart water bottle for hydration somebody messaged in the comments of my gear video and said i should swap the top of my sawyer for one of these flip caps so that the tip is not exposed to germs and bacteria and stuff that was a great idea y'all so i bought that check that off of the list i think it's important to kind of have an idea of how many calories that your body requires just in regular life because then that can kind of give you a little bit of an idea of how many calories that you're going to need on trill and this is important because calories are what give us energy and so if you don't have enough calories then that's when you start running the risk of getting hurt or getting sick or just getting worn out oh i'm just going to talk about my stats now i'm five seven about 150 pounds i'm guessing i haven't weighed myself in probably like two months but i'm guessing around 150 and about 23 to 25 body fat my bmr which is basal metabolic rate is 1500 calories so basal metabolic rate is basically how many calories that my body burns at rest how do i know all these stats so at my last job we had an inbody machine which is a bioelectrical impedance machine that you stand on it shoots us a short current through your body it sounds a lot more intense than it really is you can't feel anything but it actually gives you your body composition stats so it'll tell you how much muscle is in your body how much fat and all of those things so that's how i know this so what i'm doing to estimate my calorie needs right now is i'm taking my bmr and then i'm multiplying it by an activity multiplier so that's like what my everyday life is like how often you know how much am i moving in my job how much am i exercising things like that so right now my body requires with the exercise that i do i do crossfit four or five times a week i walk two to three miles at work so i need about 2 300 calories right now to maintain the weight that i'm at so for the appalachian trail obviously your activity multiplier looks way different and i just kind of estimated it because there's really not much literature you don't learn in school about through hiking you know this is not a thing that typical people do so i am going to just multiply my bmr by like 2 or 2.5 which gives me around 3 500 to 4 000 calories rough estimate of how much that i will need on the appalachian trail now this is a rough estimate it could be more it could be less it just kind of depends when i'm on trail i'm not going to be focusing on numbers i'm not going to be counting my calories i'm going to just be going off solely how my body feels that's kind of how i'm going to judge what i need on trail as far as that goes you know this is what i am doing on trail it may not be what you need to do on trail so i'm not making any recommendations to you i am just telling you what i am doing everybody is different everybody's body's different everybody's going to need different things i hope you enjoyed today's video and if you guys want me to make any other videos regarding my appalachian trail or have any further questions about what i'm doing for something else related to the trail let me know and i can probably put together a video for that but for now um i will see you guys on the next one thank you so much for watching thank you so much for subscribing i can't wait to hike the trail it's getting closer and closer every day and i'm just getting more excited as the days pass so i'll see you guys on the next one and i hope you have a good rest of your week bye

Channel: Kelly Hays Hikes

Views: 33,759

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Id: TVkjYQl4D4I

Length: 15min 36sec (936 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021