Before you head out the door, you want to spend some time figuring out the best energy food for hiking as this can either make or break your hike. This is not a huge issue on easy hikes but on longer hikes, you need food and electrolytes to fuel your performance.
| Example of a Pack Out List |
| Two step process to calculate total hiking calories |
| Sample Plan for Best Energy Food for Hiking |
| Electrolytes for Hiking |
Using smart tracking for calories burned on a hike
Do you have the latest Garmin or apple watch for smart tracking to figure out how many calories you burn on a hike, at the gym or with any other activity?
Smart tracking is ONLY a guide for calories burned during an activity and will not provide you with 100% accuracy in choosing the best energy food for hiking. Read on to learn how to calculate the best energy food for hiking.
Example of a pack out list of best energy food for hiking
Here is an example of the best energy food for hiking that I used during my 19 hour hike of the Presidential Traverse in the White Mountains in June of 2023 and what data I used to help me choose the best hiking snacks. You can read more details of this hike in my article Hiking Solo: Presidential Traverse.
Data that feeds planning for the best energy food for hiking
| My Body Composition | Weather during my Presidential Traverse |
| 125 lbs | (Affects sweat rate / electrolyte loss and effort due to weather) |
| Approximately 22% body fat | Overcast, rain and snow |
| 5′ 1.5″ | 0 and -8 with windchill (32 and 17 F) |
Best energy food for hiking
When I hike I am moving the entire time (i.e. burning calories) therefore I want to choose the best energy food for hiking right from the start of the hike to the finish. For my Presidential Traverse in the White Mountains I ate steadily for 19 hours right from my 3:15 a.m. start. Here is what I ate and drank over the 19 hours:
- Total water/electrolytes: 4.5L with 10 NUUN electrolyte tablets
- 4 sandwiches each made from: 1 bagel, 3.5oz 98% fat free roasted turkey breast, 1 slice cheese, 1tsp butter
- 3 Rx Bars (peanut butter chocolate is my favorite)
- 3 Lara Bars (fudge brownie – yum!)
- 1 Mars bar
Food and hydration are important to be able to fuel our performance and decision-making. See my article on The Mindset of Winners: Confidence
Two step process to calculate total hiking calories needed per day
Below is the approach I use to calculate my hiking calories. There are many calorie calculators online but each of our body’s composition is different, our ages, our training and the weather conditions on each hike, affecting our caloric needs. Here is the two step process to calculate total hiking calories needed per day:
- Calculate calories needed from your regular diet
- Calculate extra calories needed (i.e. hiking snacks) by using a smart tracking device DURING TRAINING ACTIVITIES (i.e. activities before your actual hike)
Calculate calories needed from your regular diet
There are two ways to figure out the best energy food for hiking based on your regular diet:
No Flexible Dieting Calculator
The easy way is without a flexible dieting calculator and ensures you are getting carbohydrates, protein and fat at every meal on a hike
- Eat a sandwich while hiking for breakfast, lunch and dinner (or whatever meal times transpire on the hike)
- Bagels work great as they are calorie dense and you can squish your sandwich down then wrap it in saran wrap to minimize the volume
- Add a luncheon meat, cheese and butter to get protein, carbohydrates and fat at each meal
- If you are having a sandwich at each meal you can vary up the meats, cheese and type of bagel so you will not get tired of the same taste and texture while hiking
- You can even get fancy and have a buttered bagel with pepperoni sticks and a chunk of cheese a la carte
Photo by Carson Foreman on Unsplash
Flexible Dieting Calculator
A flexible dieting calculator – or counting your macros, as it is more commonly known is a quick way to figure out your total calories needed each day. It is a bit of work and involves these steps:
- Use a free online tool like the Macro Calculator found on calculator.net
- When choosing your activity level, choose your regular every day activity level
- Choose “Maintain weight” as a goal
- This calculator can be understated in recommended calories if you do not use the “Settings” drop down menu & enter your approximate body fat with the “Katch-McArdle” method. As an example, the macro calculator recommends my maintenance calories to be 1627 but in actuality it is closer to 1800 calories as a 55 years old female with around 22% body fat
- To approximate your body fat percentage, google “body fat percentages woman (or man)” and compare your body composition to one of the pictures of people with different levels of body fat
Calculate extra calories needed through smart tracking device monitoring FROM ACTIVITIES DONE BEFORE YOUR HIKE (i.e. from your training activities)
Many watches, like Garmin and Apple enable smart tracking technology to spit out data on how many calories are burned during an activity. As I warned above, this is only a very rough approximation but useful for figuring out the best energy food for hiking that is needed in addition to regular meals (i.e. over and above sandwiches). Think of it as hiking snack foods.
Here is what is needed to calculate your hiking snack foods:
• Long before your planned hike, wear your smart tracking device in your training. Hopefully your training will mimic, to some degree the level of difficulty of your actual hike. For example, you may find a steep hill in a forest by you that is roughly the same elevation as the ascent on your hike, and do repeats on this hill for training
• Record your estimated calories burned during your training
• Use this number to in turn calculate your estimated calories burned per hour
• You can calculate calories burned on an ascent (hills) and then calories burned on relatively level trail. I personally only use one calculation to keep it simple. I use roughly 200 to 250 calories per hour as my caloric needs for snack
• Now I look for best energy foods for hiking that meet my caloric needs. I personally love peanut butter chocolate Rx bars at 210 calories and for variety I use chocolate brownie Lara bars at 200 calories
• To balance out the difference between hiking uphill, downhill and on flat trail, I estimate that I probably only need approximately 100 calories every hour so eat one bar around my sandwiches every other hour. Note that I choose energy bars that have carbohydrates, protein and fat. Some have more protein than others.
Ever thought of looking to adventure movies for your next thrill seeking pursuit?
Sample Plan for Best Energy Food for Hiking
Putting this all together, here is what my plan for best energy food for hiking looked like for my 19 hour Presidential Traverse in the White Mountains:
| HIKE DAY 1 | |
| 3:00 a.m. | My usual breakfast in the truck before I embarked on my hike |
| 3:15 a.m. Start Climbing up Mt. Marcy (Peak #1) | |
| 5:30 a.m. | Rx Bar |
| 6:30 a.m | Bagel sandwich |
| Peak #1 done & next section is travelling on top of mountain, doing 4 additional summits (Husband picked me up at top of Mt. Washington) | |
| 8:00 a.m. | Lara Bar |
| 10:00 a.m. | Rx Bar |
| 12:00 p.m. | Bagel Sandwich |
| 2:00 p.m. End of hike day #1 | Lara Bar |
| HIKE DAY 2 | |
| 9:00 a.m. Start at Mt. Washington (Husband drove me up auto road to start) | Breakfast in the trailer |
| 11:15 p.m. | Start hike |
| 12:00 p.m. | Bagel Sandwich |
| 1:30 p.m. | Rx Bar |
| 2:45 p.m. | Mars Bar |
| 3:30 p.m. Start final descent off of mountains | |
| 4:00 p.m. | Lara Bar |
| 6:00 p.m. END of hike | Bagel Sandwich |
Electrolytes for hiking
Electrolytes for hiking can be overlooked as an essential fuel, especially in cooler weather. My own preferred brand is NUUN and is available online and in select stores in the U.S. and Canada. There are many brands available. You want to make sure that the electrolyte you choose has:
• sodium
• potassium
• magnesium
• calcium
I do use the “sport” product line of nuun which uses dextrose as the sweetener (easy for the body to process) only because I want the extra bit of sugar (15 calories/tab) when I do short hikes (i.e. no need to carry food).
Definitely find electrolytes for hiking that comes in a compact and portable form, like tablets. I use 4 tablets per 2L bladder of water in my backpack and carry extra tablets with me for water refills on a hike
For help in calculating your electrolyte needs, see my article here.
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Hopefully this guide on calculating and choosing the best energy food for hiking provides insight into how to fuel your next hike. It takes some work at first but is worth it when you are able to perform at your best because your body has the right fuel to sustain your activities. Here is a final tip on fuelling your body:
Bend the rules. Bring at least one food item that ignores all the above rules and will brighten your day when you hit a low point on a tough hike. Mine is a chocolate bar.
A Mars bar was my sugary treat when I wandered off in the wrong direction in the White Mountains. Read about this in my post Short Inspirational Stories
Read more to help master your next hike…
