Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Question for overweight hikers

I don't know where you got you figures, but they are way off. A normal person burns almost 100 calories per hour doing nothing. You burn about 50 calories per hour even when you're sleeping. Running a 12 minute mile (very slow) burns about 600 calories per hour, while running a 6 minute mile (medium fast) burns almost 1200 calories per hour. According to this (http://www.changingshape.com/resources/calculators/caloriesburnedcalculator.asp) site, heavy backpacking burns 680 calories per hour and that is at sea level. At high altitude, it goes way up and you have a hard time eating to boot. If we just say 1500 Calories per hour, which I think is low, 12 hours of climbing on Whitney is 18,000 Calories = almost five pounds of fat.

S. Sam, Alan, Alt, Fish (not on your back), Nor, Bones, Ape, Moe, Candace, Eric, Ken, Scotty, Sipako, Cak, Mark, Tami, S. Stryder, Spine, Keith, Jeff, Chris, Joliet, Tom, John, End, Glen, 4X, and others – I’m going to burn some calories soon hiking up to Mount Conness as soon as I get 1 or more others to go – I’d like to start from the parking lot on Saddlebag Lake Road just off Tioga Pass Road – Anyone able to go, please email me using the little icon above. Here's some pics from other's:

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/davea/conness.html
http://community.webshots.com/album/80233072GAcMyh
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/davea/conness2.html

100 calories an hour while hiking is a joke. a normal person requires almost 2400 calories a day (=100/hour) with no exercise. It is well known that most people can't eat as much as they burn when climbing big mountains.

Sam -- A 150 pound man burns about 100 calories in covering a mile on level ground. Speed does not matter much. The faster you go, the more calories you burn per minute, but calories burned per unit of distance do not change much. Thus, it would take about 1100 calories to cover 11 miles on level ground.

Of course, energy expenditure increases if you are going uphill, but the figure does not even double for a slope like Whitney's. Altitude matters as well, but the bottom line is that 4000 calories will get our 150 pound man up and down Whitney.

AlanK-

I don't think even you believe what you are saying, but let's put it to a simple test. I'll bet you $1000 that you'll lose weight if you climb Whitney for 10 straight days @ 12 hours per day and only eat 4000 calories per day. That's probably less than one of Doug's pancakes for breakfast and his hamburger plus fries in the afternoon with no snacks on the trail. If you really believe what you are saying, take my bet. It would be the easiest money I've ever made.

Why would I take such a sucker bet? You put me in a position I never advocated. I burn well over 2000 calories just going through a sedentary day. I never denied that! If it took the better part of 4000 calories to go up and down Whitney, I would burn over 6000 calories on each trip and you would win a bet that had little to do with the topic at hand.

The other obvious problem is that I'd lose a lot more than $1000 being off work for those 10 days. The stakes are simply inadequate.

But, don't bother to raise the stakes to something more interesting. I have no interest in hiking Whitney 10 days in a row. If you want to think that my lack of interest in the task means that it takes 18,000 calories to do Whitney one, be my guest. It certainly does me no harm!

I do, however, believe what I said. Think about the guy from San Diego that hiked the entire John Muir trail in less than 5 days. He certainly wasn't carrying the 50 pounds of fat that you guys seem to think he must have burned. And he was in fine shape when he finished.

Comments on energy expenditure (after some more thought):

1. A while back, I looked into data on how energy expenditure depends on slope. I fit the data rather well with the following:
E/d/M = (3540 J/km/kg)*[1 + 8.38*tan(A)], where E is energy used, d is distance covered, M is body mass, and A is angle (with respect to horizontal). Thus, on a flat surface, a 70 kg person uses 95 Calories (4180 J/Cal) to cover 1 mile (1.61 km). Multiply this by 11 miles and by 1.87 (for a slope that rises 6000' while covering 11 miles) and you get around 2000 Calories to go *up* Whitney.

2. I had trouble finding data for energy expenditure going down hill, but it is less than what is required on a flat surface. Just to be safe, let's use 1000 Calories for the descent. That means the Whitney trip takes 3000 Calories for a 70 kg (154 lb) person. Expenditure is proportional to body mass, so a 200 lb person uses around 3900 Calories.

3. Energy expenditure does increase with altitude because the basal metabolic rate increases. I found one article that mentioned a 28% increase in the BMR for an altitude similar to Whitney's. I also found smaller numbers. This efect is also temporary. BMR decreases with acclimitization, although it does not go all the way back down to the low altitude rate. Still, even a 28% increase in a BMR of 100 Calories/hour does not alter out calculations significantly. As I said earlier, the altitude effect is not that large (for a 14500' peak).

4. I have found references to extreme endurance athletes expending up to 6000 Calories in a day. Perhaps you can dredge up a larger figure. I doubt that anyone can come up with 18000 Calories used in a day. Certainly not for something relatively mundane (in the world of extreme sports) like climbing Whitney.

The bottom line: I exaggerated in indicating that a person of normal weight can burn an entire pound of fat on a Whitney hike.

You haven't seen me hike! LOL It seems I have lost several pounds of fat on a long hike but it's just water loss I guess.

Thanks Alan.

OK this is evil. Alan what about the bodies conversion from fat to muscle mass - say during a weeklong trip up Whitney which includes some side trips and acclimitization. Isn't muscle mass heavier than fat? After some long backpacking trips I have no trouble humping it up a big pass or the stairs at work when before the trip it would have been harder. What's going on there?

Ok you chemists and biologists,do the math on this one:

A man,6'3",270lbs,43 yrs.old,who skipped breakfast was going up the main Mt.Whitney Trail with 35 lbs. of gear and Talus Scree on his back.How many calories would he burn to Trail Camp?Of course thats taking out the wind factor,ambient air temp.,barometric pressure,and what he had for breakfast.
Of course by now,I forgot what Candace's original query was.

apeman -- Muscle weighs more than the same volume of fat, for what that's worth. You can't convert fat to muscle. You can both burn fat and add muscle mass through exercise. You can also increase your fitness without adding any muscle or burning off much fat, which is what happens on a typical backcountry trip.

AlanK-

That's a really nifty formula that you used to justify your previous conclusion, but I don't see any demonstration that it is correct. I searched a dozen web sites (search google using "exercise calories") and found that a slow walk consumes between 300 - 400 Calories per hour and moderate-heavy backpacking between 600 - 800 Calories per hour. None of these are adjusted for the altitude effects of Whitney, but they clearly yield a very different answer from yours. Given that you declined my bet, even at a higher $ amount, I think your response tells us more than your magic formula post.

WAclimber -- you have fallen into a logical trap. You need to think in terms of Calories per mile, not per hour. For example, running 10 miles on flat ground at 6 minutes per mile burns about 1000 Calories -- 100 Calories per mile or 1000 Calories per hour. Covering the same 10 miles at 12 minutes per mile still burns about 1000 Calories -- the same 100 Calories per mile but only 500 Calories per hour. At 24 minutes per mile, you're still burning around 100 Calories per mile but you're down to around 250 Calories per hour. Etc.

Moderate to heavy backpacking only burns 600-800 Calories per hour at a good, stiff pace. It is better to consider Calories per mile. Two guys hiking up Whitney, one in 5 hours and the other in 10 hours, expend about the same amount of energy. Yet, by your logic, the slower guy burns twice as much! That's obviously crazy!

As for altitude effects, I mentioned that ones basal metabolic rate goes up with altitude. However, the number of additional calories to cover a given distance does not change much at all, at least at 14,500'.

My formula is not magic. It is simply a fit to published data. Any high school kid should be able to produce the same result (given that algebra is supposedly required for graduation).

You are thinking like a physicist, not a biologist. Yes, it would take the same amount of energy to lift an object up a given distance irrespective of rate - that is a linear equation. However, it does not take the same amount of calories for a human to move up a mountain at different rates because physiology is inherently non-linear. That is why the calculation ends up having both a time and distance variable.

Waclimber -- You are absolutely correct. I am thinking like a physicist. There is a good reason for that. By the way, we deal with highly nonlinear systems all the time. I also work with biologists who totally agree with what I have been saying.

The physiological data are all consistent with what I wrote. Note that I am referring to measured "data" and not equations. Many articles have been written on the subject over several decades, both technical and popular. This is a very simple issue.

Here is an example -- a 70 kg nonlinear man running at various speeds (speed is in mph).
Speed--Cal/hr--Cal/mi
5.0----563-----113
5.2----633-----122
6.0----704-----117
6.7----774-----116
7.0----809-----116
7.5----880-----117
8.0----950-----119
8.6----985-----115
9.0----1056----117
10.0---1126----113
10.9---1267----116

Note that Cal/hr varies from 563 to 1267 while Cal/mi varies only from 113 to 122 (i.e., is basically constant).

Note also that, by your logic, a slow person burns way more energy than a fast one doing the same thing. That's both counterintuitive and wrong.

OK?

WAclimber -- I don't care much about people who fret over bandwidth on public message boards, especially when we're discussing something that's actually relevant to the board. On the other hand, we have beaten the subject, if not to death, then at least into a coma.

You have the persistence of a Whitney climber. If you want to converse off line, e-mail me at AlanK987@hotmail.com.

Sooo, back to the original question, which I agree is really being beaten to death. But, my two cents worth: I am an underweight woman in my thirties, my husband is a very overweight man a couple years older(he struggles to lose weight, but sits around the hight 200's) . We have gone rim-to-rim across the grand canyon twice. The first time, he said he was glad he did it, but would never be back. Two seasons later, he was. Although we train a lot before, and we were determined to make it, it was a much, much harder hike for him. Still, we talk of going again next summer. Why? We love the Canyon. It is too neat a place not to go through. I love hearing him (a fairly indoor kind of guy) tell people about how many different colors one will see from the inside of the canyon, and how light changes everything from one minute to the next. Still, when I was planning to summit Whitney last year, there was no question about his going. He knows his limitations. Fish, I would love to know more about how you lost your weight, as this is something my good husband struggles with one a daily basis, but we try not to let it limit our lives as a family too much. We have four sons, and have promised each of them a hike across the Grand Canyon when they make their Eagle Scout. One down, three to go! This is something my husband would never miss!

canyonhikr,
I did it the old fashioned way,diet and exercise.Totally cut out sugar,soda,began eating less and lots of exercise.Started riding my mountain bike first a few miles now up to 30 or more.Lots of hard,trail hiking or walking in general.Most important,can't stress it enough,drink lots of water.
No secret,just the same old stuff I tried dozens of times only to have it fail time and time again.Its been 3 years since I started and its still coming off only alot slower now.Good lock

I agree with Fish's formula. I would only add one thing. I started my weight loss program (the same as Fish's) with a visit to my doctor. This did two things. 1) It ruled out any medical reasons why I shouldn't be able to lose weight and 2) gave me a monthly checkup/encouragement visit (read feedback). I started with 30 minutes of brisk walking six days per week with no aspirations of doing anything more. Now 15 months later I'm down 60 pounds, hiking Whitney in August, and training for a marathon in October. Best of luck to you and your husband. One word of experience. Like me he probably didn't gain all of the extra weight overnight. It's not going to come off overnight either. You all need to commit to the long haul and a change of lifestyle. I can't begin to tell you how this has affected my life.

AlanK-

Saw an interesting quote relevent to our discussion from Sue Nott (first American woman to climb the Eiger north face in winter - an incredible accomplishment) in the most recent Outside miagazine: "My energy expenditure is usually about three times more than the calories I consume. On a big route, I'll lose 10 to 15 pounds off my 120 pound body."

Since the Eiger nordwand is 'only' about a 2 - 3 mile "hike", though very vertical, it would appear that your formula just doesn't hold up to the test of the real world of climbing.

WAclimber -- At the risk of inflaming the Waster Watchdog, I'll answer you here. :-) I am open to more discussion off line if you're interested.

My formula does not apply to climbing and I never claimed it did. I'm sure that climbing takes more calories per distance covered than running or walking. Someone undoubtedly has data. I'd be interested if anyone wants to point to any.

Climbers are not (usually) physiologists. Sue Nott undoubtedly burned a lot of calories. She probably burned more than she took in en route. However, those 10-15 pounds were undoubtedly almost all water. It certainly wasn't fat -- I'm sure she does not have 10-15 pounds of fat that is accessible to burn on the relevant time scale. She may not have that much fat in her entire body! (<10% fat is not uncommon in endurance athletes, men or women. Endurance athletes have far less fat than most people.)