For the one day on the trail when finding a restaurant is inconvenient.
The above meals (쇠고기 고추장 비빔밥 = soegogi gochujang bibimbap, i.e., mixed rice with beef and red-chili paste) are the Korean version of, say, Mountain House freeze-dried trail meals: just add hot water, wait ten or so minutes, then dig in. As you can see on the packaging, each meal is about 348 calories, which is barely anything. Four meals will therefore be almost 1,400 calories—easily enough to get me through the day.
On the day I eat these meals, I'll be walking at least 31 kilometers because I'll be doing two segments of the overall course. Assuming a pace of about 4 kph (I'll start at around 4.8 kph, but I'll slow down over the course of the day), that's about 7.75 hours of walking, maybe more if we include rest breaks. According to my MyFitnessPal app, 465 minutes (7.75 hours) of moderate walking burns 2,808 calories on top of my basal metabolic rate, which is 2,103 calories. 2,808 + 2,103 = 4,911 calories burned for the day. Subtract the above meal from that (1,392 calories), and you get a calorie deficit of 3,519. Classically speaking, 3,500 calories is a single pound of fat, so I'll have lost a pound by the end of the day—and that's even after eating my meal. The math also assumes I consume nothing else the whole day except water. No candy bars, no sodas.
I can't expect a 3,500-some-calorie deficit every single day of the walk, but if I can keep my caloric deficit over 2,000 every day while eating healthily, my blood sugar will plummet, and I'll shed a few pounds by the time I'm done with Jeju. More specifically: assuming an average deficit of 2,000 calories per day, I can expect a total deficit of 34,000 calories for the whole trip, which is almost 10 pounds of fat lost.
I've argued elsewhere, though, that the calories in, calories out model has its flaws. While the math looks neat and clean, the reality will be very different because all sorts of factors will come into play: my tendency to misbehave food-wise, the roughness of the terrain, the quality of my sleep every night, the actual distances I walk each day, the time of day when I eat, the amount I eat per meal, my hourly hormonal condition, etc.—these things and more will influence actual weight loss. As long as I come back from Jeju a few inches thinner at the waist, I'll be happy.
And now that I have the above supplies, which weigh nearly nothing since the contents are freeze-dried, I'll have something to eat on the one day (Day 10, as it happens) when a restaurant or convenience store will be too far away to walk to.
9 comments:
How hot does the water have to be and where will you get it?
Normally, the water should be boiling-hot. I'll be in a motel that night. Most motels have one of those electric teapots that can heat water up quickly, so I'll just use that. Otherwise, hot water from the tap will do.
Were I out camping, I'd use my own system, which involves chemical briquettes and a foldable metal trivet on which I'd place my bowl of water to be heated.
They do have "foldable" electric kettles that are very portable and light. The body is a rubber construction that accordions into a flat shape no thicker than the heating element on the bottom. I thought we had one of those lying around somewhere, but it's been years since we've used it so I have no idea where it might be.
Question about what you wrote at the end:
"I've argued elsewhere, though, that the calories in, calories out model has its flaws. While the math looks neat and clean, the reality will be very different because all sorts of factors will come into play: my tendency to misbehave food-wise, the roughness of the terrain, the quality of my sleep every night, the actual distances I walk each day, the time of day when I eat, the amount I eat per meal, my hourly hormonal condition, etc.—these things and more will influence actual weight loss."
You mention seven different factors that will influence who much weight you actually lose, but most of these don't necessarily seem to be flaws in the CICO model, per se. Food misbehaving and amount eaten fall under CI, while roughness of terrain and distanced walked fall under CO. They might be tricky to calculate, but they are not really flaws in the model, are they?
Sleep quality, time of eating, and hormonal condition, on the other hand, do sound like they would fall outside the CICO model, though. Conventional wisdom says that poor sleep can lead to weight gain, as can eating close to bedtime, but I'm not too educated on the science behind that. I also have no idea how hormones affect weight loss/gain.
The CICO model is usually portrayed as simple and ruthlessly mathematical. Your food calories for the day are your calories-in score. Add your basal metabolic rate to the calories burned while exercising, and that's your calories-out score. Subtract calories-out from calories-in, and if your score is negative, ta-dah! You're in a caloric deficit. This is exactly the formula used on the MyFitnessPal app. My point was that there are other perturbations that make the actual calculation not-so-straightforward, from hormonal state to terrain to dietary misbehavior. These are factors we usually don't consider when thinking about weight loss.
An analogy might be how I try to estimate my ETA on these long walks. I always get it wrong because I start off with the algebra-class assumption that d = rt, so if I walk at X rate for Y kilometers, I ought to be done in Z time. But the reality is that I take rests along the way, I slow down for photos, and by the final third of my walk, I'm probably going a lot more slowly than I had been at the beginning. So, sure: d = rt is still valid, but when I made my initial calculation, I wasn't really factoring in the actual reality of my situation. In that sense, d = rt is not as straightforward as it seems.
If I could have a Godlike perspective that took in absolutely every factor, I'd have an exact idea of how much weight I might lose while walking. Alas, I'm not God—last I checked, anyway.
One other complication I didn't mention in my post: there are a lot of experts out there who say that the calories listed on the packages and cans of food you eat are, at best, very rough estimates, not exact numbers, so that adds even more vagueness to the whole thing. In the end, it may simply come down to the old "Just use your common sense" maxim. I see a lot of that as well: videos by experts telling you not to focus on numbers. Just as many experts say that focusing on numbers is beneficial, especially at the beginning of a weight-loss journey.
As for a more explicit treatment of the flaws of CICO, see here.
re: collapsible electric kettles
Like this?
I suspect that any attempt to use a CICO model to calculate exactly how much weight you will lose will be quite shaky. I do wonder how close it would be if you somehow did have that Godlike perspective and knew a) exactly how many calories you were consuming and b) exactly how many calories you were burning. But, as a precise method of calculating weight loss, sure, it's not ideal. Then again, is any model really 100% accurate for those purposes? I dunno. I'm definitely not an expert on weight loss. "Don't focus on the numbers" is probably good advice, though.
And yes, that is exactly the kind of kettle I was thinking of.
You could also look into something like a JetBoil Mini Mo. That is what I use when long distance hiking. I think that maybe the main drawback for you would be getting fuel - uses a small screw on "LPG" canister. But it does bring 1L of water to a boil in just a couple of minutes.
Brian,
I've heard good things about JetBoil from some of the hikers I watch on YouTube. Thanks.
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