My latest ‘daily energy needs for the light pack, day hiker’ calculator is a more comprehensive, more sensitive version of my older model – the ‘hike and chill’ model – dubbed that, as it assumed the non-hiking part of your day was spent in a state of low activity. The hike and chill model also tended to under report calorie needs for more extensive day hikes that lasted more than 4 hours, or were more strenuous in nature.
If you’re more interested in just the calories spent while hiking, and not your entire day’s total, I have a hiking calculator for that as well, under the article Day Hiking Light Pack Calories Calculator. However, I’ve included that particular calculation as well, below, in this new calculator.
If you’re into day hiking nutrition, or general hiking nutrition topics, I’ve created a series of articles, based off scientific papers by the International Society of Sports Nutrition, American Society of Enteral and Parenteral Nutrition, and dozens of other medical journals. You can find my articles on my Hiking Nutrition page.
Assumptions
As with my previous day hike calculators, there are a handful of assumptions built into this one:
- the hiker is carrying a light pack under 10 pounds or no pack at all
- the hiker is an adult, 18 and above in age
- the hiker is hiking in good weather – 60F to 90F – and is appropriately dressed for the weather
- the hiker does not own any inflammatory or trauma conditions that would significantly increase their metabolic needs
Non-hiking Activity Modifier
This calculator takes into account how active you are during the rest of your day, before and after your day hiking activity. It gives you a choice on if you’re having an ‘active day’ or a ‘lazy day’ outside of your hike. It also takes into account how long you hiked to calculate how many non-hiking calories you burned that day doing other things. For example, if you’ve spent 4 hours hiking, the calculator knows that the other 20 hours of your day have been spent in non-hiking mode, and takes that into account when calculating your non-hike calories spent that day. More time spent hiking means less calories being accrued in the non-hiking part of your day, basically.
The ‘active‘ option should be used when you’re doing lots of other things the rest of your day, before or after hiking. It takes into account 8 hours of sleep, but also assumes your doing weekend type stuff like going grocery shopping and other shopping, unloading your groceries at home, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner and cleaning up the kitchen, washing the car, cleaning the garage, walking the dog, doing laundry, vacuuming/mopping, etc. It also has a few ‘chill’ activities factored in too, like a few hours of watching TV on the couch, and an hour of sitting at a desk on your computer, or sitting in a chair talking to a friend on the phone.
The ‘lazy‘ option should be used when you’re mostly chilling out, relaxing the rest of the day, outside of your day hike. It still takes into account some small amount of shopping, but it also takes into account more sitting around, watching tv, playing on the computer or video game system, and though it assumes you’re making breakfast and lunch at home, and cleaning the kitchen afterwards, it also assumes you’re just going out to dinner, or having something delivered.