

There is also a range for each hiker, depending on their age, weight, and height. However if these hikers elect to carry a 25 pound backpack with them, then their calorie counts go up to 810 calories for the man, and 680 calories for the woman. A woman will burn around 540 calories on a 5 mile hike with a variety of terrain. How Many Calories Does a 5 Mile Hike Burn?Ī man will burn around 650 calories on a 5 mile hike with a variety of terrain. But if he fills his backpack with 30 pounds of gear, that same hike will burn 2,000 calories. For example a 30 year old man that is 5’9″, and weighs 154 pounds will burn 1,500 calories on a 6 hour hike with a variety of terrain, if he carries a backpack with no weight to it. The heavier the weight of your backpack, the more calories you will burn. Backpacking Calculator Frequently Asked Questions How Does Backpack Weight Affect Calories Burned When Hiking? Thus when planning a hike, you should enter number of minutes spent on a particular trail condition as were you going to tackle that condition at 2 to 2.5 miles per hour. If you walk at a more leisurely pace of 1 to 1.5 miles per hour then the calculator will over estimate your calories burned. The calculator assumes you will walk at a pace of around 2 to 2.5 miles per hour (unless otherwise indicated in the options for faster walking times). Limitations of the Backpacking Calculator The hiker has no inflammatory conditions that affect their basal energy rate.The hiker is properly dressed for the trail and weather.Like my other calculators, the assumptions are as follows: I’ve also built one other backpacking calculator for thru-hiking that gives you a total daily calorie count, based on your sex, age, height, weight, pack weight, and sleep hours for a particular day. Other Related Backpacking Calories Burned Calculators Thus you can enter your pack weight on my calculator to get a more custom calorie burn count for your trail. Backpack Weight in the Calculatorīecause the CPA does publish different METs for given weight loads, while walking up a hill, I was able to define linear relationships between these METs and hiking pack weights, then generalize these to fit multiple hiking conditions. For example, walking less than 2 miles per hour has a MET score of 2, or you are expending twice the amount of energy you would lying perfectly still while walking walking up a hill with a 6 to 15% grade at a speed of 3 to 3.5mph has a MET score of 8. These METs are numeric metabolism multipliers assigned to different activities. Use of METs in Backpacking Calorie Calculator To Account for Elevation GainĪlso similar to my other calculators, this one is based on the METs published on the Compendium of Physical Activities (CPA) webpage. But they are really just standard energy equations you can find anywhere in the literature. I found my basal energy equations in the article ‘ An Easy Approach to Calculating Estimated Energy Requirements‘ by Shirley Gerrior, PhD, RD, WenYen Juan, PhD, and Basiotis Peter, PhD, published in the CDC’s medical journal, Preventing Chronic Disease, 2006 Oct 3(4): A129, with a PubMed ID number of PMCID: PMC1784117 and PMID: 16978504. Like my other calculators, it’s based on the basic basal energy equations for men and women found in the nutrition science and medical literature. How Does This Backpacking Calculator Work? Calculating Basal Energy Expenditure This backpacking calculator is a more comprehensive version of the Simple Thru-Hiking Calories Burned Calculator I built for my hiking nutrition and calorie calculator series.
