Category shares (%)
Dehydrated food is part of base foods. Turn this off or set to “None” if you prefer a cold-soak setup or plan to cook from regular ingredients instead of pre-made dehydrated meals.
This is a planning tool, not medical advice. Use it as a starting point and adjust to your own experience.
This calculator estimates how much food you need per day on trail and how that weight splits across categories.
- Energy estimate: Auto mode uses about 45 kcal per kilogram of body weight for normal trekking, adjusted for intensity, climate, hike type and calorie balance.
- Food weight: With common backpacking foods this usually lands around 680–750 g per day for a 75 kg hiker on normal days. Harder, colder or longer days push that higher.
- Thru-hike mode: Built for multi-week hiking. It assumes a higher daily energy demand than a short section hike – if you plan to run a deficit, use calorie balance or set a lower custom target.
- Custom target: Switch to custom daily calories if you already know what works for you and you only want to translate calories into trail weight.
- Categories: Base foods, fats, snacks, protein and electrolytes each have a typical calorie density. The tool uses your category shares to turn calories into grams.
- Dehydrated meals: Dehydrated meals are counted inside base foods. The planner combines your set meal weight and calories with other staples so the total stays realistic.
- Units: You can switch between grams / kilograms and ounces / pounds at any time. All totals recalculate instantly.