Have you ever been on a backpacking trip and not had an appetite? Even if you’re hiking 15 to 20 miles a day?
It’s frustrating because you know you should be hungry, and you know need energy to hike the next day, but you can’t bring yourself to dig in at dinner time.
“We can never eat what I take…just not hungry. I eat more sitting at my desk at work than when hiking 15-20 miles a day on the AT”
There are 3 reasons why you can lose your appetite on a backpacking trip:
- Different Eating Schedule
- Different Food
- Less Free Time
Different Eating Schedule
If you have a fixed routine of meal serving times at home, it could be that your body and mind are not acclimated to your new backpacking schedule if you eat at a different time, especially during the first few days of your hike. If you’re like most people, and you can only take short 1 and 2-night backpacking trips, you might never get used to the changed schedule. If you can stay out longer than a few days, my guess is that your body will eventually acclimate to the schedule change and you’ll be hungry again when dinner is served.
Different Food
It might be that you prefer normal food over commercial backpacking meals or the kind that you prepare FBC style. I’ve largely given up gave up on buying freeze-dried or dehydrated backpacking meals and bringing the same food on trips that I tend to eat at home, like cheese, crackers, bread, nuts, granola, tuna fish, rice… just regular food, so there’s not any “adaption” required.
Less Free Time
If you’re sitting at work and munching on food, it’s because you either have free time or you can multi-task. Walking is far more active than sitting still and you might just need to take longer breaks to snack than you do today.
A couple of years ago, I would never stop for breaks during the day and as a result, I ate sparingly between breakfast and dinner. Today, I make a point to load up the back pocket of my backpack with about 1,000 calories worth of snacks each morning before I leave camp. I take long breaks every few hours to rest and take in my surroundings and I feel relaxed enough to munch because I’m not in a hurry to get up and walk.
