Overweight cal intake? Please help

[SabyR]

Good day, I am overweight by a fair amount, 280 lbs for 5'7". I love hiking in the winter, I find it is a good way to loose weight. The weight that I would be conformable to be at would be about 180 lbs so as you can see, when I an fully geared up, it's like I have 100 lbs that I am carrying over and above my pack. Most people, when t comes to mountaineering are grams conscious but in my case the amount is not negligible. This in case makes me quite slow so I mostly hike by myself which is not a huge problem per say. If I decide to join a guided tour like the Presidential, am I going to eat the same amount as anybody else? No that I want to eat more but I want to make sure that I have enough fuel not to be cold or lack the necessary energy. What would me the number of CAL that I need to consume in a day, when it is cold (below freezing)?

Thanks

[nartreb]

HIking your own weight uphill will burn lots of calories. If you eat as much as everyone around you, you will still lose a little weight.

A single hiking trip of a few days won't make a big difference to your overall weight even if you try to do something stupid like eat nothing at all. Eat as much as you need and save the radical dieting for another day.

A suggested intake for a person doing normal day-to-day activities is around 2000 kcal per day. For hiking in winter, you probably want to increase to around 3000 kcal/day. You might be burning more than that, maybe 4000 kcal/day if you're working hard all day long and/or shivering all the time. But I find it's not easy to eat that much, especially all of a sudden. There's nothing wrong with eating less than you're burning for a day or two, as long as you don't overdo it and get all weak and dizzy. (Keep a sugary snack handy in case you feel yourself "bonking".) Don't worry about the exact calorie count, just bring plenty and eat along with everybody else. See how you feel after the first day and adjust accordingly. And don't forget to drink lots of water.

When you say you're "slow", see if you can quantify that for your guide. Have you hiked in the Whites before? What's your pace (miles per hour) on a typical uphill trail, a flat trail, a downhill trail? In winter with a full pack? It can be downright dangerous to move too slowly if the weather turns bad, and your guide will need to know how much distance and elevation you can manage per day before stopping to camp.