On another backpacking board about a decade ago, there was a lively thread about appetites while backpacking. The most surprising conclusion by the end was that a majority of enthusiasts had poor appetites especially the first few days that was balanced by epic hunger as soon as they reached trailheads and were able to stuff themselves in towns on their ways home. So how is your own appetite and eating habits out on trips and why do you think it is so? What about eating habits back at your home life?
(Could have put this thread in our "Backcountry Food Topix" sub-forum but then few would see it and it would be ignored.)
Another thing that surprised us was how boring was the limited choice of food for a fair number of people. Like coffee and some cereal bar for breakfast, a couple Snickers bars for each day and some granola for lunch, some freeze dried dinner for the end of their trail day, and little else, all concisely bagged, packed into minimal spaces.
This person that has had a BMI 21-23 most of my adult life is of the other extreme. At home when not too physically active, like I was during my m-f 8-5 working career, I tended to eat like a bird. At paid for department lunches, while most others were choosing $20+ dinners, I with a small unstretched digestive tract, invariably chose minor menu items priced in single figures, and was the last to finish eating whatever that others often had to encourage I stop talking and eat so they could move on. At home I infrequently eat breakfast, ate light not cooked food like yogurt or PBJ's for lunch, and usually had just one cooked meal a day that was most often meatless. Have always eaten lots of dairy including 1% milk. I've also never been a restaurant enthusiast mainly because of being an economic peon and medical issues with any food containing MSG.
Out in the backcountry I eat enough for 2 people. Physical activity has always made me a hungry boy. Bring lots of stuff I normally won't eat at home especially sweets, meat, and greasy junk food stuff. A lot of candy, pastries, cookies, cheese, nuts, fruits. Often that does not include breakfast because as a landscape and nature photographer I get up at dawn, toss a zip seal bag with granola or such into my day pack and am soon out working. In fact when conditions are productive, at 10am as light becomes too harsh to work I often find I haven't eaten anything because I've been too frantically busy. And the same thing may repeat during late afternoon light so that we usually have our main meal at lunch. And then in the afternoon I just keep snacking and pushing more food in. After I return from any late light work, I may have some snacks or at most heat up a Lipton cup of soup. On group trips with fishermen will also eat trout that I have strong skills catching and cooking.
The above noted, it is true that after particularly grueling trail days, I may be in semi delirium with a poor appetite. Such days I am also liable to sleep poorly as my somewhat sore and over-stressed body is hyper sensitized.
