I've discovered that even with almost exclusively dehydrated food and calorie-dense food, it is very hard to get much above 1850 calories per lb. That's just about where you hit a ceiling. Once you've standardized on meals and snacks that get you close that ceiling the other factors are going to be how strenuous your hike is, your body size and overall metabolism, and whether your appetite starts slow at the beginning of a hike and increases a few days in.

The food items you mentioned are not high water content or low calorie-density, so you aren't going to make big strides in that department, unless you failed to mention the fresh fruit and celery sticks you took. wink

The main area I'd look at would be matching the calories you take with you more closely to the actual calories you burn. If you brought back an nearly full jar of peanut butter, this area promises to yield you some weight savings.

It takes some good guesswork to begin with and some good record-keeping as you continue to arrive at a sound estimate of your calorie requirements per day while backpacking. I tend to take in the neighborhood of 3000 to 3200 calories per day, but I am 5'11" and 160 lbs. and I hike closer to 10 to 12 miles per day, so you can't base your estimate on my numbers. You'll just have to tailor it to your personal needs.

Here are some basic hints that help me considerably. Read those Nutrition Labels carefully. Serving sizes always list a calorie count and a weight in grams, which opens up a lot of info you can calculate with. Weigh what you take and what you bring back and calculate approximate calories eaten and not eaten from those weights. Figure out how your appetite changes through a hike and alter your food amounts to account for that.

You may find out your current food is closer to lightweight than you thought, but I am sure you have some room to improve, too. Happy hiking!