October 2017 Fitness Summary

This is another monthly update about what happened in my life from the sports side. If I had to conclude the month in 3 things, I would say these were the key moments during October:

1. 25 km hike with wife and friends
2. Getting back to training with local running club
3. Consistent training in the gym

Probably the most memorable thing during October was our hike of 25 km which we completed with our friends. I would say that it was quite tiring but we had a really great time and I am glad we did it. We spent more than 5 hours to complete the hike and I don’t remember the last time when I spent so much time actively in nature. Even some rain did not ruin the day.

This is how the statistics looked like during October:

Quite a lot of hours spent doing sports, I would say. I am even happier that I managed to have some activities almost every day during the month as we can see from this calendar:

I am following my strength gaining program consistently. I visit the gym 4 days a week and haven’t missed a single workout yet (started week 9 of planned 12 while I am writing this). The program is called “Shortcut-to-Size”. Most of the strength training programs consist of 3 parts:

1. Training
2. Nutrition
3. Supplementation

I am only following the training part of the program, though. I find that it is much easier to stay motivated if I am following some plan compared to simply going to the gym a few times a week and performing random exercises that come to my mind.

Let me say a few thoughts about nutrition. In my opinion, the recommended dosage of protein in most bodybuilding programs is too big for normal people like me. I used to consume a lot of protein a few years ago and it made me feel sluggish and bloated most of the time. Protein also comes with nitrogen products which makes your kidneys work harder to filter it out from your blood. This may lead to kidney damage in the long run. I think I went too deep to the scientific part, though 😀 On the other hand, I should definitely improve my nutrition as I eat too much sugary products and my weekend eating habits really need to change. Most of the weekends, I end up eating pizzas, chips, cookies and drinking beer (mostly, non-alcoholic recently, though) and it has to stop!

With regards to supplementation part, I think that supplements are overrated and not worth the money they cost. It’s much more important to have a balanced diet and avoid the eating habits I mentioned before.

Another thing worth mentioning is that I am back at visiting training with my local runners club 1-2 times a week. With the weather getting wet and cold, it is nice to be able to do some running training inside a sports hall for track-and-fields athletics. On the other hand, I should definitely do some more running outside. It is hard to squeeze it in with my current training schedule but if I really wanted it, I would definitely find some slots for that.

All in all, I am happy with the month, especially with the fact that I started a routine of working out consistently. Going forward, I would like to continue the strength training program and include more running outside.

How was your month? Did you do any sports? Any targets reached or events participated in? Let me know in comments below! 😉