Healthy October

This month, while in Morocco, I decided to try a few new things health wise. I haven’t trained Muay Thai or boxing since January. I’ve been toting gloves and focus mitts around but I’m not getting any benefit other that the extra weight lifting on travel days. My fitness routine has primarily consisted of doing HIIT training in my apartment and walking. My overall goal continues to be a sustainable routine that I can do anywhere in the world.

Pushing the Limits 30-Day Challenge

I spent the month with a Remote Year group (Veritas) in Marrakech. They have a monthly Pushing the Limits 30-Day Challenge and I was invited to participate. I settled on reaching 2000 reps (pushups and crunches) in addition to the steps challenge. It was a blast watching everyone get involved and pushing each other to succeed. I also made it a point to walk to the workspace when possible to increase my daily step count.

Results:

• 2015 Pushups
• 2165 Crunches
• 277,147 Steps

Intermittent Fasting

During the 30-Day Challenge, I started thinking about my diet and simple ways that I could improve it to achieve additional health benefits. I started reading and watching videos about intermittent fasting and decided to give it a shot. I didn’t start until the 2nd week with no dietary changes like excluding sugar, carbs & alcohol. However, they were all restricted as a byproduct of simply reducing my feeding window. I used the Zero app  (iOS) to track my fasting.

October Results (Oct 8 – Oct 31):

• Fasting Days: 19/24 (79%)
• Monthly Averages
  • Fast Time: 17hr, 53 min
  • Start: 7:04 PM
  • End: 2:35 PM

Takeaways

• I like Intermittent Fasting enough to continue doing it. It fits with my lifestyle as I was already eating only twice a day. I’ve simply shrunk the eating window. The good thing is that I haven’t sacrificed enjoying local food and drink in any country I’ve visited. I’ve restricted my indulgence of comfort foods.  I still love breakfast so I’ll probably mix in occasional 3 meal expanded eating days with corresponding  24 – 36 hour fasts.
• Though I’m much lighter (approx. 180 lbs/ 82kg) than when I started my travels (203 lbs/92kg), my target is focused on how I look and feel rather than a specific weight.
• I need to include more resistance training on the road and will pick up resistance bands and remove the focus mitts.
• The Pushing the Limits 30-Day challenge was fun and I’d like to repeat it for November. I think one of the great things about it is doing something new and pushing myself out of my comfort zone but with a target for measuring progress/success.

What should I do for the November Challenge?