Hiking for fitness

sourkate

I wonder how many others have the same motivation. It's a great motivator. A life goal for me for sure.

stuart3727

My wife and I started day hiking about a year and a half ago and we both love it. We just completed a 6 day hike on the Bruce Trail here in Southern Ontario Canada. We hiked all day and stayed in B&B's and Inns along the way. About 20-30 km per day. Last summer we hiked the West Highland Way in Scotland for a week, it was fantastic! We try to get out every weekend or so especially in the the spring and fall. Aside from the exercise attributes it's such a wonderful mental cleanse as I like to call it. Like pressing a re-set button. I'm in my late 50's now and after years of endurance sports, hiking is gentler on the joints as well.

Snipsa

I was looking for a thread like this or to start my own, but decided to rather revive this old one (if for no other reason than that more people can see the beautiful photos in here).

I have been struggling with weightless and fitness my entire life (as can be seen by my sea-saw history on MFP). Currently I am at least 5kg over my goal weight, and having moved to beautiful Canada in the past year I have decided to use hiking as my main mode of weightless and fitness - it is just so lovely to be out and about in the beauty of nature.

Current plan (started last week and going strong :-P): 1.5 hour hike up and around a small 450ft mountain fairly close to our home twice during work week. (Going as fast as we can with current fitness level)
4-5 hour hike on one of the weekend days (around 10-13km at a slower and steadier pace but trying for higher elevation - currently up to around 1000ft)

I also work to and from work daily which is an extra 6.3km walking every weekday.

Hoping this will help to get rid of some of the stubborn winter fat and get our fitness levels up to the level where we can do a planned 20km hike by end of summer.

Some pretty photos taken on these outings:

EliseTK1

@Snipsa Beautiful!! Best of luck in your journeys, both literal and figurative.

I’m a huge fan of hiking, and many of my vacations are planned around hiking trails. I live in Florida- the weather is generally extra hot and the terrain is flat, so I don’t have many opportunities around here. I tend to do the opposite thing- I work out and stay in shape so that I can hike, not the other way around. I love being able to go on vacation and randomly hike ten miles or scale a mountain.