What does physical fitness mean to you?

Onedaywriter

The word “fitness” appears in the title of 3 of the forums here, but I suspect it has different meanings to each of us.

Does it have to do with body measurements eg weight, body fat %, height to waist ratios? Visible abs?
Does it mean endurance capacity? Ability to move weighted objects? Ability to move your body a certain distance or speed? Health markers eg cholesterol, fasting blood sugar, blood pressure etc? Other stuff?

For me, it means that I will be at a good body fat percentage (<15% for men and <20% for women), will be in a state where I’m exercising nearly everyday, and not smoking.

Thes are my “goals” - and I’ve achieved one of them. I believe that if I focus on these three, the health markers will also fall in line. I tend to lose sight of these goals and focus on a scale number!!

sschauer513

interesting fitness for me has nothing to do with weight it is just a number. Muscle strength and endurance is my metrics when I was out of shape couldn't go up stairs without having heart pound. Doing a 5k was about as likely as going to a moon. But now can do everything I want to in life without fear or worry will my body let me do this. Sure I got blood work and those number under control but too many people seem to worry about the weight number as the end all be all.

Lietchi

For me, fat percentage is secondary. Fitness is mainly how I feel : in day-to-day life and while doing activities I like (or have to do). Walking up stairs, cleaning the house, moving furniture, hiking,... Being able to do those things while not feeling hindered by my own body (excessively out of breath, exhausted, or even unable to do it).

In that sense I already feel a lot fitter than before my weight loss, even though I'm not yet halfway to my weight loss goal. Before my weight loss, I refused all hikes proposed by my BF that exceeded more than a few hundred meters ascent/descent or a distance of more than 10km, because it would exceed my capabilities physically. Now I can walk to work (steep uphill) faster/less out of breath than my colleague who sometimes accompanies me, and I can jog (slowly) for an hour non-stop. (Not sure about the hikes yet, I'll be curious to discover how much better that will go on our next trip)

My regular exercise is what makes this possible, but I don't have a particular goal set with regards to frequency.

Health markers are markers for... health. Which to me is not the same as fitness In some cases, our efforts aren't necessarily rewarded by improved health markers, but it certainly can't hurt.

Edit: upon reflexion, fitness for me also means being able to at least keep up with 'regular' people (for example my boyfriend during hikes, or colleagues during team events,...), or exceed what they can do.

tinkerbellang83

Onedaywriter wrote: »

The word “fitness” appears in the title of 3 of the forums here, but I suspect it has different meanings to each of us.

Does it have to do with body measurements eg weight, body fat %, height to waist ratios? Visible abs?
Does it mean endurance capacity? Ability to move weighted objects? Ability to move your body a certain distance or speed? Health markers eg cholesterol, fasting blood sugar, blood pressure etc? Other stuff?

For me, it means that I will be at a good body fat percentage (<15% for men and <20% for women), will be in a state where I’m exercising nearly everyday, and not smoking.

Thes are my “goals” - and I’ve achieved one of them. I believe that if I focus on these three, the health markers will also fall in line. I tend to lose sight of these goals and focus on a scale number!!

FYI <20% isn't really ideal for general fitness for a woman, that's pretty low and would be that expected of an athlete, having too low body fat for females can have negative repercussions on hormones. As you're Male I guess that doesn't really affect your goals though.

For me physical fitness is about being able to continually improve my ability at the sports/activities I love, for me that's rowing, hiking and strength training. There are many things that contribute to my ability to improve - from getting adequate sleep, good nutrition, a healthy work/home/social life balance to having the right equipment.

It's also managing my weight, to improve my future health and ability, I am currently far from what is considered a healthy range for weight/height, but it isn't hampering my health, my blood pressure/resting heart rate is good and I don't suffer from anything.

Improving my ability could be one of many things like doing a longer, steeper hike; improving technique in rowing, a new PB in strength training.

shasby

Just being able to walk and chase grandkids without being worn out.

Duck_Puddle

Just want to second that <20% is very low for a woman. And that doesn’t mean “elite” - it means that being that low is problematic for hormones and things and proper healthy bodily functions.

Fitness to me is a healthy cardiovascular system and strength & flexibility to function well in my life. I want to be able to run easily, to be able to pick up my 100lb dog if I need to, I want to be able to bend down and pick something up off the floor without feeling like the tin man. That’s my baseline. Anything above that is an improvement.

jseams1234

For me it's all about strength, size and aesthetics. Yes... shallow stuff. However, even if it's not high on my priority list good health markers are a side effect. My wife, on the other hand does it for purely health benefits and also so she can eat more good stuff. The side effect for her is that it helps her look her best.

amusedmonkey

Fitness is what your body can do. Strength, agility, flexibility, balance, and endurance (both muscular and cardiovascular). It may or may not correlate with weight or body fat percentage. My sister is overweight both by BMI and body fat percentage, but she can "out-fit" most people I know. She runs, swims, cycles, does crossfit, tennis, kickboxing, yoga, you name it. She's always on some sort of fitness kick. I'm overweight by BMI and body fat percentage and I'm fit enough to perform day to day activities comfortably. I don't get winded easily, I have enough strength to move furniture and carry heavy bags, and I've been working on balance and muscle endurance. My sister is fitter than me, but I'm fit enough for my goals and needs. Fitness is on a spectrum.

cwolfman13

Having a reasonably strong cardiovascular capacity as well as strength capacity as well as flexibility and mobility. Someone who is generally fit will be pretty well rounded.

Aesthetic things like 6 pack abs aren't necessarily a measure of actual physical fitness...I've had them in the past and been at a very high fitness level and I've also had them and barely been able to walk around the block without getting winded. I see positive health markers as more of a bi-product of being physically fit rather than a measure of physical fitness. And even then, health markers can be substantially hereditary. I'm pretty physically fit in regards to my abilities, but I still have to deal with hypertension and sometimes some wonky blood work due to hereditary factors outside of my control.

Onedaywriter

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

FYI <20% isn't really ideal for general fitness for a woman, that's pretty low and would be that expected of an athlete, having too low body fat for females can have negative repercussions on hormones. As you're Male I guess that doesn't really affect your goals

[

Duck_Puddle wrote: »

Just want to second that <20% is very low for a woman. And that doesn’t mean “elite” - it means that being that low is problematic for hormones and things and proper healthy

Whoops. My apologies.
I guess I messed up with the 20% body fat for women!

I just watched a ted talks with Ogie Shaw and that’s the figure he gave and I just went with it. It’s a good talk nonetheless - maybe he’s a little too aggressive with the body fat percentages:
https://youtu.be/K60xHx836T0

geraldaltman

For me today, fitness means less about weight and appearance than doing what I need to do to get and keep vital lab numbers at or within normal range every six months plus continue to maintain mobility regained with two hip replacements in 2019.

MelanieCN77

Fitness has little to do with weight or appearance, it's a functional factor and its markers will be different depending on the kinds of activities a person participates in. You can be hiking fit and cover dozens of miles at a time with no problem and be terrible at HIIT, or be a circuit pro and suck at 5ks.

My own standards for myself are twofold - do I have energy throughout the day and can I get through a busy, active day without needing to rest and nap and be active and perky and capable? Good life fitness. How I am running and what I am lifting are more "let's see" fitness factors, like a hobby you work at to get better on.

kshama2001

Onedaywriter wrote: »

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

FYI <20% isn't really ideal for general fitness for a woman, that's pretty low and would be that expected of an athlete, having too low body fat for females can have negative repercussions on hormones. As you're Male I guess that doesn't really affect your goals

[

Duck_Puddle wrote: »

Just want to second that <20% is very low for a woman. And that doesn’t mean “elite” - it means that being that low is problematic for hormones and things and proper healthy

Whoops. My apologies.
I guess I messed up with the 20% body fat for women!

I just watched a ted talks with Ogie Shaw and that’s the figure he gave and I just went with it. It’s a good talk nonetheless - maybe he’s a little too aggressive with the body fat percentages:
https://youtu.be/K60xHx836T0

Ah, I watched that last month after reading a thread about it: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10769923/winning-the-mental-battle-of-physical-fitness/p1

I found his talk inspirational. I tuned out the specifics for BF for women.

AnnPT77

Fitness, to me, is a good (and ideally improving) capability to do the physical things I want and need to do. (Those things include my preferred sports; random active recreation; lifting, moving, carrying random heavy things needed to maintain my home; etc.). Further, it has something to do with creating a physical self that will, with some luck but not a miracle, be able to live independently outside of assisted living/retirement homes for a good long time to come. (I'm 64)

There are lots of dimensions: Strength, endurance, CV capacity, flexibility, balance, agility, etc. There's no great way to optimize everything simulataneously, so every individual's going to have to figure out there own balance.

FItness and fatness can be interrelated (usually are), but it's unhelpful IMO to conflate them. I was reasonably fit even while obese (competing athletically, finishing in the pack with my age group, etc.). My athletic stats - things like resting heart rate, strength, best pace, endurance, etc., were pretty much the same when I was obese as they are now when I'm at a healthy weight.

Aesthetics are of very little interest to me. I understand that they're a priority for others . . . but they may or may not be related to fitness, depending on what a person's aesthetic preferences are. An athletic appearance is not what everyone prefers for themselves, nor what attracts them to others.

It's possible to exercise every day, be at a low (but not excessively low) BF%, not smoke . . . and still have some bad health markers. There are various ways that could happen; genetics is an obvious one.

BTW: That 20% BF for women thing isn't the only respect in which Ogie Shaw is kind of out in left field. There was an earlier thread about his TED (maybe TEDx) talk that went into some of that, some time back.

NovusDies

I do not combine weight loss and fitness. One helps the other but I consider them different goals. I do not believe I have to be at a certain body fat percentage to enjoy the abilities of being more physically fit. I enjoyed many of them when I was younger than I am now and heavier than I am now.

I do not have defined parameters for what physically fit should be for me. That is not practical since I do not know what my capabilities are. I plan to get as fit as I can be within my physical limits and within the limits of a good life and enjoyment balance.

Right now my goals to improve fitness are focused on getting off my last remaining necessary medication.

Katmary71

It started out being for weight loss but it's so much more now. It's definitely a boost for mental health and sleeping. Most importantly I'm amazed what my body can do now, before I couldn't stand for more than 5 minutes because of chronic pain and was a physical therapy "failure", now I can do routine things like grocery shop and stand in lines. Weight lifting has made it possible to take out my own green waste cans and lift the large sizes of cat litter. It also keeps my blood sugar down especially doing cardio every night.

Terytha

I've always considered fitness to be related to stamina and recovery. How long/hard can I go before I'm struggling? How long does it take to catch my breath and recover?

Lately I've also been taking into consideration weights and flexibility. I want to lift heavier things. I also want to be more bendy.

These things are separate from weight loss for me. My fitness improves as my weight drops, but I'm not really thinking about using one to improve the other. I work on them separately.

I don't care about body fat %. That's an irrelevant number in my life. I just want to be able to do what I want to do and wear cute clothes.

girlwithcurls2

Fitness for me is my body being able to do what I want or need it to do when I want or need it to do it. Hopefully that's just me wanting to do a local 10K and being able to sign up and do it, or going to the gym to swim for an hour and doing it, or getting my weight lifting done. But I have too many people in my life who are sick or injured and can't do what they want or need to do. If that happens to me, I'm hopeful that my pre-injured or sick body will recover more quickly.

I'm doing it for now, but mostly for my future me.

lgfrie

Lietchi wrote: »

For me, fat percentage is secondary. Fitness is mainly how I feel : in day-to-day life and while doing activities I like (or have to do). Walking up stairs, cleaning the house, moving furniture, hiking,... Being able to do those things while not feeling hindered by my own body (excessively out of breath, exhausted, or even unable to do it).

In that sense I already feel a lot fitter than before my weight loss, even though I'm not yet halfway to my weight loss goal. Before my weight loss, I refused all hikes proposed by my BF that exceeded more than a few hundred meters ascent/descent or a distance of more than 10km, because it would exceed my capabilities physically. Now I can walk to work (steep uphill) faster/less out of breath than my colleague who sometimes accompanies me, and I can jog (slowly) for an hour non-stop. (Not sure about the hikes yet, I'll be curious to discover how much better that will go on our next trip)

My regular exercise is what makes this possible, but I don't have a particular goal set with regards to frequency.

Health markers are markers for... health. Which to me is not the same as fitness In some cases, our efforts aren't necessarily rewarded by improved health markers, but it certainly can't hurt.

Edit: upon reflexion, fitness for me also means being able to at least keep up with 'regular' people (for example my boyfriend during hikes, or colleagues during team events,...), or exceed what they can do.

For me, this.

hesn92

To me it's about doing things with your body, not what it looks like. Of course I have different markers as to what I consider "fit" than someone else. (Like someone else might not think running 3 miles straight makes that person fit but I probably would) Good health markers like blood pressure etc. are great but it's separate from being fit IMO. They don't always go together, although usually they do I guess.

thescouselander77

Simple for me - I'm getting old so I just want to be able to get up without saying "oof".