Through the, well decades at this point, I have more than once polled participants here on what their fitness goals are and how, perhaps, they have changed over the years; this time a bit different.
Whatever goals you have set for yourself have you either met them or are on track to for the longer term ones?
Of course doing that is both a combination of sticking to the commitment, well enough anyway, and choosing goals that are within your grasp, ideally just barely.
Multiple choices allowed. Explanations welcome. Do goals help you in your journey or just frustrate you? If you have failed (or are on the road to failure) do you blame setting the goal too high or your will?
I’ve met most of my short term goals
I’ve failed at most short term goals
I am minimally on track for my long term goals
I am not on track for my long term goals
I have no fitness goals because I don’t exercise
I have no fitness goals because I just exercise with no goals in mind
My goal last year was to take an average of 10K steps a year. I took 11,154. I don’t have a new goal for this year other than to keep up the 10K steps, and so far I have 11,692, through some brutally cold weather that took me down to 7K steps for a few days in a row, so, so far, so good.
Oh I see how I phrased that poorly. Not only on track to a minimal level, but, given that long term goals may not be able to have been accomplished yet, that you are at least, minimally, on track to hit them.
As an older person, my goal is to maintain strength and flexibility. To that end, I attend the exercise classes given three times a week here at “the home”. These are primarily for maintaining flexibility and balance, with some strength included. This is good, as I don’t need to bulk up with muscle; I just need to be able to carry a bag of groceries, walk without assistance, and maintain my balance when needed. I’ve been pretty religious about these classes for the past two years plus, and feel like they’ve paid off. I do need to get back to walking, however, although hip pain has curtailed that.
At 65, my goal is simply to keep the carcass moving. When younger, I set any number of goals. Mainly of the “run faster,” “lift heavier weights” type. My mindset was always, “If I did 3 sets of 20 push-ups this week, next week I’ll do 3 sets of 21.” Or “If I swam 30 lengths this week, next week I’ll swim 32.” The goal was to keep getting faster and stronger. Served me well through my 40s.
After age 50, I began to feel the creaks of my aging - and somewhat abused - carcass. At 60, I felt like I got hit by a truck. Now, I just want to keep active, by biking/swimming 2-3 times a week, and by lifting/cals/stretching the same number of times. My youthful mentality of “always increasing“ contributed to me not wanting to workout, simply due to the increased time/effort involved.
I’m a firm convert to the idea that the best workout regimen is the one you’ll follow consistently. So I intentionally follow a somewhat modest regimen, simply because I will not skip it just because I do not want to do than much. So I bike 15-30 miles up to 3x/week - whenever weather permits. Jan-Feb is always tough. In the summer, I add a few 20-30 minute swims. And every time I bike, I follow it with 1 album side’s worth of cals/weights/stretching.
For the past 15+ years, my weight has varied between 200-210#. Usually around 202-207#. A year ago after the holidays I ballooned up to 215#. That 5# was A LOT harder to take off than it was to gain, but I got down to 200#. This year I did not get over 210#, so I’m content with that. Just required a little more effort WRT eating less and better.
So other than being somewhat active somewhat regularly, I don’t really set any goals. But with respect to exercising pretty regularly, I’m successfully meeting that goal.
I’ve met all my short term goal, and am somewhere between minimally and semi-on track for my long term goals. I had just crept into pre-diabetic which isn’t something I wanted to be seeing at 51, so with daily exercise (30 min a day on an exercise bike, light weights afterword) I’m back in-line, my Cholesterol is improving, and I’ve dropped a good bit of weight (main goal).
At the rate I’m going (with the usual slip ups around the holidays and major political stressors) I’ll hit my medium-to-long term weight goal this year if I’m diligent, maybe another year if things get as stressful as expected.
I have a stretch goal as well, but I’ll be lucky if I get to it by 55.
The long term goal is always “barely on track” though. Getting to a better place is good, and every bit helps, but sustaining it, aye, there’s the rub.
I guess there are worse ways of dealing with stress than stress-eating (I drink 3ish drinks a week, don’t do other drugs, or smoke MJ or tobacco), but it’s really counterproductive to my weight and fitness goals.
I originally wanted to just lose the weight I had gained, which I have (70 total). I had no idea, at age 63, that I would end up honing my cardiovascular system to be the envy of a person half my age. Only nagging issue right now is my right knee which hurts a tiny bit when I fully extend it but I can do my 150 minute weekly quota without too much trouble (wear a brace just to be precautionary). Up to 30 lb. dumbbells giving my arm muscles some definition they had lacked.
I’d say I’ve exceeded them. There are two reasons; 1) I cut down beer consumption from 2-4 per week to one per month (the alcohol was messing with my sleep, and the sleep doctor told me to cut out alcohol) and 2) I got a 4 legged running buddy. Due to the ice I’ve had a couple weeks where I had to go back to the treadmill, and I found that I’d gotten over a minute per mile faster. Mind you at 61 I’m a minute and a half per mile or so slower than I was at 30, but I’ll take it. My main concern is to not push it too far for my old joints. I’ve been running regularly for close to 50 years, so that’s a lot to ask of my knees and hips. The way I see it they owe me nothing.
Yes, I have met my fitness goals, and then some. At 71, I consider myself an active adult, and burn between 600 and 700 calories from movement each day. Some of it comes from fitness classes, some from my 8.5 miles of daily power walking, and some comes from playing pickleball. I lost 40 pounds in 100 days three years ago, and extreme exercise was part of that. I hadn’t done very much exercise before the diet, but I kept up a version of it after the diet ended. I enjoy being outside rather than inside, so I got into the habit of power walking 22,000 steps a day. Now I do it automatically,
I’ve met mine through the trivial technique of setting them where I already am. I’m in reasonably decent shape, in good health, and capable of the physical tasks that I set myself to. I’m sure I could be in better shape, but it doesn’t seem worth the increase in effort/time I’d need.
I do get a fair bit of exercise, mostly through commuting by bike, but I don’t consider that “working out” or the like, because I do it primarily for financial reasons, not fitness.
I am impressed by this crowd. Not a one yet who has responded that they are not at least on track for hitting their long term goals, and it looks like only one not having met short term goals.
Yeah at least one by having set the bar very low, but still!
Yes. And I wouldn’t have at all been surprised to read a selection bias to how much failure there has been.
But of course this is not a scientific sampling.
I’m also trying to get a sense if having short term goals helps accomplish the longer term ones?
I’ve had short term ones - a marathon or a tri, accomplishing some skill (failed at more than hit) etc. - and there was value in the shorter term focus as something to strive for. But there is also value in having no short term goals other than just keeping up with some mix that feels good to do and not worrying about how it fits into a training cycle.
For me, yes and no. Major help towards moving forwards past the short term to the medium one, but disheartening when trying to get from medium to long. Getting the short term weight loss was (comparatively) easy. Getting to medium was a long, slow slog with lots of stalls, backslides and daily anguish at the scales. Which is, again, disheartening.
The long term goal is doable, I’m not sure about the stretch goal given how everything about myself, my habits, and the world is going.