How Do You Go Ahead of Your Fitness Goals?
Do you feel stressed about not keeping up with your health goals? If yes, then you must read this article.
The other day, a close friend, Bane, invited me to a dinner party but at the eleventh hour. Bane’s dinners generally start late and end late. I have been friends with Bane for 18 years; I know it well.
I generally finish my dinner by 7.30 pm and go to sleep by 10 pm, and therefore, I politely refuse such late dinners. But Bane has been such a great friend that I couldn’t say no. Though I knew I would have to miss my fitness regimen the following day. Nonetheless, I accepted Bane’s invite as I was already ahead of my fitness goals. How?
I am a die-hard optimist. I think about future’s future. One day, seeing my unrelenting optimism, my daughter quipped — “Dad, you are going ahead of yourself.”
How do you go ahead of yourself? Is it making castles in the air? No. Talking rationally, as a realist optimist, you can go ahead of yourself while achieving your health goals, especially in logging your exercise units. American Athlete Jackie Joyner supports my point — “It’s better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.”
But how do you do it? An essential part of your fitness regime is your consistency in following your fitness routine. As the ‘Grit’ researcher Angela Duckworth, my professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says — “Life is more about consistency than about intensity. Intensity steals the limelight.” And, generally, you shun the consistency for its gradual growth and love the intensity for its limelight. Simply speaking, your consistency conflicts with your contingencies. For example, you cannot foresee your illness, turn down a late dinner invite from a close friend, and cannot wish away an unexpected travel plan. So the simple solution is that you work out much more than your daily schedule and stay ahead of your goals.
In March, for my fitness regimen, I logged 37–½ units against my goal of 31 units (one unit a day). Thus, I devoted 54 hour
s against my goal of 31 hours and burnt about 19,000 calories against my goal of 11,000 calories. Apart from walking and jogging, I also play golf and do gyming. So, I logged 9.5 units for the walk and jog, 8.5 units for the gym, three units for the practice at the golf range, and 16.5 units for the game of golf. On no day in the month, I was behind my logging at least one unit a day. It’s simple. Your goal is one unit every day, but you work out more and log more than one unit on some days.
As mentioned above, I do a variety of activities for my fitness. I do a brisk walk covering one kilometer in about 8.5 minutes or 1 mile in 13 to 14 minutes. Sometimes, I mix my brisk walking with jogging — 3 kilometers of brisk walking and 3 kilometers of jogging. I take 5.5 minutes to 6 minutes to jog a kilometer or 1 mile in 8.5 to 9 minutes.
I also go to the gym for strengthening exercises. Experts say you should target one area of your body in a day. Thus, one day, you should focus on the upper body and do exercises related to shoulders, chest, biceps, triceps, etc. On another day, you should focus on your mid-body, i.e., abdomen, and exercise lower, middle, and upper crunches. And yet, on some other day, you can hit your legs with squats, lunges, and plank leg lifts to exercise your calf muscles, glutenous, butt, hips, and thighs.
However, I am not sure which days I would go to the gym and when I would miss it. Therefore, whenever I hit the gym, I go for circuit training. In circuit training, you exercise all your body parts on the same day. It’s easier too, as you don’t have to remember which body part you did the last time. You are also not worried that you may mistakenly exercise a particular body part and forget another part.
But the most exciting part, which I want to share with you, is that I have created units for my exercises. For example, when I walk and/or jog 6 kilometers (3.7 miles), I take about 55 minutes and burn about 350–400 calories. I consider it one unit simply because I feel a person of my age (57) and lifestyle (a mixture of passive and active) should burn about 400 calories a day. Similarly, when I hit the gym for circuit training, I do 12 exercises relating to all body parts. This takes about 50–60 minutes. Given my body weight of 85 kgs and the weight of the dumbbells, plates, and rods I lift during my training, I burn around 350–400 calories. I consider this one unit of my exercises. I cannot go for the exercises every day; I hit the walk/jog and gym together and finish two units of training — 1 unit of 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) of walk/jog and 12 exercises of the gym. Thus, I go ahead of my daily goal of 1 unit each day. However, sometimes, when I have less time for the morning exercise, I do 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) of walk and jog and half of the gym — (six workouts at the gym). Then I log it as 1–½ units. But sometimes, when I have the complete luxury of time in the morning, I do about nine kilometers of walk/jog followed by one gym unit. So, I count it as 2–½ units.
I have chosen a park for my walk and jog, adjacent to my gym. First, I would finish my walk and jog, and then, without wasting any travel time, I would reach the gym. And consequently, I complete two units of my exercises in two hours. But after the Covid 19, going inside the gym is challenging. So I have chosen a park for my walk and jog, which also has an open gym. Now, I don’t need to worry about the indoor gym having limited ventilation. Another exciting thing is that this park is adjacent to my house, so I start my walk and jog right outside my house. Resultantly, I save about 30 minutes, which I would otherwise spend while traveling to the park and back. So in one day, I spend a little less than 2 hours and burn about 750–800 calories. But then I don’t have to worry if I join my best friend’s dinner.
The third activity in my fitness schedule is golf. Many years ago, when I was a serious jogger, I would look at golf with disdain. I would consider it a game of the old folks, who have plenty of time but don’t have any purpose to achieve in life. You hit a ball and then chase it aimlessly to hit it again. I had also completed two half marathons in those days. A man with runner’s high would look down upon a lazy, slow, and meaningless game of golf. Unfortunately, I developed an early onset of osteoarthritis, and I got afraid of running long distances. And then a friend introduced me to the game of golf. Gradually, I got engaged, and finally, immersed in it. I realized golf is a game of hope — you hit a terrible shot, but you walk to the ball with the hope to strike a great shot. And when you hit a good ball, you are more hopeful of hitting another great shot to make birdy or par. In golf, you talk, share gossip, crack jokes, and mock your partners in a friendly way. Slowly, you get into a flow and forget the time and environment around you. And thus, the ecstasy of hope, engagement, and flow never ends. And it takes 3 hours (including travel time) to finish nine holes, and you burn around 450 calories, walk around 6,500 steps and walk about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles). So when I play golf, I take it as 1–½ units of exercise.
Sometimes, I also practice at the Golf Range before playing nine holes. In one and half hours of practice, I hit about 150 balls and burn 300 calories. Therefore, I count it as one unit. Sometimes, you hit 150 balls at the golf range on holiday and then play nine holes. It takes about 4 hours, and you burn around 750 calories. Therefore, I consider it 2–½ units of my fitness regimen. Again, I can quickly deal with any unexpected illness when I achieve this.
The most enjoyable part of logging these units is that you feel you are amassing the wealth of your health. And when you accumulate more than your goal, you feel ecstatic and high. In the last, I would again pose this question and answer it — “But how do you go ahead of yourself? It’s simple. Your goal is one unit every day, but on a few days, you log more than one unit.”
Realistically speaking, in March, I also enjoyed nine days when I didn’t do anything at all. And still, I logged 37–½ units against my goal of 31 units (one unit a day), devoted 54 hours against my goal of 31 hours, and burnt about 19,000 calories against my goal of 11,000 calories. As the writer, Israelmore Ayivor says — “Spare the stress on your neck muscles… Looking backward takes more energy; it’s more painful than looking forward! Go ahead!”
Tajender Singh Luthra tj@alumni.upenn.edu (the writer is a senior Police Officer, Poet and a practitioner of positive psychology, the science of happiness)