Checking In With My Fitness and Setting New Goals

I’d say I’m in pretty good shape.

Maybe I don’t exercise a lot on the weekends.. but on weekdays I try to go out for a 45-60 minute walk at lunch almost every day…. though I suppose I only walked a couple times in the last few weeks due to other things I needed to take care of.

One positive update is that I lost 13 pounds from the beginning of the year… before gaining 3 pounds back. Though I think a good portion of that had to do with changing some of my eating habits.

Yes, I admit it, I don’t set aside enough time for exercise. I haven’t made exercising a high enough priority in my life, and as a result I’m not as fit or feeling as strong as I would like to. 

And I’ve got to turn it around.

It’s probably worth considering some of my previous exercise habits. 

• Growing up: I was always running around as a kid. I played multiple sports, had people to play with, and as long as I was playing some kind of a sport or working on a task by myself or with others, I was pretty happy. P.E. and recess may have been my favorite parts of the day. Practicing sports, playing games, and more practice with family and relatives were always highlights in my life.
• College: I was active, and enjoyed playing intramural sports in college. I didn’t go for runs, but I did take long, brisk walks and enjoyed exploring the area with friends and by myself. I had a lot of energy and liked the fact that I could enjoy trekking around by myself or with friends.
• Working Retail: Before, during, and after college I worked in retail. I would constantly be on my feet, stocking shelves, working the register, and happily volunteered to do the extra physical tasks.
• Desk Jobs: When I finally got the analyst job I was able to obtain after going to college, I realized right away that I would need to set aside extra time to exercise. I went through periods of time where I would go for walks, run, and do various exercises, but haven’t been as consistent as I want to be.
• My Wife: Although I thought of myself as an athletic person, my wife was in much better shape than me when we met. From the moment we started dating, She helped motivate me to go for jogs with her, play sports together, and just be active.
• Kids: With kids, time started to feel like something I could no longer control, and my motivation to be anywhere but with them seemed not worth it. Luckily now both kids like to be active at least some of the time, and that has motivated me to at least be able to do the activities they enjoy.

The problem is that the various activities I enjoy aren’t engaging all my muscles, and aren’t for long enough periods of time. I’m just not in good shape.

Retirement

One of the enticing aspects of retiring one day is that I will then finally have the time to focus on my fitness. I’ll be able to spend hours a day lifting weights, going for hikes, and maybe join in on pick-up sports games from time to time.

By this time my kids will likely have graduated from high school and college, and I won’t have any excuse not to spend a portion of every day on my fitness.

Of course I’m just as good as anybody else coming up with excuses, but I’m hopeful that keeping in shape will be important to me when I am finally retired.

Motivation For Now

So… what about now? What’s my motivation for working out consistently between now and retirement? That’s the tough question, because it’s always been easy for me to fall back on old habits and not make fitness the priority that it needs to be. 

For one, I’m going to continue to try to exercise during my 1 hour lunch breaks. There is no question that the lunch hour is currently the best time for me to be active. I’ve been good at forcing myself to take my full lunch time, so I need to take advantage of it. I get a chance to listen to podcasts during this time, and I’m always in a better mood when I get back to my desk. I need to vary what I do, and not just walk, however just doing something is way better than not getting any exercise.

So, I have a plan. Similar to keeping track of finances, I’m  creating an easy to use spreadsheet to help keep me focused on doing some kind of physical exercise every day. In finances, I’m currently more motivated when I’m focusing on what I’m investing on a regular basis than the actual returns. For my fitness, the sheet I’m creating just shows the date, and has columns for various activities where I can put in details about how long I walked, how many steps I took, how many push-ups or sit-ups I did, or any number of various exercises.

Rather than focusing on results for now, I just need to focus on consistently being active, so this spreadsheet is my way of showing that I can be active, and be motivated by it.

This sheet is at the very early stages. My hope is to make it quick and easy to use on a daily basis, so that by January 1st I’ll be regularly inputting my numbers. I’d like to be able to track my fitness in 2026.

I realize that there are so many better and more efficient ways of exercising. But for me, getting myself to spend time and energy on this aspect of my life I think will help in the long run.

We’ll see how this goes, and I’ll check back in regarding my fitness in a future post to see if this or any other tactics are working for me.

Reader Questions

• How are you motivated to stay fit?

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