Recognizing Your Fitness Accomplishments

by Christina Ranon — July 19, 2008

Recently I found myself backpacking for the first time in Olympic National Park, and on the way to breaking camp, it occurred to me - even with the 30-pound pack on my back, I once toted around much more weight than that, and it wasn't the sort I could unclip and just shrug off my shoulders. Even if I were carrying around a 50-pound backpack I still wouldn't be as heavy as I was 4 years ago. And that wasn't even at my heaviest.

Whenever I felt like I might be flagging or when the pack felt particularly heavy, I thought to myself: 3 years ago I never would have imagined that someday I would be carting around a 30-pound bag for a 6-mile hike and called it a pleasant afternoon. When you think about your own fitness levels and what you want for yourself, it's inspiring to set goals and work towards accomplishing them. You can start small at first - 10 regular pushups if right now you can do two, eventually working your way up to bigger goals - the 10k run or the half-marathon even if right now you can only run for 3 minutes at a time.

Even if you never consciously set a fitness goal, it's still important to acknowledge them to yourself, whether it's using the 8-pound dumbbells when before the 3-pounders were more than enough, or the fact that you can run for a mile straight when before you could only walk it. Recognizing your fitness achievements can be as motivating as seeing numbers drop on the scale, and if you have a practical sense of what you want from your workouts, seeing the change over time will help you keep active out of desire instead of obligation.