Staying active after 55 can feel complicated. Should we walk more? Lift weights? Do cardio? Stretch? For me, the answer turned out to be surprisingly simple: I try to close the three Fitness Rings on my Apple Watch every day.
As we get into our 50s, 60s, and beyond, staying active becomes less about extreme workouts and more about consistency.
Some of us try to walk 10,000 steps. Some of us want to make sure we do 30 minutes of cardio. Some want to spend an hour lifting weights. Whatever your fitness goals are, I believe it helps to attach a simple target to them. In my head, I have several things that I’d like to accomplish each week regarding fitness. I’ll get into that at a later date, but there is one thing that makes me feel like I’ve had a successful day each day: filling all three of the Apple Fitness Rings.
Why I Use Apple Fitness Rings
I monitor my Fitness Rings on my Apple Watch every day. Here’s the thing: if all three rings are closed at the end of the day, I feel like I’ve had a successful fitness day. As I’ve said before, I am not a hard core fitness guy. There are days I may sit around and watch golf on TV and eat a 1 lb bag of M&M’s. However, my unwritten goal is to fill my Fitness Rings at least 5 days a week.
What The 3 Rings Mean
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Apple Fitness rings, I’ll explain. The Apple Fitness App monitors several metrics. The three most visible and easiest to track are symbolized by red, green and blue rings on the app. I have an Apple Watch, so I have them visible to me at all times throughout the day.
Stand
The blue ring is the Stand ring. You get credit for each hour that you are standing up and moving for more than a minute. My goal is 12 hours. This is probably the easiest ring for me to fill in. Just living life and being awake for more than 12 hours should get this filled in most days.
Exercise
The green ring is the Exercise ring. This tracks the minutes that you are exercising. Any time I do a formal exercise, I track it via my watch. Often, you get exercise minute credits for just walking from the car to the office, or maybe vacuuming the floor.
Movement
The red ring is the Movement ring. This one is a challenge on many days. My goal on my app is set to 620 movement calories. Apple defines it as “the amount of active energy you burn by moving. This accounts for everything from light household chores and slow walks to biking or working out at the gym.” My goal is 620 calories. Some days are easier than others.
A Typical “Successful” Day
I’ll give you a sample of a successful day filling all three rings. These exercises work for me, but choose exercises that are comfortable to you and you feel safe doing.
4:00 AM – Stretch
Yes, you read that right. LadyFish and I wake up at 4:00 AM on weekdays. LadyFish heads straight to the treadmill. While she is walking on the treadmill, I do a 10 minute Full Body Stretch on the Peloton App. I don’t get many calories for my Move ring, but I get 10 Exercise minutes. By the time we leave for work at 7:00, I’ve already made good progress on the Exercise and Stand rings.
Office Time – Stairs or Walk
When I am at the office, I try to sneak away for a few minutes during the day. I have a couple of different things I pick from. When the weather is nice, I like to take a 15 minute walk around downtown. Some days, LadyFish who also works downtown will join me. If I do a walk, I get credit for my Exercise ring and typically burn about 70 calories toward my Movement Ring. Another option I choose is to “walk the stairs” at work. I work in a 28 story building, and I start on the first floor, climb to the 28th, and then walk back down to the 8th floor. This takes about 15 minutes and is a pretty intense workout. Don’t attempt anything similar until you are comfortable with exerting yourself pretty hard. When I do stairs I burn about 120 calories towards my Movement ring.
After Dinner – Walk and/or Peloton
LadyFish and I like to walk around the neighborhood on nice days. Walking is her workout of choice. A 30 minute walk gets me 30 more exercise minutes and about 100 Movement calories. If we don’t walk, I really enjoy riding the Peloton. I’ll be writing about Peloton on many occasions, but this is the best and most used piece of exercise equipment that we’ve ever purchased. If I walk and do the Peloton in the evening, then there is no problem completing my Movement ring.
So that is a typical best case scenario day for me. I’m pretty consistent on Monday through Thursday. Friday evenings often get skipped regarding fitness. Those nights tend to be more geared toward going out to eat and having a nice glass of bourbon at the end of the day. More on that in later posts.
I am pretty good about completing my Watch Rings at least one day on the weekends. I tend to do a longer and more intense Peloton workout, so that typically takes care of my Exercise ring and a good chunk of my Movement ring.
The Real Goal: Daily Movement
So that’s it. That’s my daily fitness goal and my method of achieving it on most days. I think the key to fitness as we get older is to have some sort of goal in your head. More than anything, I think we should all just strive to be consistently active each day. When I say active, it does not have to be actual exercise. It can be cleaning the house, mowing the yard, playing with kids or grandkids.
At our age, fitness doesn’t have to mean marathon training or two hours in the gym. At FishVitality, my goal isn’t extreme fitness. It’s staying active, healthy, and energized as the years go by.
The real goal is simple: move every day and stay consistent.
If closing my watch rings keeps me moving, then that’s a win.
