What qualifies for "physically fit" in a man's mind?

I'm tall and very slender and consider myself to be healthy, but I haven't seen the inside of a gym in *ahem* years, and at 55, some things just aren't where they used to be. And I'm okay with that, and with the fact that the days of turning heads at the swimming pool are long behind me! I had my turn, and now I'm in a different place in life.


Unfortunately I think that many people, not just men, equate fitness with youth rather than health- and no matter how much we work out, we simply don't have the bodies we had in our 20s. I didn't realize how prevalent this attitude was until I got back into dating again. I can swim for hours, walk for miles, keep up with my pre-teens, but because of my age, may not be considered "fit" by a good percentage of my prospective matches.

Guess you've not met a lot of defensive linemen.

Let's start with what actually is physically fit, and then work backwards toward attitudes. the term Physically Fit is a group of overtly physical conditions that form a subset of what it is to be healthy. Whereas Healthy rightly includes mental outlook, emotional stability, and a near absence of diseasea, Physically Fit is a non-clinical term for a person who is physiologically well-adapted to our natural world...a modern-day equivalent to our hunter-gatherer ancestors.


Physically Fit people can most easily be recognized by measuring bodyfat percentage; theyfall within specific ranges of body fat percentage. For less than $80, anyone can measure his percentage with acceptable accuracy on a bathroom scale with this feature. From the onset of puberty through 35 or so, physically fit people have bodyfat of between 5% and 16% for males, and 9% and 17% for females. Move those ranges up about two percentage points for everry 20 years past the age of 35, and you have the age-adjusted Physically Fit person. As for lab work that can establish Physically Fit people, the latest research screams that cholesterol and even BP have been criminally overemphasized, and that Physically Fit has more to do with low Homocystiene levels, low triglyceride levels, and stable thyroid panels. A Physically Fit person also exhibits an absence of metabolic disorders and an absence of inflammatory disorders; no type-2 diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, Syndrome X, IBS, etc.. These syndromes and disorders arise in unfit people almost exclusively.


There are some easy ways to look at Fit: men of any age, if you are under 7 feet tall, and your waist is over 38 inches, you are not fit...period. Women of any age who are under six feet tall, if your dress size is over an 8, you are not fit...period. And I'm talking the size 8 of 20 years ago, before all women's sizes were inflated to keep unfit women (who by then had become the majority) happy in the store...today's size 8 in all but Haute Couture sizing is really a size 10-12. If you're under 55 and cannot safely run a 7.5-8-minute mile, absent debilitating joint disease, you are not fit. If you cannot take a residential flight of 12-15 stairs two at a time without breathing hard, you are not fit. If you cannot hold a bag of groceries in your palm with your arm at full extension for three seconds, you are not fit.


Men's perception of Physically Fit is greatly influenced by age-related physiology. As serum Human Growth Hormone levels drop in men over time whatever fat they store tends to be stored as belly fat. It is the first spot to receive fat deposits, and the most stubborn spot to let them go when losing fat. Thus, in men past 40, even men with low total bodyfat, the belly will tend to round out. Women have their own more well-known places for fatty deposits, but these ironically may actually improve in post-menopausal women, as fat storage in these places seems to respond to dropping Estrogen levels. This is not to suggest that round-bellied 55-year old men have the right to expect small-bottomed, non-double-waving women of 55, but to some extent, human biology supports this expectation among relatively fit people.


In conclusion (Thank God! you are by now saying) there is a way to view Physically Fit objectively. It is worth striving for. Nearly all humans find physically fit people attractive, and find non-fit people unattractive. Men and women display fitness levels differently. The defitition of Physically Fit does not change much with age.Those who complain about it are kidding themselves. Those who fail to live up to objective measures of fitness but tell themselves they can do the things they wish to do in life are deluding themselves...deep down, we all want to be fit, and we all want fit partners. We should not accept anyone as a partner who does not demand that we get fit for them. Let's all get over it, suck it up and get fit.

Physically fit to me = she is content in her own body, she exercises regularly (not necessarily at the gym) and stays active, she takes good care of her body and mind, she has good hygiene, she has positive self-attitudes

My version of physically fit, is being able to do the things in life that you want to do without being limited by health or fitness factors within your control.

Ask the guy in question. Unfortunately, this is one of those questions where if you ask fifty men, you'll get fifty different answers.


There are medical definitions, but they're useless in dating.


The fundamental facts are these:


1) Someone will find you attractive no matter what you look like.


2) What you're attracted to is what you're attracted to. Period. You have a right to your own tastes.


3) Most people rationalize their state of fitness to more closely match what they want to be, not what they really are.

So true.


Im sure women do this too but its always amazing to me to read how self descriptions don't match up with pictures.

+1 to both.


I find that in an effort to polish their profiles, many go too far. Instead of describing who they are, they describe who they once may have been or who they aspire to be. I don't think they're trying to fool anyone. In an effort to project themselves in a positive light, they just go too far.


For the purpose of this thread, a few posters have captured a strange, yet relatively common phenomena on EH. That is, people who claim to be physically fit while lacking the physique to support the claim.


I think when certain men (such as myself) voice a preference for a physically fit partner, they want someone who is fit. But, here's the kicker, they also want someone who looks fit. It's our roundabout way of being polite in an politically hypersensitive age where voicing a physical preference will get us burned at the proverbial stake.


That disconnect has caused me more than a few uncomfortable first date encounters. Of the people I've met from EH who claimed to be fit, two were obese personal trainers. One was a certified trainer who had gained half a person since her pictures due to what she explained away as "emotional eating". The other claimed she could still complete a mini-triathlon so, "technically", she was fit. Needless to say, I felt a tad duped (neither had full-length pictures in their profile).


What I learned is that people can achieve a certain level of fitness without necessarily looking the part. Hey, I applaud the effort! But if someone chooses to describe themselves as "physically fit" in their profile, don't they understand that, without further explanation, there's an inherent expectation that they're going to look the part?