Fitness is all in the composing. It’s not just how much you can lift or how many abs you have peeking through your T-shirt. It describes the quality of your home environment, your relationships, your mental health, your body chemistry, your sleep habits, your breathing patterns—basically, the full condition of your whole existence right now. Period.
When we were young, our ideas about fitness usually centered around having a “sexy body.” And honestly, we shouldn’t mock that instinct too much. Physical attraction is real. Wanting to look good is real. It’s important. It’s just not the whole story. You can have razor-sharp abs and a shredded body while quietly dying of pancreatic cancer. You can be running a six-minute mile while your nervous system is lit up like a Christmas tree with anxiety. So no, physical condition alone isn’t the final word on what “fitness” means.
There are a bunch of aspects of fitness that are actually within our control—and a whole bunch that are not. For example: we don’t control the air we breathe unless we move to the middle of nowhere (and even then, good luck escaping microplastics). We don’t really control the purity of our drinking water. We didn’t control who raised us, what teachers we got stuck with, what government or society we were born into. And no matter what some new-age spiritual influencer tells you, you didn’t consciously pick your parents. If you did, you did it on such a deep subconscious level that it doesn’t even matter—you’re still stuck with what you got.
All of these outside factors are stressors. They shape the way we think. And the way we think directly affects our chemistry—our hormones, our mood, our immune system, our resilience. Chronic anxiety, anger, resentment, and fear flood the body with the wrong chemicals day after day. And guess what? That shows up physically. It’s impossible to be truly “fit” while running a toxic mind-loop.
That’s why fitness isn’t just about what you see in the mirror. It’s about the story playing out in your head, too. It's about how you breathe, how you recover, how you love, and how you handle the chaos around you. Real fitness is full-spectrum. It’s the entire system.