What is Fitness? Part 3: Smart, Fit, and Clean

This is the third in a series of blogs about defining fitness.  Catch up on the other ones here:

What is Fitness?  Part 1: Defining the Question

What is Fitness? Part 2: Answering the Question for Yourself

I’m going to start today with the words I finished with yesterday:

Fitness, therefore, is about being your healthiest and most physically vital and mentally acute, but also about making the most positive impact on those around you and the world around you.

Fitness, in my definition, is being your best self, for yourself, for others, and for the future.

This is where Smart, Fit, and Clean comes in.  I have used these 3 words to define my concept of fitness:

• Smart = Mentally Acute
• Fit = Healthy & Physically Vital
• Clean = Positive Impact on Others & the World

Or, if you want, you could also frame it like this:

• Smart = For Yourself
• Fit = For Others
• Clean = For the Future

Why did I pick this name Smart, Fit, and Clean?  Because I am trying to expand the definition of health and wellness beyond physical fitness into mental fitness and spiritual fitness.  I am proposing concepts for how we define these three types of fitness.

I’m recognizing that human beings are not our bodies alone.  Inside these bodies are minds and spirits.  We have deeper motivations than the physical, and we have physical manifestations of our deeper selves.

Your smartest, fittest, and cleanest self is your best self.  These 3 terms now give us 3 sets of parameters to work within.  Each of these realms (smartness, fitness, and cleanliness) can now be expanded into whole families of study and practice.  Rather than a reductive concept of fitness, this is an expansive concept of fitness that allows us to work for our entire lives.

Over the next 3 blogs, I will expand on each of these terms in turn:

• “Smart” is the realm of mental health and intelligence.
• “Fit” is the realm of bodily health and physical fitness.
• “Clean” is the realm of spiritual health and meaning.