Mid-40s, active but not sure if I'm fit!

[hippospot]

I don't know how to find out if I'm "fit enough" for my age.

I'm no athlete and my goals are to stay fit and healthy as long as possible. My weight is pretty stable, BMI 21.5 so not an issue.

In a typical week I:

• swim for 35 mins quite fast
• do a yoga class
• walk an average of 12,000-14,000 steps a day
• commute by bicycle 3 days but this only adds up to 1hr30 in total as work is local.

So my Fitbit tells me I'm doing 400-500 active minutes a week.

I have literally no clue if this is enough exercise to stay healthy. I have an old injury that tends to flare up if I do much in the way of HIIT or running, so I avoid those. My worry is I'm not getting my heart rate up enough.

Time is also an issue because I really dislike exercising late in the evening.

How can I find out if I'm fit? If you are mid-40s, how much do you do?

You sound like you do a decent amount of exercise. Get your blood pressure and heart rate checked. These are good indicators of cardiovascular fitness. The same amount of exercise can affect these measures differently in different people so there isn't really a recommended amount of exercise. You can always do some time trial type training during your swimming to force your heart rate up for part of your training if it concerns you. As you have a bike you could also find a difficult route and replace some of your walking with some high-intensity cardio.

www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/

Do you have a fitbit that records your heart rate? A good indication of fitness levels is how quickly your heart rate decreases after exercise. Do an exercise that gets your hr up to about 80% of your max for about 3 minutes then stop the exercise and see what your heart rate is after 1 minute. You want it to have slowed by at least 20bpm. Anything more is great.