For the last half of June and the first three weeks of July, I was a gym addict! Yes, for an entire five week period you would find me in the gym every other morning at 9am until 10.30am… fully kitted-out in my joggers and vest with a trusty water bottle and towel under my arm. Now, I know what you’re thinking… Wow, I’m impressed, that shows dedication! Especially for a girl like me whose only daily exercise usually consists of climbing the stairs to get to the bathroom; or racing frantically to answer a call on my mobile, which is almost always lodged behind a pillow or tucked under a sofa somewhere…BUT back to the point… Don’t start praising me JUST yet!
Following my realisation that I was paying for roughly four day passes a week, the logical side of my brain appealed to me and I decided to fill in an application for a membership contract. The two reasons for committing myself to a contract were that:
1) I’d finished University and was planning on working locally for a while, so geographically it made sense to join a gym that was close to home.
2) there was an AMAZING soon-to-be-expiring offer of £10 a month for FULL use of facilities, BUT this was only available to gym-freaks who agreed to commit to the 12-month iron-clad contract. Now, seeing as it cost me £5 for a day-pass, which I was paying up to four times a week, taking advantage of this deal seemed like the obvious thing to do, because I’d be saving £70 a month from my usual routine!!
So any way, my membership card arrived in the post and I was buzzing to get back into the gym, this time without having to approach the reception-desk and queue for 10 minutes for a day-pass. The excitement of scanning myself through the barrier gave me a pitiable sense of pride and I thought, ‘yeah, I could get used to this!’
Fast forward 24 hours and somehow I had reverted back to coach-potato mode! The adrenaline rush that I had usually obtained from journeying to the gym, exercising and accumulating buckets of sweat had somehow evaporated into thin air OVERNIGHT and honestly I haven’t been able to retrieve my motivation since! It’s been three weeks and multiple times I’ve laid out my gym-wear before going to bed; trainers placed symmetrically at the foot of my bed and water bottle chilling in the fridge. However, as soon as my alarm buzzes psychotically at 8am, I automatically hit the snooze-button and I’m dead to the world until at least 9.30am! My friends reprimand me on a DAILY basis for not making the most of the gym-membership that I’m required to pay for, for the next 11 months! And as a result, until I resume my previous routine, they’ve isolated me from our gym-crew, which I was the founding member of!
But, before the evil gym-owners bleed all of the money from my ever-declining bank balance, and I’m left with nothing to show but a protruding stomach and a HUGE overdraft, I think it’s time that I ventured back to my old surroundings. Back to the place that is filled with rows of cardio machines, weights and muscular pensioners who put youngsters like myself to shame.
So I decided that the best thing to do would be to identify my 2 weaknesses and then construct a plan of action. Firstly, I find it difficult to muster the energy to go to the gym largely because it is SO CLOSE BY! It is literally a 6 minute walking distance and for that reason I always put off going with the frame of mind that I can go whenever I want to because it’s on my doorstep… of course I never actually do. The second problem is that for some reason I associate going to the gym with EARLY MORNINGS; and so once the early morning period has passed, I convince myself that I should wait until the FOLLOWING morning and then try again… which again only leads to further procrastination!
So here is my plan of action. Tomorrow, I’ll disconnect the bleeping alarm and allow myself to wake up naturally without the droning bleeep bleeeep bleeeep that usually grates on my nerves. Once I’ve jumped out of bed WITHOUT blood-shot eyes or feelings of annoyance, I’ll then set aside 20 minutes to calmly: brush my teeth, wash my face, eat some fruit, get dressed and a have a Yakult drink… and then, the crucial part of the plan. I’ll CHECK MY BANK BALANCE to instill a sense of guilt and obligation within me. This should give me the push that I need to FINALLY begin my long overdue journey to the gym! Now if I know myself well enough this plan should work, especially the part where I check my bank balance before I leave, because I’ve ALWAYS have been a sucker for guilt trips! So wish me luck… Six-pack and biceps here I come 😛
Just A Small Town Girl... 