Choose your potion...

So, I used to belong to a gym.

I should say, I'm not natively a gym-goer.  I did not grow up with parents who went to the gym; I was active as a small child, but once I discovered the wonderful, magical world of "reading", that went away fast.  So I don't generally go to a gym on my own, or of my own initiative:  I have to have a buddy and/or an executive order to get me on a treadmill.

But!  I did have a buddy; for a while, anyway.  There were three of us, and we went to this gym together for almost a year.  I also got into yoga, which I did once a week, and that was by far my favorite part of the whole gym.  There's just no way to describe how wonderful I felt after a round of "Hey, look at all these nifty things we can do with our bodies!"

The rest of the gym-going experience was not my cup of tea.  It was boring, and hard work, and, to my mind, unpleasant.  But, despite the unpleasantness, it was awesome.  I had so much energy.  I lost thirty pounds.  I felt great.

Unfortunately, that buddy-system collapsed, because one of us was no longer able to attend that particular gym, but instead one twenty miles away, and then I wasn't able to go during their time-slot, and soon none of us was actually going to the gym much at all.  I even stopped going to my yoga classes, which was a shame, because I had felt so good afterward.  

So now I've got a lot less energy (a lot less; I was wondering what was wrong with me, and then when I realized why, I was... chagrined), and I feel guilty instead of great, and I'm not as strong...  And I've gained twenty of my thirty pounds back.  And what's more, I've been feeling like a hypocrite (I was a hypocrite, and I hate hypocrisy) because here I was, a dietetics student who was obese, and I didn't belong to a gym.  I couldn't even stand the thought of going back to the gym, and every time someone would suggest it, I would flat-out refuse.

This had gone on for more than a year.

And then, last Tuesday, one of my former gym-buddies suggested we go to a yoga class together again.  The yoga, you will remember, was my favorite part; the only part that I looked forward to, and attended on my own on a regular basis.  I'd have turned him down for a workout, but the yoga I could do.

So we did.

And I had an epiphany! 



 Why have I been fretting over the idea of going to a gym?  Why?  Where is it written in the Holy Book of Exercise that all exercise must be performed in a gym?

There are yoga studios all over this city.  None of them are cheap (they all run about a hundred bucks a month, plus or minus ten, and that's with the most cost-efficient package), and some of them are a bit more, er...  esoteric?  Atmospheric?  "Now focus the mystic energy through your aura"-ish?  ...than I was looking for.  But some of them are of that old "Hey, look at all the nifty things we can do with our bodies!" school that was so attractive to me, and I joined one of those.

And it's awesome!  I have so much energy!  I feel great!  My muscles are sore; it's the pain of growth!  Show me a mountain; I will climb it!

(Or, no, I won't climb it, but I'll feel like I can.)

So here's what I've taken away from this.  You know that saying, "Choose your poison", or sometimes "Pick your poison"?  Well, choose your potent potable:  You can go to a gym, sure.  You can trying Spinning.  You can try swimming.  You can try Pilates.  You can be one of those people who takes like eight dogs on a leashes and runs them through the park every day.  Pick one.

I made a mistake by trying to force myself to do something that I really didn't like doing.  There were alternatives available; alternatives I loved, in fact.

Learn from my mistake:  choose something you enjoy.  I have a friend who hates ellipticals, but enjoys swimming; let her swim.  I have another (straight male) friend who enjoys Zumba; let him Zum.  My gym buddy?  He can't run, due to surgery in his leg, but he's a nut for the treadmill.  He has an entire desk set up on his treadmill, computer, notepad, everything; he walks five miles a day.  Let him tread.

And don't stop exercising (or don't not-start exercising) just because your paradigm is bad.