Tag: gym

Gym bunnies

In a bid to deal with our son’s low muscle tone I suggested we go for personal training at the gym and promptly bought one of those PT packages. It would a great Mother-Son bonding thing to do, I thought. It would be fun, I thought. 

If you know me at all you’ll how much I hate going to the gym. I am the most UN-gym-type person you’ll ever meet. My idea of gym is leopard-crawling in at 5am and making a beeline for the treadmill where I spend 40 min doing a brisk walk, avoiding eye contact with everyone and people-watching from the bubble of my treadmill.*

This personal trainer thing is so far out of my comfort zone it’s like a whole other universe. 

But, I thought, he will probably work more with Daniel and I can do my usual slinking-to-the-treadmill-thing. 

Not so much. This guy clearly likes a challenge. I did unspeakable things like crunches, lunges and push-ups this morning. And star-jumps. Star-jumps people! I haven’t done those since I was 10 years old. I may or may not have look shocked and outraged when he demanded suggested them at first. He may or may not have crossed his arms and stared me down a little. I’m usually a very difficult person to stare down, but I zipped my lip and star-jumped like a boss. 

He, very successfully, managed to juggle my personal torture training very well with keeping my son engaged and sweating and laughing. He didn’t complain ONCE. 

I’m going to be so sore tomorrow, but it was fun. I might get used to this. I may even grow to love it. 

Goes to show, you’re never too old to become a gym-bunny, nê?

*I mostly stare at the Lycra-clad women with faces fully made up and perfectly blow-dried hair. Who even bothers with make-up and hair at that ridiculous hour?

Another Gym Post

How’s your week going? Mine’s been pretty cool so far, but it’s going to be a busy few days ahead.

I recently wrote this post about gym (the place, not the person) and how I was sure I’m allergic as I forever kept getting sick.

Subsequent to that I changed to another gym and what a difference it has made.  No, I still don’t enjoy waking up at 4h50 in the morning so I can drag my sorry ass out of the house and into the cold and dark, but I’m never sorry that I went. And it rained this morning when I came out of the gym at 5h55. Just rude.

The new gym is a lot bigger than the old one and there is such a mix of people there, from serious, 5am-make-up-wearing-gym-bunnies to Dads and their boys hanging out on the circuit. I’m completely amazed at how packed that gym is so early in the morning, so many cars in the parking lot!

The best thing about the new gym must be their treadmills.  Each treadmill has a TV screen, so you can watch TV whilst you sweat.  For someone like me that cannot bear doing only one thing at a time this is very pleasing. My favourite channel is VH1 Classic and I spend a lot of time either grinning like an idiot or trying not to bop along whilst trying to walk my 4km in under 40 minutes.  I also may or may not have given in to flicking fingers and waving arms around whilst keeping pace. But I’m not saying. I do dread the day I either trip or something equally stupid that lands me on my ass on a moving treadmill.

All in all?  I’m having fun.  I enjoy being able to just do my thing and not having to make eye-contact with or talk to anyone.  It’s just me and VH1 Classic. No need to try and figure out the whole sub-culture of gym that I can see exists. And I have yet to run into a single person I know.

Awesome.

This morning’s favourite was Take That’s Back for Good, complete with bad boy Robbie Williams. I had such a rush of London memories of when they broke up and the gay guys at work were all crying. That was London in the 90’s for you!

Here’s the song and remember to look out for Robbie..

 

Now I just need to get off the treadmill and try something else at the gym.  Or just start running, like I promised myself I would.

What do you do at the gym?

 

 

Allergies and Vitamins

keep-calm-and-take-vitaminsIt’s official: I’m allergic to gym.

It is the most bizarre thing.  After my first visit to the gym my sinuses packed up, I ignored it and I ended up on antibiotics and steroids and staying away for 2 weeks.  After my second visit to the gym I was immediately (as in the very same day) sick again and couldn’t go for another whole week.  I then decided to just ignore it anyway and carry on, but it really is the strangest thing.

I don’t do anything different at the gym either or over-exert myself, I purely go as I can’t walk at 05:00 anymore because it’s too dark and do the same thing I would do on the road. I’m probably sensitive to dust etc and something at gym triggers a sinus reaction, but I shall Keep Calm and Suck It Up, but this chronic sinus thing irritates the living crap out of me. I’ve cut out all diary, wheat and alcohol this week to see if it helps.  I am not pleased.

This made me think about multivites and flu injections and I almost went for my first flu injection this year, but decided against it because (gasp) I was sick when they were doing it at work.

We have always been of the pro-active multivite persuasion in our house and used to buy a barrage of vitamins for the kids, especially this time of year, as our kids used to get the sickest during March/April with the change of seasons (as I’m sure your kids do).

Etienne is really good with his Vitamin B complex and Viral Choice and takes it religiously.  I dabble in those vites, but I lean more towards Vitamin D, Evening Primrose, CalMag that I have in my drawer at work because those are the things I can feel my body needs more often, although I have added bottles of Vitamin B and Viral Choice to my stash for winter. I feel like a druggie though as suddenly I have 10 pills lined first thing in the morning. I buy different bottles of vitamins as no single vitamin I have come across has everything that I need and I’m an obsessive label reader.

I’m curious though:

What vitamins do you adults take, if any?

Do you take the same set of vitamins right through the year or do you change your regime to accommodate for seasonal changes?

Do you read the labels and compare or do you just buy the cheapest one?

On holding grudges

I’m curious: do you hold grugdes for any length of time or are you able to let go quite easily?

I always marvel at how people can fight like cats (especially online) and then, soon thereafter when loyalties shift, they are the best of friends.  It baffles me.  I mean, if someone does you harm surely you don’t put up with them?  I always thought that you either like someone or you don’t and that you shouldn’t give them a chance to keep hurting you?

Let me explain a scenario from my own life:

A long long time ago I had this boss.  As bosses go she scared the living bejesus out of me and caused me untold anxiety and stress. Nothing was ever good enough for her, she was terribly arrogant, critical and demeaning and she generally treated people like shit.  She was a textbook example of How Not To Manage People.  We didn’t part on good terms and I literally had nightmares about her for years after.  I still get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about her (which, thankfully, I don’t do often).  Of all the people from my past I really don’t miss, she’s number 2 on the list, only surpassed by her own boss at that time.

Needless to say, I don’t harbor many warm and fuzzy feelings toward her.  In fact, over the years tales of how things haven’t worked out well for her made me smirk and gloat a little on the inside, admittedly not my finest moments.

Until last week.

Imagine my horror when I spotted her at gym at 5:15am the other morning and every other morning thereafter.  I mean, really Karma.  What the actual friggin hell?

I’ve now gone over this in my head (Etienne says I’m obsessing about it and I should just ignore her) repeatedly and I just cannot bring myself to greet her and I feel quite aggrieved that she is encroaching on, not just the gym I go to, but also the suburb I live in.  And she uses the machines in the same area I do, so there’s no dodging her. I’m seriously contemplating changing gyms, that’s how strong I feel about her.

I know I’m a big girl now and in the end it’s been a lot of years (think the previous century).  I know that the wheel has turned and all that. I know I should simply walk past, look up, give her the evil eye I perfected since raising toddlers and then smile falsely and greet. I know that I am a bigger person than my current behavior.

But seriously.  Holding on to that grudge is so much a part of me by now that it’s really hard to let go and besides, why should I be (a) false and (b) talk to someone I really have no time for?

I’ve come to realise obsessing thinking about this the last few days that I am actually a Master Grudgeholder.  Hurt one of my friends, my family or especially one of my children?  Treat me with disrespect, lie to me or steal from me? You will find your name on my shitlist and almost impossible to have it removed.  Call it self-preservation, call it shallowness or a product of my personal history, I don’t care, but don’t mess with me or the people I care for.

Do you hold grudges? If you don’t, how do you let them go?

ps: Do I care that she might read this post?  Not in the least, maybe she needs to see how people feel about her and think about the negative impact she’s had on people’s lives.

pps: there are probably a couple of people out there that feel this way about me as a manager and if I ever made you feel bad I apologise. I’m a lot better these days, promise.

To Gym or not to Gym, that is the question

gym 5I’m not a big fan of going to the gym, it’s never really been my thing. When I was drinking and partying studying at Stellenbosch a friend (hi Marleen!) took me to the gym once and was greatly amused by all the new uses I had found for all the machines. It was a story that was retold with great gusto many a late night in Finlay’s (a long gone watering hole in Stellenbosch)

In fact, the only time I really frequented the gym was back in 1996 when I had just come back from London and was unemployed for 3 months. I rocked those step classes, but that petered out very quickly when I started working 14 hour days again in hospitality.

gym 4I have tried Belly dancing and Pilates and Yoga and I have loved them all, but I am in a committed relationship with walking now and am starting to run (when I say “starting” I really mean “thinking about it a lot”, but let’s keep that between us ok?).

The only time I have to exercise is in the morning.

5am in the morning to be specific.

I could tell myself that I will go for a walk in the evening after the kids have gone to bed, but that would be a big fat lie, there are too many other things to do and there is so little time in the day with them that I really cannot steal another minute of my time with them or with Etienne.

So, 5 am it is.

gym 3Except, all of a sudden it is very, very dark at 5 am in the morning and it’s getting harder and harder for me to make it out the door. I also know that I have to leave the house to exercise, I am *that* undisciplined. I will not get up and run on a treadmill or use an elliptical trainer or one of those type things. Ask the lonely health walker that stood in our house for 4 years.

So, gym it is. I think.

What’s it like going to gym these days, I gather it’s still done?

Must I get one of those personal trainer type people or just dodge them altogether?

What machines are there these days?

What is accepted gym etiquette, if any?

What do people wear these days?

Any other pointers?

Help me out people, I’m stuck in the 90’s..