Back to the gym

As I'm sure zillions of people do each year, I made the new year's resolution in January to join a gym and stick with it. A month into the experiment, I'm very glad I did.

Some brief backstory: I belonged to a gym up until about a year and a half, two years ago, when I moved north of the city. I started off strong last time, but - you know how it is - by the second or third month, I was down to one or two visits a week. While I'm definitely not the "athletic" type, I wouldn't consider myself horribly obese or anything (much like the probably-true stereotype of 90 % of IWC columnists). Yes, I've got a pizza-and-beer belly that needs to be trimmed down, but really, if I could even drop by one pant size, I wouldn't have too much to complain about.

So I rejoined in January but with a twist: I am FORCING myself to go at least four days a week, even if it's a quickie 45-minute workout or whatever. For me, this means waking up at 5:30, a brief 10 minute walk to the bus station (made a bit lengthier on snowy days like day) catching the first bus out of Thornhill at promptly 6:10, taking the bus to the subway station, going a few stops to where my gym is at, working out, and then leaving by 8 to catch the subway downtown to my work. It sounds like a lot of effort just to squeeze this in (and some mornings it has been), but this is now the fifth week that I've kept to the schedule.

While I'm not packing on the muscles or anything, I feel a LOT better these days. I have more energy throughout the day, and I'm not nearly as exhausted as I used to be on the weekends. I've also lost five pounds already (which isn't bad considering I haven't changed my admittedly-horrible diet in the least), so there's been tons of upside.

Anyways, just thought I'd share....