Thursday 26 April 2012

Gym and Tonic

Nearly every morning I try to go to the gym. That line alone makes me almost faint with astonishment, because until March this year I was about as likely to go to the gym daily as I was to appear on the Jeremy Kyle show.

It all started when a personal trainer called John Preston, who also happens to be a carer (one of his kids has Rhett's Syndrome) advertised for a carer to step forward as a sort of guinea pig. He wanted to show the impact that a month's worth of intensive exercise and good diet could have on a carer, both mentally and physically. He was willing to offer the training for free in return for a daily blog on the experience and some deeply embarrassing before and after pictures (which I'm not posting here under any circumstances).

My initial reaction to reading the advertisement was probably much the same as anyone's would be. The word 'intensive' when paired with 'exercise' is distinctly daunting and my eyes skimmed that sentence quite a few times, with a loud voice in my head shouting 'Nooooo. That's a stupid idea. You and intensive exercise? Pass the Kit Kat and move on...'

But in my brain's boardroom, a small voice piped up. 'It might be good for me!'

The rest of the boardroom laughed at the little voice, which was shrinking back. 'When are you going to get time for this then?' the chief executive snorted. 'You'll get bored within a week and wish you'd never done it!' said some middle manager whose chief job is to procrastinate - he's in charge of the filing that seldom gets done in my study. The little voice, a newcomer I think, said: 'But you can write a blog!'

It's taken me many years to learn that I shouldn't ignore a good gut feeling about something and that little voice seemed to come from the gut. Whilst the other boardroom members were still shouting about it, I emailed back saying that I'd love to be chosen as the guinea pig.

Well, I puffed and huffed my way through the following month, making a nuisance of myself in local parks, using punch mitts to take out whatever tiny frustration had bothered me that day on John. I wheezed up hills, I tricep dipped to the point of collapse and I visited the serious weights bit of the gym, the bit that no mere mortal dares to visit unless they've got a six-pack. The presence of John gave me confidence and with a lot of effort and even more swearing I started to tone up big-time.

But here's the interesting bit (well I think so, anyway). I could afford an hour out of my day much more than I thought I could, and the impact on my energy and patience levels was reeeeeeeally positive. I wasn't naturally a hugely patient person before I had Bobby and Alec. What they've done is to teach me an enormous amount of quiet patience, and it's one of the many things I have to thank them for. There's absolutely no point in losing your rag with Bobby, because you just escalate a situation until his feelings are too hot for him to handle.

However, if you're not naturally that patient and you've had to adapt, then I think that sort of patience really takes it out of you. What the gym's done is to absorb all that tension and energy, making me much more relaxed the rest of the time.

It started off as 'Oh well I'll see this month through, hope for some quick results and then kiss goodbye to the intense bit!'

Now - and I still can't believe this - I'm actually a gym member. No really, I'm there looking like I actually know what I'm doing. Whatever the physical benefits turn out to be, it's nice to have time to yourself and the hard work really kicks any worries to the far flung corners of your mind. Guilt over chocolate or putting on weight was something I really didn't need in my life either.

Of course I also hope that it means I'll be in better shape for Alec and Bobby as they grow. Alec in particular is going to need me around a lot more than your average kid. I'm hoping that he'll have some semi-independence but he's a really tall lad even at eight who needs a lot of care. I don't want to be flaking out at 50. So there you go, I'm one of those boring keep fit converts.

There's one or two drawbacks to my gym, though. One of them is that they don't have many music CDs in working order. The one that they have drills a hole in my head and is designed to be listened to by 18 year-olds wearing not much in nightclubs. That was me in 1988. Looking around the gym, none of us were under 30, that was why we were here for God's sake. When I was under 30, I was a natural twig, stuffing away Mars bars without a morsel of foreboding.

So I approached the guy who had just told me that my exercise bike TV wasn't working because the aerial was knackered, (btw, ever thought of doing something about that, gym management?) and I pointed out that whilst I'm not requesting Frank Sinatra, a bit of high energy stuff from former musical eras wouldn't go amiss. He agreed wholeheartedly, pointing to a sign behind him that said 'From 9am-11am, everything from oldies to modern day'

'Well this isn't exactly an oldie is it?' I pointed out, referring to the manic screeching that had been going on for the last hour and was probably about as appetising to listen to as a workman's drill. Since there was a lamentable amount of alternatives, I suggested I brought in something else and he agreed.

I came in this morning with Now That's What I Call Dance 2001. This was the most high energy CD in my collection and one that I could easily part with. It wasn't my usual taste but I figured anything would be better than the current one. One of the gym guys, who looked like he'd been out of school about a week, thanked me and said he'd put it on immediately.

'Wow - retro!' he said.

Retro? RETRO??

Jeez I am in trouble. I thought retro was Seventies Disco.




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