3 easy steps...

...to stop exercising and start inflating!!

So last week I met up with a very good french friend of mine for a coffee.  We are members of the same gym.  I would love to say that we 'go to the same gym', but up until last Thursday I seemed to have forgotten where my gym was located.  This is how the conversation went:

Jb:  Joanna, you haven't been going to the gym.  You need to go back to the gym.
Me:  Yeah, yeah, I know...I keep meaning to go back, it's just that I...yeah, I need to go back!
Jb:  No, no...I mean it...you are inflating!!

I think that it takes a special kind of person to be able to say something like that and 1. not get a slap in the face & 2. make the person on the receiving end of that comment laugh out loud!  I think it helps that he has a french accent...took the edge off I think!!

It got me thinking.  How come I went from loving going to the gym - more than that, if I didn't go I was finding that I wasn't feeling right...verging on grumpy - to not being able to motivate myself at all??  Then I realised that it breaks down into 3 very simple steps.

Step 1.  The Reason.
For me, in this case, I was away from home a lot.  Moving about, living in other people's homes dog sitting...therefore I was replacing my gym time with walking or jogging with the dogs.  Which is absolutely fair enough.

Step 2.  The Excuses.
These start the minute I moved back home, was no longer away from the gym and using my gym time to walk dogs, yet not 'managing' to get back to the gym.

Step 3.  The Fear.
The fear sneaks up on you.  You're comfortably making excuses about not going to the gym when one day you realise that when you are thinking about going along to the gym, it's no longer about 'not having time' etc it's about the nervous butterfly feeling you get and the dread of facing up to the loss of fitness that you'd built before you had your 'reason' for not going.  Also the fear of the inevitable pain/discomfort that you'll get once you exercise again.

So...having a friend who has the balls to tell you that you are 'inflating', believe it or not, is a blessing!!

Of course one of the main reasons that I've got the confidence to write this blog entry is because I started back at the gym last Thursday and was back there yesterday (was away for the weekend) and am going to go back tomorrow....bravo!!