I couldn’t sleep last night!
I was wide awake at 4am, no bad dreams, no restless night, no hot flushes, nothing. This hasn’t happened for a while, since starting the Gym and doing my ‘homework’ from GymGuyMark, I have been sleeping really well. Full 8 hours of complete rest and beauty sleep! Only thing I can think of is that I have had a lot on my mind recently. Nothing life shattering but little niggles that I possibly need to sort out.
I eventually got up and, wrapping my fave blanket round me, sat looking out of my window at the night sky. It started to dawn on me (bad pun) that one of these niggles had come from an email I had received from a follower of my Blog. It was a very kind email about how this lady was enjoying my non lycra wearing ramblings and a ‘keep going, it will be worth it’ boost at the end. I replied back and immediately received another email asking me if we could ‘chat’. So having resurrected MSN, I spent a really nice hour swapping stories with a former GymGirl. Most of it was about aches and pains, and awful taste In Gym clothes but towards the end of our ‘chat’ she told me her Gym story.
Former GymGirl and her friends decided that they would all join a Gym to get in shape for a charity run. The run was on behalf of breast cancer, a cause dear to their heart as like many of us they had lost a close friend to that dreadful disease. It all started off fine, having a laugh about what they would wear, going en masse to buy sports bras and have their legs waxed, a real girly giggle. But one month into the training Former GymGirl noticed her friends started to drop out of visits to the Gym and their regular running sessions. It seemed strange to her as she thought they had all been doing so well, really going for it and hitting the targets she had set them. Then one night when all four friends called off the Gym, she rang one of them and asked what was going on. Time for a chat over a drink but her friend was late, making Former GymGirl’s mood even more anxious. Half an hour later she arrived full of apologies but wearing her Gym kit. Immediately, feeling hurt and annoyed, Former GymGirl went into attack mode, demanding to know what was going on, where had she been? Quote “it’s not fun with you anymore, when we started out on this it was for a reason, for the charity but now it is all targets and times, heavier weights and losing weight, this is not why we decided to do this”. Former GymGirl was stung by these words, her friend continued “I mean look; you are drinking soda water, what happened to one the Vodka and Tonic we all agreed we would allow ourselves?” She then admitted that they had being going to a different Gym and running when Former GymGirl was at work, they had tried to tell her to slow down but she just wouldn’t listen to them. Upset at her friends words, Former GymGirl started to realise what had happened, she had lost sight of why they were doing this and the fact that they were in this together as a group. She could even hear herself boasting to them about how much more money she was raising than them. Yes, her friends should have been more forthright and not gone behind her back, but she started to hear in her head the disappointed words she used at them not reaching times or doing better on weight machines. Fine, if she wanted to use this to get fitter overall but she should not have put this on her friends.
I asked her why she was telling me this story and she said it was really just as a caution not to forget the reason I started going to the Gym and not to set myself unreasonable goals and keep my life in balance. Former GymGirl had found herself at the Gym every day, arranging her family meals around runs and then cancelling a family trip to the Cinema because it interfered with her Spin Class. Her life balance was way off. I guess there are those who let fitness regimes overtake their lives to the detriment of their family and friends but I am not one of those people. I am not criticising these guys but it is not for me. This mad GinorGym road that I have started myself down is to make sure that as I get older, I am fit and healthy enough to enjoy my ‘mature’ years with my family and friends, to enjoy the odd (?) gin and bit of chocolate cake/ fish supper and to be able to enjoy nights out without falling asleep in the pub.
So my dear readers I make you and me a promise, that the balance will be kept, on one hand the weights in the other hand the gin. A perfect Gym/Gin/Life balance will be maintained and all in double measures!
Gx
PS. Thank you to Former GymGirl for allowing me to use this.