Gym'll Fix It.

On Saturday I finally arranged my gym membership, having been planning to join a gym for years! I'm now a member of "The Body Workshop", which is just five minutes walk from my home, so no excuses about it being too far to walk! It's £27 for a monthly membership, which gives me unlimited gym and weights use, though at the moment I'm concentrating mainly on cardio, with some stretches and a couple of Pilates exercises. I'll add weight training eventually for toning, but I need to get a few stone off first!

Penny, the trainer who did my induction session went over the equipment with me, and showed me around the building. She asked whether I had any specific goals or aims, but never mentioned the word "weight" which I felt was very positive. I do want to lose weight obviously, but it isn't my *main* aim - that's getting fit and healthy, and building strength. She also checked whether I have any back, neck or knee injuries and that I'm healthy enough to exercise in the gym.

My initial plan is to warm up for five minutes with some stretches or by walking down to the gym, then do twenty minutes of cardio-vascular exercise, consisting of:

• 10 minutes on the treadmill, at 2.5mph and incline 3.
• 3-5 minutes on the elliptical trainer at Level 4 and 40+ rpm (revolutions per minute)
• 500 metres on the rowing machine

Then finish off with some stretches and toning exercises for my abdominal muscles and thighs. I think I can handle all that!

Today was my first real workout, and I went to the gym with Donna, a colleague from work. When we got there there was one other woman in the cardio room, who was on one of the treadmills, marching away as though she was training for the London Marathon! Hey, it's in April ... she probably was! I grabbed the other treadmill, and Donna went for the rowing machine. I got a bit ambitious, and cranked the speed up to 3mph, and the incline to 3, then moved the speed to 3.5mph, and did 15 minutes instead of the 10 I was aiming for!

Next was the rowing machine, which I find tough at the moment - 500 metres is manageable for me, though only just, and I really feel it in my legs and stomach muscles when I stand up again. Leaving the elliptical trainer for last was a really bad idea - I could barely stand, but after a couple of minutes break, watching Donna on the treadmill, I was able to do the 3 minutes I was aiming for - and add another 2 on as well.

By that point we were both pretty shattered, and on a real exercise high! We left in good spirits, both feeling good about having pushed ourselves further than we had been aiming for. I feel really positive about the gym now, though I'm sure i'll be suffering from muscle fatigue tomorrow! But hey - no pain, no gain .... though a loss would be better!