A year ago … still boldly going !

My third Blog post https://ginorgym.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/to-boldy-go-where-no-gymophobe-has-been-before/ written after I had been for my first look around the Western Health and Racquets Club. I remember being very apprehensive about what it would be like, would it be full of very fit people pounding the treadmill and lifting huge weights with one finger? Or would I run kicking and screaming after seeing my first torture machine? As it turned out none of the above, no one paid a blind bit of attention and as I left I called Michelle uttering a quote that has haunted me since “I wish I had brought my gym stuff”.

So what was it that made me go back for my proper induction and what is it that keeps me going back to put my muscles and limbs through hell?

• Is it the fact that one year one there is definitely sightings of a waist and a tiny glimpse of an ab?
• Is it the fact that I am lifting heavier weights and walking up stairs two at a time?
• Is it the fact that I am no longer physically tired running for a bus?
• Or perhaps it is the fact that I have achieved my goal of changing my life but still enjoying the foods I love and the odd gin or three.

My friends, it is all of the above but perhaps most importantly it is the fact that I made the decision and stuck to it. It has been bloody hard at times. There have been days when I genuinely could hardly move because my muscles had gone on strike, my hamstrings didn’t talk to me for nearly a fortnight and as for my arms, well they disowned me at one point. But I have lost, and kept off, a stone in weight, given away all my “in case I get big again” clothes and am well on the way to looking fab at fifty.

As I have said before I am NOT on a journey (really dislike that phrase), I am on a flippin hard slog to get this old carcass moving and it is tough. But I could not have slogged my way through this last year without the support of many many people.

Jill Dinsmore for introducing me to Julie Gordon at Western Tennis who said and I quote “I know just the guy to ease you in at western tennis”

Krista, Rae and Anne who I met through the Gym, for all your support, coffee, chat and encouragement

All my friends and family for being there and stopping me from becoming a Gym bore!

Finally to “just the guy” now the legend that is GymGuyMark, thank you for your encouragement, the bad jokes, the stress relieving boxing lessons, letting me yell at you and most of all for believing that I can do this when I didn’t.

As Maya Angelou said “nothing will work unless you do”, here is to keeping on working, to more screaming muscles, to fighting plateaus and to looking fab at fifty.

THANK YOU ALL