Free At Last!

What’s the number one, best reason to have a home gym?  No, it’s not being able to work out whenever you want.  It’s being able to work out wearing whatever, even just your sport bra and bike shorts.  If I wore just that to my old gym, as some women there actually do, there would have been mass hysteria and riots.  People would have rushed towards me with towels to cover all my glaring white flesh.

At home, though, no one cares what I look like.  I’m not roasting when I’m on the spin bike because the only shirt that I felt comfortable wearing in public is two sizes too big and the sleeves go past my elbows.  I can pin back my hair at absurd angles, worrying only about comfort, and not how I look.

I had forgotten how absolutely wonderful it was to just do 20-30 minutes of exercise when I feel like it.  I always felt like I needed to put in 2 hours at the gym because of the stress and difficulty in getting two children and myself ready and out the door and through the 20+ minute drive.  Now, I can just hop on my bike for 6 songs, do some crunches, and leave.  I can go back later to do squats and push-ups.

It is so completely freeing.  I was so self conscious at the gym.  I felt like people were looking at me funny, or pitying me.  I actually had one woman in a spin class that I took regularly, where she was the new person, turn to me and ask me if this was my first spin class.  I was aghast!  I’ve done spin since my 5 year old was born, and had done it regularly at least once a week for a  year and a half at that point.  She assumed that because I was heavy, I was out of shape.  After that day, I felt even less comfortable at that gym.

I love my home gym so much, I don’t even miss my office.  I’m happily sharing an office with my husband.  I can’t wait to try out the Pilates book I found.  I’d always been too intimidated to go to a Pilates class because of how tiny and lean the women who went were.  I do miss my Wednesday night spin class (taught by a good friend of mine) - but other than that, I am just so happy to be free and comfortable in my work outs again.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at 8:41 am and is filed under Encouragement, Body Image, Exercise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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