Just so you don’t have to scroll back through too many of the blogs on this site to know who I am and what I’m talking about—although if you do scroll back, I think I have some helpful tips—I’m the woman somewhere over fifty years-old, with the husband who had a triple bypass and then after 8 weeks of rehab at the hospital was told he had to keep up with cardiovascular exercise, and all around good eating habits and healthy choices in life. So we joined a gym while we started putting money away to save for one or more of the fitness machines that we use at the gym.
I’ve written about some of those machines, that we’ve tried out at the gym first, and the choice we have each time our membership fees are due to—to keep going to the gym or buy the equipment ourselves. So this blog, today, comes down heavy on the “we need to buy the equipment,” side because although I love the atmosphere at the gym, I just know I will exercise more if I have exercise gear at home – starring at me in the face.
My daughter and her boyfriend came into town for a week, all the way from sunny California. (I’m out here in Ohio.) I thought I’d keep going to the gym while she was here, but it never happened, for several reasons. Who wouldn’t want to go out to tea with your daughter from far away instead of gathering the gym clothes, driving off and spending an hour at a workout, then showering and driving back home? At least 30 minutes total will be spent in the car. Then a few hours there…this is all time I could have spent with her. It seemed the choice was easy. (I offered for her to come to the gym, but that didn’t pan out.)
And I lent them the car for periods of time so she could go visit old friends. I could have asked her to drop me off at the gym, but then she’d have to come back sooner than she was planning, so I didn’t want to do that either. You get the picture: there were plenty of excuses. But If I had just an exercise bike, treadmill, elliptical, or any other fitness machine at my house, I could have worked out for a half hour, and had tea with her, or, while they were away, I could have worked out and showered before they got home. At the end of the day, there are many more daughter coming in town kind of events in life that prevent us from taking the time to drive to the gym to workout.
But here’s the real reason we need to get our own exercise equipment… When I go to the gym, my husband, who NEEDS to exercise (not that I don’t need to, but in a different way), meets me there. I’m his gym, partner. I give him that little extra push to go—to meet me there because if he doesn’t, I’ll know, and I’ll be there all by myself, which he would feel bad about. But because I didn’t go, he found reasons not to also—staying late for something at work, etc. Gyms are good if you have a partner who meets you there every time, to keep you from falling back into old excuses not to exercise. But a home gym, well, that’s so in your face, isn’t it? It says, “You can find a half hour today, can’t you?” So that’s a point for buying an exercise machine. The points are adding up. I’ll try and decide soon and let you all know.
