My Gym Story

Hello lovelies,

Today I want to write about my "gym journey" and how it has developed over the years. But before we get into how I started I would like to clarify that before January 2013 I was the laziest person ever. I hated sports, was never on any school sports team, did not enjoy doing any physical activity, had asthma, never went to the gym and gym class at school was the worst. I would rather try to only eat fruit and salad for days then actually move – which obviously doesn’t really work in the long term.

Summer 2012 I graduated High school, moved to another country and started university. After half a year at university I came home and noticed I had gained weight from all the alcohol and 3am pizzas I had been consuming. And for some reason it click. In terms of my physically body and abilities these should be the best years so why would I waste them?

I got a gym membership and my university gym had just been refurbished so there were loads of a shine, new machines. I went to the cardio area which is where all females seem to go so I followed. Once I got there I was sure I was not going to run. If there was one thing I knew about gyms it was that I did not want to run. The crosstrainers looked weird, like I would fall off them; so the spinning bikes looked safe – I mean anyone can ride a bike right? I started doing spinning for 30min, 60min, 90min a day. In terms of my nutrition I had also started eating “healthy” – skipping the 3am pizzas and eating more vegetables. And within a few months I had lost quite a bit of weight. I had also started following loads of fitness Instagram account and blogs, just like this one, and learnt more and more about weight training. It seemed to make sense that I should do weight training as well as some cardio but it seemed intimidating, I didn’t know how to use the machine let alone the free weight, as said everyone can ride a bike.

Overtime I started using more of the machines and I realized that firstly people don’t really care if you don’t understand the machine straight away; secondly the machines are not that hard to figure out. I still did my spinning but added machine weight training to the end of my workouts. During the summer I didn’t have access to a real gym so I would join my boyfriend sometimes and he showed me some of free weights exercises I had seen on Instagram and blogs which is when I had the chance to try them with someone around to help me if I didn’t know how to do something.

Second year at university a guy friend of mine joined my university gym and I was in the free weights area with him 6 times a week (skipping cardio nearly always, 6min on a spinning bike was our warm-up, if we could wait that long before going to the free weights). Yes at times I was the only girl in there, but so what? I learned how everything worked and became confident within the free weights area to the point where I would go to the free weights area alone even if my friend couldn’t join at times. Did I get weird looks sometimes? Yes! Did I get comments sometimes? Yes! Did that stop me? No! (I might dedicate a whole blog post to this.)

At the moment I am working out alone during my lunch breaks, which is not quite as fun, as I have a limited time period. But I am lifting 4/5 times a week and have been able to add in HIIT cardio for most sessions and some steady state cardio too.

I have found something that I enjoyed and I am excited to see how my gym “journey” will develop in the future.

Thanks for reading! I hope this inspires some of you to step out of your comfort zone and try something new, you might find something you really enjoy!

If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them here, on Instagram or by emailing me.

Love,