A trip to my gym

Earlier this month I mentioned that when I read a blog I like to get a feel for how the blogger lives. Well, the gym is a big part of my life at the mo' so I thought I'd take you on a tour of what I do three times a week.

Go to Victoria Road center. Circle parking lot for 40mins looking for a space. Find parking at shopping center down the road. Walk to gym (thus getting more exercise than you will in the actual gym). Be sure to stop for refreshments at Pick 'n Pay on the way, it really is a long walk.

Once you arrive, try not to have your nose broken by people rapidly exiting the large glass doors. Go inside. Try to keep footing on entrance floor that is covered in soapy water. For some reason the entrance is cleaned on a almost constant basis. The toilets make do with a splash of Domestos once a fortnight, but you could eat off that entrance floor. Go figure.

Dig in handbag for membership card. Empty out contents of bag on counter looking for membership card. Find card, lose everything else as it rolls off counter and across gym floor. Gather stuff. Hand card to over-enthusiastic gym employee who will swipe card for you. This is a sign of the average intelligence of gym-goers - the employees have to swipe your card for you. Proof that those muscle-bound guys upstairs really are morons.

Proceed to ladies changing room. When inside, dodge the bodybuilders who preen by the mirrors. DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTCT. It just makes them angry. Find an empty alcove to change in. Put down bag and remove shoes. By this time your alcove will be packed with obese women wearing saggy g-strings and nothing else. Change into gym clothes, while allowing the other women to squeeze past you to their own lockers. Try not to touch anything.
After spending 20mins looking for an empty locker to secure your stuff, proceed to the loo area to redo hair in the obligatory cheerleader pony-tail. On the way avert eyes from pornographic scene in steam room. ( An aside: If I ever decide to break out of my shell and get naked and sweaty with a bunch of strange women, it sure as hell won't be the women in the above mentioned g-strings.) Note that the loos smell like urinal blocks even though this is a WOMENS' loo. Hmmmm.

Once you have made it back out again (the bodybuilders will probably have stolen your lunch money by now) go to the big red contraption in the entrance area. This is the Body IQ Health-Zone and was created for the sole purpose of making you feel crap about yourself. If by some miracle all the stations are operational, you may now proceed to find out scientifically how unfit you are, thus wasting time that could be used on something silly, like actually getting fitter. Insert card at first station and insert arm in blood pressure testing device. It will inflate and cause blood to well up in your fingers until they explode. Try to relax. After that's done step on scale and find out how much weight you have gained this week, it even tells you what your last few measurements were just so you can remember how thin you used to be. How considerate. Next, measure your body fat by inserting your arm between two plates that will squish it flat so your arm looks even flabbier than normal. The body fat reading is different every time, so feel free to redo the measurement until you have a result you feel you can live with. After this you can go to the display station to enter your height. (Hint: Add a foot or so, it does wonders for your BMI).

Now it's time to go upstairs. After filling your water bottle you have a choice of equipment:

Treadmill

Downside: Long queue. View of old/fat people in tiny swimsuits in pool.
Upside: Built in motivation, if you stop going you will shoot off the back onto the floor and look like an ass. View of fit men in swimsuits doing laps in pool.

Stationary cycles

Downside: Literally a pain in the ass. (Hint: Avoid Hill program unless you are a Power Ranger or Barney or someone else I wish to hurt)
Upside: Looks like you are working out harder than you are. You can watch cartoons.

Steppers

Downside: Your knees will hurt, your calves will ache and everyone who does it has a smaller ass than you.
Upside: None.

Super Circuit

Downside: You spend half your time stepping (see above). You will feel crap about yourself as you follow a little old lady around and have to remove weights from machines she just left.
Upside: It's over in 20 mins (who knew that could be an upside?)

Stability Balls and Stretching area

Downside: There is NO good reason to call them 'stability balls'. They are anything but stable. You will fall off them and send them rolling into the middle of the gym, thus drawing the bodybuilders' attention.
Upside: It's stretching. How hard can it be?

Or Classes:

Step

Not for mere mortals. Involves complicated routines of high-kicks and touching your knees to your nose. Try not to trip: you will hurt yourself, and worse, lose your place and spend 10 mins floundering around trying to catch up.

Yoga

My personal favorite. If you ever needed motivation to lose weight this is it. If you think you don't need to lose weight, how does spending and hour twisting around and looking at your own ass sound? Thought so.

Spinning

If Satan was a gym instructor, and he probably is, this is the class he would teach. Don't go there.

Pick something, anything. Do it for about 5 minutes and then move onto something easier...see Cycling above. Try to avoid the scary guy who stalks all the women at the gym and watches you while you use the yes/no machine - creepy. 30mins before Survivor starts head to the change rooms to collect stuff. Distract bodybuilders with protein bar and run for it. Buy smoothie from Kauii on the way out - 'Chai Chiller' is the best!