My Gym Capers

Life was all about fun and games till I discovered the gym, or rather till the gym found me! I blissfully cruised through my young life without even once thinking about exercise and toning. I was blessed with a slim form, as they say; and right from childhood and during school days, one can safely say that Sports and I were not exactly BFFs. In fact, I do not recall playing anything more serious than hide-and-seek during my growing up years. The extracurricular activities in school meant dramatics, acting, dancing, and fooling around with musical instruments. Sports belonged to some alien world that had just passed me by! My only contribution during our Annual Sports Day in school was participating in the Marchpast of our House and a feeling of a job well done and a deserving pat on the back for marching with full enthusiasm.

This state of affairs continued even in college and later years. I thought being slim was enough and couldn't figure out the delicate nuances of having a fit body as against a slim one. When the husband used to point out that yes, I was not fat even after two pregnancies but my body was not toned, I honestly didn't understand what the fuss was all about! I was slim, wasn't I? I looked presentable and not laughable in whatever I wore, didn't I ? And a little bit of heaving and puffing can be attributed to my not-used-to any heavy work lifestyle, can't it? The wave of gymming which had hit the nation in the last decade or so, and to every Sita, Gita and kumari  that I met, had passed me by happily.

But then, as they say, Life teaches you to never take anything for granted. As the years started wearing on, my creaking bones and a stiff back while getting out of the bed in the mornings, made me painfully aware that if I don't do anything about this state of affairs and stop the growing pains, my life in my 40s will be new 80s, rather than the opposite current trend. Age may be just a number, but here it was galloping fast towards the finishing line! And I was not prepared for it to run at such a pace, mentally or physically. So reluctantly, I had face up to the fact that the time had come to do some physical exercise, maybe much more than the current exercising of my fingers on the keyboard if I wanted to play with my grandchildren in my silver years!

Going through my limited options- Walking or Gymming – I knew walking was out, as I am not the type to go for a walk alone; I need the company of some chattering friend so that the time passes quickly and you are home even before your brain registers that some exercise has been done! So reluctantly, gymming was the winner, by default!

As lazy as I am, I found a gym close by and gathered up my nerve to pay it a visit. Baulking at the sight of well-toned bodies coming out after their workouts, I almost changed my mind, but the mental picture of running around with my grandchildren kept me on track. Seeing a prospective client, the receptionist held me in her vise-like grip with no intention of letting go, till she had completely brainwashed me on the advantages of being fit and healthy, for my own good. All my doubts and hesitations (of having never done any physical exercise till then besides striding purposefully through the shopping malls), fell on deaf ears and I found myself leaving the premises, in a daze after paying for the membership for the whole year!

So there I found myself going to the gym the next day (after a hurried purchase of some suitable gear) looking at the daunting equipment and the muscled trainers with a jaundiced eye, wondering where do I fit in here in the world of these superbly fit people with their sweating bodies and flushed faces! The trainer assigned to me was amazed to know that I had never exercised in my life and took it upon himself to show what joys of life I had missed till then. He tutored me on the benefits of being fit and eating right(which I didn't take kindly to, nobody  tells me what not to eat, thank you very much !) for my happy life ahead. His puppy-like enthusiasm was catching and slowly I warmed towards the frightening-looking dumbbells, the bench press, the leg curling machine, et all.

The first few days were sheer agony. I discovered muscles in my body which I didn't know existed. Everything ached and throbbed, moving my arm just to eat was an indescribable torture, it was easier to look longingly at food and moon over it. Much to the amusement of my family, my walking had metamorphosed into a peculiar shuffling, which made me look like an old woman valiantly trying to deny her age by being a spright young chicken. But perseverance was the key to this game and not losing sight of the ultimate goal of being a young silver citizen-made me ignore my body's vociferous complaining of this new hobby! For a person, who till then had been quite happy cheering any physical activity from the sidelines, here I was, biceping and triceping to my trainer's delight. Walking on the treadmill made me look at myself in wonder and cycling on the exercycle had me preening to my nonexistent audience!

Days merged into weeks and weeks into months, and slowly but surely I started feeling energetic, vital, and spirited; and much to my surprise, looking forward to my time in the gym. Recognizing familiar faces every day and making friends was an added bonus. Bonding over the workouts with friends makes gymming fun and going out with them makes you feel less guilty while binging on food.

I graduated from working on simple machines to some menacing looking ones. Like a masochist, I insisted on working on them and push the now used- to- exercising muscles further into the gloom with my new found enthusiasm and driven self. I was as if I had to prove a point to myself, that hey! I too can jump on the bandwagon of fitness and emerge successfully! My motto by then was ,'Better late than never'! And with my trainer encouraging from the sides, I took to working on them like a baby to its apple mash and actually started enjoying exercising and wondered what took me so long to enter the holy portals of a gym !

Hmmmmm…. Looking back, I sometimes think, that maybe, perhaps? who knows, if I had taken to gymming early in life, I could have ended up being an athlete of repute and given many of them a run for their money!! What say? Wonders do happen, you know!….hey, do I see someone smirking ?