The other day I was at my gym (NO, this is not the beginning of a joke)…
I began thinking about how my gyms and memberships had changed so drastically over these coming of age years. So drastically that I really had to laugh at the whole gym thing.
In Woodstock, we have quite a few very nice and ‘expensivey’ gyms close by the house. We have LA Fitness, Lifetime Fitness, Golds Gym, One Life Fitness, 24/7 gym, and many other smaller storefront gyms. I could really walk to a few BUT who wants to walk and get exercise when I can join a gym and pay good money to get exercise?
I have had lots of gym memberships over the years beginning at 40 when we lived in Phoenix. I loved it. The gym was new and it had childcare! Praise the Lord! I could go exercise and my children were happy! All was right with the world. I was happy. They were happy. We always had a McDonalds run afterward. Really doesn’t get much better than that.
That was the year I thought my body would start falling apart! WHAT? Was I kidding?? At 40 your body starts to fall apart?? What a joke. Can you say NOT! Anyway, I loved the gym and I loved working out at 40. Thinking about that workout now, I am getting very tired. I think I need a nap.
When we moved from Arizona to Marietta, Georgia I joined another gym. A few years had gone by. MANY years had actually gone by. Somehow my energy level had wained a bit. I wasn’t that much older (or was I?) so what was going on? The exercise was more difficult and I didn’t enjoy it much. I needed a diversion.
For the next years, I was in and out of gym memberships. I would join and maybe go once a week and then the weeks mounted between visits! I wasn’t feeling it at all. After paying for a gym month after month I yelled…”Enough!” I hate this. The thrill was gone. Too many people were so serious about weight lifting and running on treadmills. I started noticing that the majority of the members were actually younger than me. OMG. Was I getting ‘older’? Say it ain’t so…
There was a tennis period when I lived and breathed only tennis. People, never mess with tennis in the Atlanta area. ALTA is serious business. Tennis was like a gym membership. I may even get back on the court IF my knees are up to it? Who am I kidding???
We are now in the here and now. My husband actually signed me up for a membership at a…wait for it…a GYM. All through the holidays as I was enjoying all those holiday goodies, as well as lots of vino, I knew a gym would, once again, be in my future. All I can say is “Damn” (again).
Planet Fitness. It is very much like going to an Early Bird Special for Senior citizens minus the food of course. Their motto is “The Judgement Free Zone”. I think I have found a home. ‘Young people’ at the front desk make you feel welcome, warm and cozy even. There are 30-minute circuit rooms including an intense one that is for anybody but me. A trainer 24/7 but I have yet to actually see him.
As gym memberships come and go through the years, for this one Senior Classer, I realize that my main goal now…is to just keep this body moving at all costs. Very simple really. Just keep moving it! OMG, the pain.
Cheers!
Leigh
THE SENIOR CLASS 