I’m not the most athletic girl. Heck, I’m not the most physically fit
girl. But darn it, I love to work
out. I love the stress relief that it
provides and the way I feel good about myself after.
Currently I live in a tiny Italian town out in the
country. If I have errands to run, I
have to take a train to go to the nearby city.
The only issue I have, living where I live, is that there is no local
gym where I can work out at. I’m the
type of girl who needs some weight machines and an elliptical, as well as some
group exercise classes (Side note: I was a licensed Zumba instructor at one
point in time. Though I’m no longer an instructor, Zumba is still one of my
favorite workouts). Some people might
say that if I truly “love to work out” then I would find a way to throw some
exercise into my daily routine, on my own, without a gym.
What do I have to say to those people? Thank you, that statement is no help to me. Whatsoever.
Yes, I love to work out, but I am also an innately lazy
person. It is hard for me to find the
motivation to actually get up on my own and go work out. In college, I literally transferred residence
halls (as a resident adviser) so that I would be closer to the Student
Recreation Center. I was trying to force
myself to go there and work out. It
definitely helped, but I could always manage to find an excuse to put it
off.
It wasn’t until my final semester, living on campus, that I
was able to take a weight-lifting class and I really began going to the gym on
my own. The classes were every Tuesday
and Thursday mornings and they gave me the confidence to go down into the
“weight room” as a female being surrounded by all the guys. I then made it a point to go to the rec on my
own at least two other times every week.
It was great. My only regret is
that I hadn’t taken that class sooner.
But then, I moved away for my internship and no longer had
access to any sort of gym. I moved again
upon graduating, and I still live nowhere near a gym. If I want to go to a gym, I have to pay for a
train ride. And even then, I still don’t
speak the language well enough to be able to sign up for a gym membership. Also, my options are limited (by A LOT)
because I would have to find a gym within walking distance of the city train
station.
I’m slowly starting to change, though. I recently found an app on my Smartphone
called: Lift. All I had to do was go
through the list of “Goals” and pick some that coincide with my own. Every day (or however frequent I want to
complete my goals) I have to check-in on the app once the goal is
complete. Stretching every day is one of
my goals. Another that I just added is
doing push-ups. Well, kind of. I can’t really “do” push-ups, but I found an
exercise ball in my apartment and I use that as a foot prop (judge me all you
want). I also found many other goals
that apply to my life. It is a great
feeling to be able to check off each of those goals each day.
It makes sense to me that this app is helpful with
goal-achievement. You’re more likely to
work at it, or even just remembering to do it, if you have to check in on your
phone. Especially with how
“phone-centric” our generation is these days.
You can even set reminders on your phone for the goals, within the app
itself. I love that feature, because it
means I don’t have to waste time making new little notes-to-self all the time. Also, you can add friends on it and give them
encouragement! So feel free to find me
and throw some well wishes my way. I
could probably use all the encouragement I can get.