A byootaful Life

Today, for the first time since moving to Canada, I went to the gym and it was actually, well… enjoyable!

I’m not exactly overweight, but I could definitely stand to lose some kilos and recent events in my life have inspired me to get off my butt and get active. We’ve got a free gym in our building for heaven’s sake, and today Phill and I decided to use it. We’ve been saying we were going to use the gyms in our buildings since we first moved here in September (three apartments ago) but it turned out that exercising was exactly the opposite of what we wanted to do when we stumbled through the door after a long hard day at work.

I was at the gym for about an hour and used the treadmill first and then finished up on the bike machine (the bike made my legs burrrrn!). After a 20 minute jog at 4.3mph with a slowly increasing incline, I figured out how to set it to a pre-programmed workout called the “hill”, which is pretty self-explanatory I guess. I was halfway up the “hill” when I remembered one of my favourite bloggers, Kristin from Iowa Girl Eats, has documented her workout routines on her blog, so as soon as I got upstairs (after a shower of course!) I bookmarked her Workouts page and I’m determined to complete each and every one!

I was honestly expecting the experience at the gym to be horrible; that I’d be sweating and gasping for air while buff shirtless men and skinny girls in yoga pants pointed and laughed at me, but other than getting off the treadmill and almost stacking it because my legs were a little wobbly (slightly embarrassing) it was pretty much a positive experience. Only one other person came in while I was there and although initially I was a little self-conscious, I quickly realised that she was listening to music with headphones on and didn’t so much as glance in my direction (does that mean I successfully passed as a regular at the gym?)

I’m going back again tomorrow and I’m actually excited about it. Of course, exercise goes hand-in-hand with healthy eating, so I’m going to making some changes there too (some of which are going to be hard to stick to!) but I’m pretty determined to make it work.

So, a toast… to new beginnings! I hope you don’t mind if I bring you along for the ride!