When Life Catches You Off-Guard

So, you may have noticed that there has been a change in my site’s name. This is due to the fact that I can no longer, with a good conscious, continue to use FitWithNoGym, when I did in fact go to the gym last night.

I’m just going to pause for a second to allow the collective gasps to subside…

There is a story behind it and I will explain now. So you see, Mike has been getting antsy lately because I’ve had my own scheduled workout routines and it’s been making him feel like he needs to do more himself. Typically once the spring comes, he’s outside everyday on his bike, but winter has decided to rear its ugly head again for one more comeback and it doesn’t seem like we’ll be getting any warm weather our way until the end of April.

So as it happens, he started to look into gyms in the neighborhoods around us. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, the gyms that are actually in our neighborhood really are horrible for a multitude of reasons (crowds, lack of parking, not enough machines, horrible hours, etc.) Then he remembered a gym a few neighborhoods away from us that his cousin (and my workout buddy’s boyfriend actually) mentioned to him, Planet Fitness. In the past, they had invited us to go with them as guests to check it out and see if we would want to join as well, but I was always against it because it was just too far away (20 minutes).

As luck would have it, my kickboxing session got cancelled last night. Now, I had already not worked out over the weekend because I wasn’t feeling well and the last thing I wanted to do was sit at home idle. Once we found out A.C. mentioned to me that she and her boyfriend were just going to go to Planet Fitness instead to get a workout in and again, they invited us to join. Mike jumped at the opportunity to check out the gym and because I really wanted to get some kind of workout in, I agreed and we went.

Enter Planet Fitness

So, what was quite disheartening to see was the 100 or so pizza boxes right as you enter the gym. I thought maybe they were having some sort of party…but no, apparently Planet Fitness does this promotion where they provide their members with free pizza the first Monday night of every month. On one hand, I understand their rationale, “If you feed them, they will come” but pizza, really???

1. For someone who is truly serious about losing weight and is having a hard time sticking to their diet, shoving pizza in their face right as they enter the gym is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever seen. One slice of pizza is approximately 285 calories and if you only stayed half an hour at the gym, depending on what you were doing, maybe you could work out enough to just balance out that pizza that you just ate. Honestly though, there were not many gym-goers that were only grabbing one slice. And I get it, I don’t blame the people going to the gym. It was Monday night. It was cold out and raining. Maybe you came straight from work and didn’t get a chance to grab dinner so once you see all that pizza, you figure why not just eat a slice. But Planet Fitness should know better! You cannot just provide a space where people can come to try to get fit and then decide to offer them pizza every month. If you want to provide your members with some perks, couldn’t you provide some healthier alternative?? Anyway, let me move on cause this topic alone is enough to blow my mind.
2. Because it was pizza Monday, the gym was packed. Now granted, this was definitely the largest gym I’ve been to, but according to our hosts, it is nowhere near as full when there isn’t free pizza being offered.

Ok, now I’m moving on from the pizza thing for real. We got our guest passes and took a tour of the gym. Overall, I could see the appeal. It was a truly huge space, broken up into 6 sections, over 3 levels. Even though it was more packed than usual, there was still ample room to workout, depending on what you wanted to do, especially when compared to the gyms in my neighborhood, which don’t even come close in space. Since I have already been focusing on cardio, I veered towards the weight section of the gym and completed the following, from what I can remember:

• Lat Pull Down Machine – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Hyper Extension Bench w/10 lb. weight – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Abdominal Bench w/10 lb. weight – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Hip Abduction @ 130 lbs. – 6 sets of 12 reps
• 20 lb. curved barbell – 5 sets of 12 reps
• Leverage High Row @ 20 lbs. – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Machine Preacher Curls @ 30 lbs. – 3 sets of 12 reps
• Elliptical – 5 minutes (just passing the time while Mike finished up)

We were there for approximately an hour and a half and at the end, Mike decided to sign up for a membership. At $20 a month, he becomes a black card member, which means he can access any of their gyms (the one we went to was the closest,) get a discount in their store, and bring one guest with him each time he comes in. And there is no commitment. He can decide to drop them tomorrow and not be charged anything. I did not sign up, but if I decide to go again, I can anytime I want, as long as he is with me. But will I?

Overall Thoughts

So I did it. I went to a gym again and worked out and my feelings are extremely mixed. The pizza thing right at the front really just upset me and I won’t harp on it again here, but I just feel like it goes against everything a gym stands for.

The workout itself was nice. I do not own anything other than 5 lb. weights at home and I don’t particularly have the space for more. The machines really allowed me to work out my upper and lower back, which seeing how sore my back is feeling today, probably wasn’t getting that great of a workout in from just the kickboxing. And while I have been seeing some toning from the kickboxing, I would probably get faster results by using the machines. Not that getting results faster is at the top of my list of priorities, but it would be an added perk.

Still, I don’t see this being the answer for me. When Mike went to sign up, he asked if I wanted to join as well and I declined. I can’t see myself getting motivated to make the 20 minute drive to get out there, three time a week (they do have a parking lot in front, so I’ll give them that major perk,) in order to get a good workout in. I still believe that activities outside of the gym are the way for me to go and I plan to continue on that path. I am getting anxious to start running and hiking, hopefully once we return from Florida. And I am still looking forward to giving spinning and Zumba a go.  Now that being said, since Mike has the membership that allows him to bring a guest with him at any time, I will probably utilize that benefit of his. It was nice that even though my class was cancelled last night and the weather was shitty, I was still able to go and get a workout in. Will I go with him every time? Probably not, but I could see myself going once a week with him to work on strength training.

My point is, the gym will not the only thing I focus on to lose weight. My activities and my diet are still my #1 priority and focus, but since it will now be possible for me to utilize weight equipment I don’t normally have access to, it would be dumb of me to turn away from it completely.

Thoughts?

Comments?

Any one else upset over the pizza or is that just me?

As always, look forward to hearing from you!

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