Boxing Clever

It is now over a year since I have been regularly going to the gym. I’ve never been one for sport, preferring to milk a bout of glandular fever in high school for two years of absence from PE because they forgot that I was excused for a couple of months to go and do art instead. In more recent years, since starting my Masters degree, I’ve started becoming conscious that “walking everywhere” may well be a lot more exercise than some people do, but it’s probably not enough to balance out my lager consumption – in the grand scheme of things.

I half heartedly went to the uni gym during the year of my Masters, and it wasn’t too bad. But I didn’t know what I was doing and I can’t remember putting much effort into it. A year or two later, with husband moved down with me and new career kicking off, I joined my local Council leisure centre. I liked this because they had a pool and I’ve always loved swimming. Aqua aerobics became a new favourite and something I miss nowadays. We moved house, I moved gyms and for some reason, it all tailed off again. By this stage I had got down from being a size 12 (my largest) back to near enough a 10. And I thought as I’d aged, my body had changed shape and that was pretty much where I was going to be. Not so!

Last December, I joined a women’s only gym and really found my feet with it all. I managed to get in to the habit of going 3 or 4 times a week, until it became second nature. Within a few months it stopped being a case of convincing myself to go to the gym and it just being that thing that I did after work. I discovered Zumba, and LOVED it. The Latino rhythms remind me so much of dodgy clubs in South America, I just can’t get enough of it (insert plea for review copies of Zumba-based computer games here).  From Zumba, I expanded into Latin Fit – a similar concept, but based on a non-stop dance routine that is built up over several songs. I also discovered that actually I quite enjoy Legs, Bums and Tums classes. I also found out that one of the fundamental principles of the Universe is that all LBT teachers are complete sadists.

Then the real revelation came this summer, when I won a year’s free personal training on the Zaggora facebook page. By this point I was doing some form of exercise four or five times a week, most weeks and so avidly entering competitions for new kit and the like, so this was the real Holy Grail of a win. I’ve learned so much about exercising, how my body works, what I can achieve and it’s really impacted on my health and also how effective my exercise is when I’m on my own.

I may not have changed weight in the last year, but weight and burning calories has stopped being the aim. I can’t remember the last time I looked on the calorie read out on the treadmill. And perhaps more importantly, a year ago I would not have dreamed about using a treadmill for anything other than a light, but uphill walk. Now I have seen my body change shape. I have returned to the size 6 and 8 clothes of my teenage years and I have developed GUNS! Yes, guns. It rocks, and I have literally never cared about such things before. I’m not obsessed though – I’ll flex them for you, but I’ve never kissed them. I do not consider Jodie Marsh a role model. Now I am all about the tone, because I know that my body is happy with the overall weight I am, it just needed a rethink about the distribution of muscle and fat…. And all of this exercise has been the overriding factor, I think, in quitting smoking, which continues to go well.

And why am I boxing clever? Because over my last two personal  training sessions I have been learning to box! I’m a lover, not a fighter – but I love it! It destresses me after work and so long as no-one’s trying to punch me back then I’m having a good time. As I said to my trainer today “punching things is fun”.*