There is something about working out. That something encompasses a whole spectrum of emotion and soul searching, ranging from ‘I really need to join a gym’ to ‘This Monday for sure’ to ‘Really got to cut back on those cocktails’ and a whole bunch of other things that tangle into a gorgon knot that culminates to the fall back oath of ‘This year’s New Year’s resolution is my year!’ And when you’re telling yourself time to get my shit together you turn around to realize that that New Year’s resolution of it being your year was five years ago.
Trust me, I’ve been there. Tried everything. I joined gyms in every city I’ve lived in (and one of those was NYC, like THE CITY for figuring out a workout that works), but the drag of life had me coming up with excuses on why I was too tired, or why I couldn’t walk the 8 blocks from my subway exist after work and head directly to the NYSC, or that my social life at happy hour was something I could not miss.
I’ve joined boutique classes, CrossFit, Yoga, Kickboxing, and everything else under the sun, searching for that incredibly elusive workout that I would fall hard for and find myself in a long term committed relationship. In this arduous journey, the closest I managed to find to this were the Spin classes I went to in the NYSC.
Now I will admit that finding that one workout that you fall in love with is the easier of this two-part equation. The other part of this the one workout + _____ = fitness lifestyle is finding the time. And like most people I attempted to roll my lazy butt out of bed at an awful early time in the morning, so I wouldn’t have an excuse of missing my daily workout later in the day due to ‘things’ spontaneously coming up. But getting up while it’s still dark out is HARD. Like incredibly hard for one who isn’t an early bird, but a kind of all-day bed lover cat. Or a perpetually tired pigeon.
Even though I loved Spin, all the classes would be way too early in the morning aka 5 AM, which was most definitely NOT happening since I have to fight myself to go to bed at midnight and I’m a minimum 8-hour sleeper. The next morning class after the why would anyone do anything at 5 in the morning class would usually be around 7, but that is way too late for someone who would have to leave their apartment around 6:50 latest in order to catch the bus in time to do my hour and a half commute into upper Westchester.
Working out during lunch never happened – like how do people actually do that? It’s like a two-hour commitment during the day, where you do the workout, shower, get dressed, and get back to the office – there’s no way any manager of mine would be on board with any of us doing this every day. A solid nope.
And then there were the 6:30 PM Spin classes that I tried making to, but it was normally a hit or miss since I would get into the City at 6, and then would have to sprint to the gym, change at superwoman speed, and hop onto a bike right on the 6:30 dot. Anything after that time and I couldn’t do it – mainly because my stomach would be making love to my spine at this point and the call of a NYC pizza slice would be a siren song even Odysseus wouldn’t be able to refuse.
So went my relationship with gyms – trying to find that magical, mystical moment of the perfect time that coincided with my perfect workout. At the rate I was going, I would have had to find a genie in a bottle and have that be one of my three wishes.
Then I moved back down to Charleston SC and had that me to me talk which mainly involved ‘your commute just got 2 and a half hours lighter – no excuses now.’
So in light of my eighth I’m totally getting my life together moment, I immediately went to the local gym, signed up for their yearly membership (which if you want my advice : DON’T DO IT – Do the month to month one because you never manage to get out of those fricken contracts if your motivation fizzles out hard after three months) and managed a solid month and a half of commitment. Even did the add on of their Spin classes but those were even worse with class timings than anything I’ve ever seen so I never managed to actually go to one that worked with my schedule.
That gym petered out which resulted in a laze about for two months before I started looking around for specific spin classes/or any classes really that caught my eye. Saw this one for a free CrossFit class and decided ‘Hey I always wanted to try CrossFit, lets sign up.’ So signed up I did and I really did enjoy it for the two to three months I managed to get to the 6 AM classes, but a few things got in the way of commitment (the big one was rolling out of bed at 5:30 to drive to the 6 AM class) and some car issues, and buying a house. But the waking up one was the biggest let me tell you.
And thus like every other time when it came to my workout goals, it died before it could really even fly from the nest.
Then one day I was talking to my coworker and we got onto the subject of Spin and how we both enjoyed the workout it gave, and a bunch of other crap women talk about on repeat when we discuss the infamous working out attempts. So it went yada, yada, yada, until it inevitably moseyed its way to one of us mentioning the Peloton bike.
Let me tell you about the Peloton Bike.
I have finally found my forever workout.
When I was living in the City, I had done some research on the Peloton bike, nothing too deep because it was one of those things that I would never get unless I had a home to keep it in permanently. It was one of those pipe dreams of ‘maybe’ – which became real around the end of November 2018.
In one of my impulse buys I decided I was going to just go for it – I did research on the bike, I couldn’t find a boutique Spin class here in Charleston that I enjoyed, and I had been thinking about owning it for a long time, percolating in the back of my mind. So when the Black Friday deal came around for it, I went ‘fudge it’ and made the buy. Especially since now I had a house where I could keep it.
Hands down, I can honestly say this is the best thing I have ever done for myself.
I am obsessed.
The classes are amazing, the instructors are so interactive, the playlists are on point, the challenges keep me on a schedule – hell this is the first time in my life I feel bad if I miss a workout. I even squeeze in quick 15-minute workouts during days I’m super busy, just so I can get one in.
Every time I get on that bike I’m always trying to beat my personal record. It’s insane.
All the reviews on the bike say they’ve become addicted to the workouts and one week in I could honestly claim the same. I even wake up at 6:20 to do my workouts at 6:45 in the morning just so I can get them in for the day with no excuses. I mean, once I even did a workout at 10PM …. 10 Fricken PM. The below image summarizes my everything for this bike:
Now if you don’t love Spin, then this wouldn’t be the workout/machine for you. But for all of you who do love spin and want to be able to commit to it, get this bike. You won’t regret it – I promise.
Or try and see if your significant other will buy it for you. They can get in on the action as well.
I’ll wax poetic about the bike some more at some other point, but yah – it’s been great.
So my advice to you is the following:
- Try to find that one workout that WORKS FOR YOU. For me it is spin, for one of my friends is Barre, my coworker manages to do a CrossFit class every morning at 5 AM (insane I know – we tell her on the regular she’s cray)
- Read the reviews on gym websites/workout machine websites. I personally always go straight for the low star ratings to see what those people have to say, but normally it’s just yammer unless there are more low ratings than high ones. But if the product/service is legit the reviews will tell you so. It’ like going with your gut, but it’s online.
- If you love it, commit to it. I know everyone says this – but if you find something you love, then like every cliché ever, it doesn’t feel like work. I actually look forward to plopping my but on that bike – it’s something I find myself biting at the bit to do, so for me it isn’t a chore or something I dread to get done as quickly as possible.
And those are some of my words of wisdom regarding working out. Take it from someone who has been on that long, arduous journey of finding THE ONE. And if after a 5 solid years of gym dickering I can find it, you can too.