Christmas is coming and the geese are trying to lose fat

It seems to be that time of year again, Christmas adverts are dominating the tele, people are putting up decorations and lights (if they haven't done so already!) and almost everyone seems to be in a mad rush to lose weight before they can put it all back on again and some more over the party season/Christmas. The latter concerns me the most.

I've been going to the gym for over 4 years now and whilst people who have never seen a gym in their lives before suddenly flock in packs to their nearest one at this time of year I tend to loosen the reigns and spend more time doing other things, after all it's cold and dark all the time now and exercise is never the most enjoyable pursuit. However this year has seen a more concerted effort to get in shape.

It all started way back in February when my (then?) girlfriend Helen informed me that we'd been invited to a wedding in April. Hating the way I looked in my niece's christening photos in the one suit that still fitted me, I knew I had to do something to look and feel better. The result has been a loss of around 2 stone (I didn't start weighing myself til after the wedding and I've lost just over a stone since) and I now fit into all my suits (well the 2 I have here, Scott!) with room to spare!

Anyway the point of this little tale is that I started my journey way back in February as did most Christmas fatties who had suddenly felt the urge to join a gym following Christmas and New Year. Incidentally I have never spent much time away from the gym probably only 3 or 4 weeks at a time in the last few years. During January/February/March the gym must've seen a spike in memberships and as a result the place was always packed, not good when you're trying to lose weight but have to que up to use equipment! As Winter turned to spring and spring turned to summer, I started to see less and less people in the gym especially when it was hot outside (didn't help that the gym's air conditioning was repeatedly 'vandalised'!) but I stuck to it and was rewarded with my weight loss.

The success of my weight loss is mainly due to spin classes (as well as the amount I attend a week and the effort I put into it!). I tend to attend the evening classes (normally around 6pm or 6:15pm) and the Saturday morning classes. Recently I've found it hard to drag myself out of bed for the Saturday classes (as well as the Friday morning class), doesn't help when you have nothing to do during the day so tend to stay in bed til around 10am and have little to no motivation due to depressive state but in the last week or so I've been forcing myself to get up and go.

This morning was particularly difficult. I wasn't tired, I'd gotten to sleep at a decent time (after falling asleep watching Underworld Evolution) and had gotten up before 9am the previous morning to attend a spin class. The snooze was hit twice and it was 9am before I actually dragged myself out of bed. I was originally thinking of missing the first class and getting up for the second one (in my experience this usually means missing both of them!) but somehow I managed to get up, maybe it was the lack of trust I had in the courtesy brick (replacement phone) to wake me up again? Having lost 20 minutes and in an effort to save time, I got dressed for the gym at home rather than leaving it to the changing rooms. It worked, I got there 10 minutes before the start of the class.

This is where the fun begins. Due to a sudden increasing gym population of pre-Christmas fatties the spinning area was crammed. I managed to find a bike and got on only to find out after a few minutes that it was the exercise bike equivalent of a bouncy castle and spent the next 45 minutes trying not to bounce into the pre-Christmas fatties on either side of me.

It gets worse. The second class is normally a lot quieter, most of the first lot leave not being able to handle back to back classes to be replaced by far fewer numbers. I have no idea why the second class is always quieter, personally I'd rather have the extra hour in bed and attend the second class. Today the amount of PCFs (Pre-Christmas Fatties) was as many as the first class. I left my wobbly bike to fill up my water bottle and hope to find something with less shake, rattle and roll. No luck, there was one exercise bike left, I jumped on, shook it from side to side, all good so far. Checked the resistance, that was good too. Then I found the problem, this was the bike that had a broken seat adjuster and is a few inches too tall for me, or I'm a few inches too short to use it? With this is mind and having had already sweat a bucket or two load I called it a day.

Thought I'd relax in the steam room for a change, having giving it a miss for the past few weeks only to find it was out of order as was the main jacuzzi next to the swimming pool. There was only 4 people in the other jacuzzi so jumped in there for a while instead.

Whilst I'm annoyed at the fact that the gym can't handle this sudden influx of new customers (and let's be honest, this is just the start it'll be twice as busy next month!) I'm not at all surprised that equipment is damaged or out of order as I doubt Dave Whelan will care enough to do anything about it as long as he's still making money!