Rubbish

That describes how I have been feeling this week. I have hit a sort of slump generally: work blech, no exercise, not eating particularly well (except for my fruit and veg intake: I eat fruit for lunch these days and on at least two days this week my daily intake was 14.5 portions of fruit and veg. Knocks your 5 a day into a cocked hat, huh?) But other than my slow transformation into some sort of fruitarian sloth, nothing. Except WAY too much cheese.

So the weight has started to creep back on and I feel yuck but somehow I always forget that it is exercise that makes me feel less yuck so I just sigh and have a slice of buttered toast instead. Good grief, I can get really pathetic in the space of a week.

Anyway, today I hauled myself up by the scruff of the neck (an interesting manoeuvre but necessary). I cancelled my membership of the Cooncil gym. It's a nice little gym but realistically just too far away for me to get to in a lunchtime so I barely use it. The journey in the car there and back is soul-destroying and just puts me off most of the time (especially with the tram roadworks in Edinburgh just now - don't get me started) so it was false economy: paying less money for a gym I hardly use as compared to (a lot) more money for one I do/did.

Cooncil gym cancelled, I went back to my old, shiny twice-the-price gym and re-joined. I can get to this gym from my office in 2 minutes flat. (Shauna, I think it may be the same shiny gym you once haunted - under the cinema?) It has free parking and a swimming pool for the days I don't feel like gym-ing. It has perky instructors in the gym and lots and lots of machines. It is close to the canal for short lunchtime runs. It is expensive but I think, overall, worth it. I am more likely to go there, simple as that. I have stopped buying expensive and fattening lunches from the local shops (Pret a Manger being particularly alluring and pricy) and since discovering the joys of www.readitswapit.co.uk, I no longer regularly spend the equivalent of the GDP of a small country on books, so I reckon I can justify the cost.

So with my new gym card nestling in my purse, I am planning a swim tomorrow to ease back in. I'll get a programme made up one day next week - mostly weights and cross-training type stuff because I still plan to get most of the cardio from my running. Wish me luck. By the time I hit Canada in July, I will be svelte. Or, at least, a bit less wobbly. I'd settle for that.