My 2018 - This is my Hobby: Exercising At The Gym

This is an entry post to a contest held by @anomadsoul, for more information check the link: CONTEST: My 2018 - This is my Hobby

My hobby, my passion. You wanna know my passion? You need to do some quick psychoanalysis first. Let's travel back in time, some 20 years ago.

There I am, @ruth-girl, a fat kid that abstains from intense physical activities like running, cycling, playing hide and seek (needs running, I sucked at it) and so on. @ruth-girl would not leave the house very often because she could not ride a bike to meet with the other children that rode across the village. She could not play most of the games they played, because she sucked (or at least that's what she thought). In summers, instead of wandering around with her friends she turned into a couch potato spending her hours watching TV series on replay.

Years go by, @ruth-girl goes to high school, an overweight teenager, a cool geek that has a sense of humour but an excessive 20 kilo burden on her body as well. High school ends and university life begins. The first year of dependent independence is not filled with parties, but devouring unhealthy snacks from her local supermarket (Gosh! what a variety supermarkets in the big city have!). 

On her second year, @ruth-girl meets a boy and suddenly realises that, hey! a guy actually noticed us (because I occupied space for two girls at the time). Perhaps you should try and loose some weight just to feel better with yourself. And @ruth-girl tried by going on a diet. On her third year, @ruth-girl had managed to shed off 15 kilos, but then her scales got stuck. The solution was one and only... she had to exercise. Oh, boy! She hated it. She got so bored. She joined a gym, but didn't stick around for more than 2 months.

She then had to do something else, so she started home training. And for almost 2 years @ruth-girl would transform her bedroom into a gym for an hour and a half on a daily basis. Those 2 years pass and Ruthie decides to join a gym and give this place a second chance. After all, she was getting bored with home training as she didn't have the equipment she needed.

And there she was, autumn of 2014 joining a gym in her hometown. Sticking to a programme. Meeting new people. Learning new things, training techniques and how to keep a right posture. And she liked it. 

For once in her miserably inactive life, she was doing something she actually enjoyed! With her earphones on and loud music playing on her mp3 she was dancing around the gym in between sets, singing along and cheering her new friends. She even got in aerobic classes, which turned out to energise her more than tire her. Steppers, rubber bands, TRX straps were her new toys and her mood boost after every training session was kind of addictive.

After all this you can understand what my hobby is... exercising. I find it exhilarating! Cheering! And the cheapest form of psychotherapy one could ask for (Don't you think spending 20-30 eurs a month on a gym membership is less than four psychoanalyst sessions?). I rarely skip gym days. I fact, it's the only appointment I never miss. Even on days that my time is limited, I try to go there just for those 40 minutes of an escape from reality to make weekdays better! For a few months I had managed to get a friend of mine join the same gym and we would practise together, sadly she moved to London where she found a new job and lost my gym-partner. But life goes on...

I even tried to "recruit" people I met there on Steemit, but without much success. Most seemed suspicious of what I was I talking about and couldn't believe that Steemit was not a scam. So, I just kept smiling and lifting my dumbells :P

Why I am so passionate about it? Because in combination with the music I get to channel all the energy I have and have fun at the same time. Because I feel like I'm doing something beneficial for myself (I have been trough times when I overdid it, but I believe I keep a healthy balance now). Because no matter how stressed, sad or angry I am sometimes I can go there and forget everything. Because... because I have finally found something to be passionate about and it is not another person (friend, family or lover), it's just myself.

The truth is, I've also had some problems, probably owing to the hard trainings I had back in 2015 in combination with the years of obesity that put some extra strain on my skeleton. Some knee and back issues that forced me to slow down and not be able to keep up with a pace I enjoy and helps me let off steam. But I 've learnt to adjust my training according to my body's abilities and restrictions. I am not like those muscular hot chicks you see on instagram videos. I still let myself have that ball of ice cream and those chips with my beer. I am a woman that exercises not because she wants to wear that killer bikini on the beach this summer, but I simply, f*cking LOVE IT!

TL;DR

I love hitting the gym because it gives me so much positive energy and helps me release stress. I go there every day, even if it is for a very quick training. Membership doesn't cost me more than 30 euros a month. I go there alone, but have met a lot of people during those four years I am a regular member, so I always have someone to talk to. For some this might sound like a beautified torture-session, but for me training has become almost an obsession ;)

Some of my favorite tracks for warm-up

And then something more smooth for relaxation and stretching

I hope I got to give you some of my enthusiasm. If we were at the gym together I'm sure it would be a lot easier, but a girl's gotta try anyway that she can!

Thanks for reading through, guys! :)

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*All images by @ruth-girl