Survival of the fittest

I thought the most brutal part about going to the gym would be the exercise, but I was wrong. Fighting your way into the classes is way tougher. I’m usually a pilates junkie – no sweating, lots of lying down – but my instructor has gone on holidays to eastern Europe (she’ll fit right in, she looks just like a Russian gymnast … crossed with Sarah Jessica Parker). The replacement pilates teacher babbles so extensively and inanely that it makes my eyes cross. So I’ve been forced to look elsewhere for my exercise to avoid my head exploding. Yesterday I tried a “sculpt” class. Sculpt class starts at 9.30am. By 9.20am, 50 women were pacing outside the studio door like lionesses who’ve spotted their keeper carrying a lamb carcass towards their enclosure. One of my gym buddies informed me that there used to be a ticket system for the class because it was so popular. You had to get a ticket for a gym class? When you’re already paying handsomely for the privilege of membership? Bit rich. We discussed strategies for grabbing spots in the class. One of us would drape our towels (and their body, if necessary) on the floor to stake our claims. Another would dash to the yoga mat pile. The third would grab the steps. At 9.29am, as the 9am “ab-blast” class drew to a close, all 50 pacing women/lionesses threw open the door and stormed the room. It reminded me of the opening ceremony of the Myer sale, except there weren’t any bargains inside. On the plus side, it meant you completed your warm-up exercises before the class even began. Cheek-by-jowl, we sweated together for the next hour. (I had to keep dodging a 60-year-old who’d taken a HRT overdose and kept shouting “yeah!” while doing high-kicks … which weren’t actually part of the routine). I don’t normally sweat at the gym. It was quite novel. I might do it again sometime. The part I didn’t like – apart from all the sweating, the high-kicking grannie and the intense muscle pain – was having to do exercises while looking at myself in the mirror. I’m used to desperately gazing at the instructor as I try to follow her moves. But this one – apparently a former Gladiator – made us do our moves while facing the mirrored wall. It’s much harder to ignore your chunky thighs when you’re forced to stare at them for long periods. It also cruelly confirmed Sprog 2 was right when she suggested on Saturday that I look just like the lady in the magazine (Rebekah Brooks on the cover of Good Weekend). Both of which kinda took the edge off my endorphin rush and replaced it with a dull, miserable resolution to eat less. Blah. And drink less (alcohol). Double blah. Well, at least until dinner time, when I washed down a couple of spinach and cheese filo triangles with two glasses of cheap wine. Must try harder today. No, that’s right, today is Lunch with Husband Day and he’s proposed stir-fried rice cake with blue swimmer crab. Maybe Thursday.