Spending cash on a gym? This is why I think you’re a mug

I refuse to spend money on keeping fit. Why?

It’s a very simple procedure – do more, eat less. Why should I pay for it? You watch a Rocky montage, there’s never a clip of Rocky setting up a direct debit.

And I hate gyms. When I’m in the gym, I can hear my great great grandfather laughing at me from beyond his early grave. Like Mickey does to Rocky, only with less motivational banter, and more coughing due to cotton mill-related respiratory problems.

I paid £50 a year and a half ago, and that’s the total I’ve spent on exercise since then. 

I do like to stay healthy though – my dad belly showed up about six months after my first child was born, so I needed to find a way to work out, despite the new and drastic limitations on my lifestyle. I hate exercise DVDs, they’re like alarm clocks – after the first four times, you can’t stand the sound of them. So I gave my big sister a ring in Geneva – after a long and, frankly, bizarre working history, she’s wound up as a personal trainer/yoga instructor. She wrote up a workout routine that I could do at home. So here I am in the house with a chin up bar and a kettle bell. I paid £50 a year and a half ago, and that’s the total I’ve spent on exercise since then. 

I’ve got a workout routine that I’ve stuck with far, far longer than any gym membership I ever had. I’m far from ripped, or buff, or whatever word you prefer for these people who look like a condom full of walnuts, but my overall strength and fitness is as good as it was in my twenties, I think. And it takes about 40 minutes, tops, which means big savings on time – that’s the main thing.