GYM BUNNY

Every year, my January starts with me sitting down with a personal trainer and telling them how my goals are to “feel strong and be healthy”. And sure, that’s what my mouth is saying to them, but my eyes are looking right into their low BMI souls and crying out to them “I’ll pay you whatever it takes to have abs, nice arms and a toned butt”. But admitting that out loud is just one closet I’m not ready to step out of. 

My main gripe with #fitspo life is that I really am allergic to 95 per cent of gym aesthetics. Of course, I’m self-aware enough to acknowledge that I would be one of the only people around who chooses a gym based on how it looks and smells. I honestly just find the raw stainless steel, pumping death metal music, and bright fluorescent lighting just too intimidatingly masculine. I’m here to treat my body like a temple, not a gay dance club in Berlin. 

I recently went out on a hunt for an alternative form of exercise that didn’t involve me doing 200 squats to nightclub remixes of Ed Sherry. Last year I found it – swimming. I’ve always been curious about improving my stroke, and there is something about a speedo, and a towel effortlessly tossed over one shoulder that seemed so chic. I got myself a lovely trainer, who it’s taken me a whole year to work out if he’s gay, or just loves circus – turns out both! And I’m happy to say that my swimming has improved tenfold. There is something immensely satisfying about measurably improving at something you’ve always been so bad at. 

If I was to dish out any lifestyle advice here – which full disclosure, you should never take any lifestyle advice from a man who has fallen sleep with a half-eaten burrito on his chest once – it would be the following: Exercise can be anything, don’t feel like you need to join a gym because everyone else is, go swimming, join a dance class or if all else fails, just park your car at Westfield, lose it, and then walk around the car park for 30 minutes trying to find it.