Your Money, or Your Life

On Christmas Eve, a marketing email headed “Go Ahead, Skip the Gym” hit my inbox. A fitness brand that I’d bought equipment from during lockdown was urging me to use its app. A few days later, the gym I used to be a member of checked in, suggesting “New year, new club for life?”

An avid gym-goer for half of my life, I’ve been skipping it for four years. When facilities reopened after the pandemic, I cracked on with my out-of-club routine. The gym’s marketing team enticed me with reduced fees, day passes, and extensive site refurbishment, but I’d made the decision to go it alone. They haven’t yet given up on me.

An oft-recited claim from club marketers is that the cost of gym membership is an investment in personal health. And yet, every year, a new wave of incomers, fuelled by fierce resolve, sign up to get fit, drop off within weeks, and stop turning up altogether. Direct debits march on in the background.

When we commit to club membership we show that we’ve bought into the marketing of a particular brand and location. It gives us access to the facility and its equipment. It offers motivation and social advantages. In turn, it coaxes us toward whatever else the brand is selling - typically, personal training, spa treatments, physio sessions, and food and drink. Once we’re through the health-club door we’re easily seduced. The club recovers its own investment through our ongoing loyalty, and at our continued expense.

From my humble beginnings as a newbie, training in a backstreet gym, I aspired through the years to bigger and better, believing that the smarter and pricier the club, the more I’d gain from that status and experience. The pinnacle of this journey was membership of a high-profile gym in Soho, London - an effective money-making machine. Its multi-level glass-and-steel interior - part spaceship, part ocean liner - housed a medical centre, holistic treatment rooms, a dojo, a climbing wall, and a hypoxic chamber. At every turn was another skill to be learned, remedy to be taken, or wonder to be sampled. Overlooking the gym floor was a wholefood shop and eaterie. Mouthwatering aromas and the screeching of juicers accompanied exercise time, hailing the hungry for our inevitable post-workout treat.

Positively speaking, gyms are there to serve, and used consistently, they’re beneficial. I, like many others, thought I could never do without one. What would happen if I left? Surely I’d lose out, gain weight, become a slob. Instead, years later, when I walked away from gyms altogether, the opposite has happened. I’m in better shape now than I was ten years ago. The true investment we make for our health is with time: how we perceive it, and what we do with it.

Fitness training, once it has become a habit, is addictive. It’s the endorphins, the natural high, the feeling of wellbeing, and the visible physical results. But we all get lazy, and it’s easier not to do something than do it. So how do we keep up our standards without the crutch of the club?

One trick that I use to get myself in the mood - regardless of whether I’m quite ready to train - is simply to change into my fitness gear. It’s my uniform, and makes me feel ready for action. Wearing it, I won’t change my mind. And I leave my favourite kit somewhere easy to see, and grab.

If I feel sluggish, deciding it’s too wet outside to go running, or I can’t be bothered to lift weight, I quickly change tack. I think objectively. How long will it take to do my exercise session? I need 45 minutes for my run, so I ask myself: “Am I worth this investment of time?”

The answer is always yes. We can so easily whittle away and waste those precious minutes, achieving little, or nothing at all. Instead, we can invest them. There’s always time to be snatched, no matter how scarce it seems. We can fill our day with interval training whilst we’re waiting for dinner to cook, or watching a TV show. We can do functional exercises while cleaning the house or car: think “wax on; wax off” from The Karate Kid!

Used shrewdly, our minutes bring us gains: health, strength and endurance. They lengthen our natural lifespan. And that’s true return on investment. We may have to fork out for a pair of running shoes, or a bit of helpful equipment, but it doesn’t have to be that new-year gym-membership fee.