As much as I try to deny the weighing scale any hold over me, I still get on it every single day--and twice. When this addiction of my constant kg-patrol began, I can't remember. All I know is, and as terrible as it sounds, whatever digits manifest on my mini pink digital scale dictate how I'll spend the rest of my day.
Myself being an exercise-fiend or any form of physical activity, really, "commitophobia" always creeps up on me whenever I sign up for a gym membership. In the two years I've been living here in Japan, I've been a bit of a gym-whore, having gotten around a bit, you know. Jokes, I've only been to three: 2 months at a Bikram Yoga studio, 3 months at a previous gym and just between you and me, I think I'm going steady with my gym now. We stand at 4 going on 5 months. :3
The complexity of the conversations I have with myself about going to exercise are wildly entertaining. It always starts with "I'm going today" then erodes to "We'll see how the day goes" and then there are bad days when it drops to an abyss of self-destruction, "Screw you, Body". However, I realised, the MOST DIFFICULT part about exercising at the gym is actually getting there. The very moment I step inside the gym and slip into my one-piece swimsuit (I know, so very unattractive), my fate has been sealed. I have also begun taking pleasure in the idea of playing mermaid with sheer disregard of everyone else around me.
Frankly, I don't think I would've consciously decided on religiously exercising if not for the embarrassing weight I gained post-uni. Since last year, I've lost about 5kg and not through any crazy red flag-raising diets like before but just by eating less dirty and living less sedentary. I try to be as mobile in any way possible (walking, cycling, swimming) because I do love me some food. More than wanting to lose weight though, exercising gives me the only time I can shut my thoughts off and just focus on finishing the lap. I used to raise an eyebrow at people who went to the gym to de-stress because I thought being at the gym was stressful but I think I may now be one of them. The swimming pool is one of my current favourite places (next to my mum's kitchen, of course).
It's funny that as I write this I'm already at the second stage of my Exercise Debate. I'm exhausted having barely slept last night because I was hungry. I was hungry because I only had a spinach and blueberry juice for dinner. I had just that because I weighed myself after my swim and the numbers were not so much admirable hence the skewed decisions. See what I mean?
