I think you are right, that starting to exercise will help with depression. Now that my routine is off, and my gym membership lapsed, I'm right back to where I was.

I can hardly wait to move so that I can join a gym again!

Good luck to you, and I'm really really envious that you get to swim!

Looks like a great facility. I go here and it seems about equal in cost to yours and it's nice, and the handiest one to my house.

Good luck. . .

good work jan!

you may already know this from your past experiences, but take a tip from a coach, even if i am only a cycling coach:

give yourself six to eight weeks of adaptation - build slowly into it, and during this time, be fairly rigorous about going *whether or not you feel like it*

there are 2 reasons for this, one physical, one psychological: it takes about that length of time for the body to adapt to activity, and it also takes your brain a little while to shuffle your daily 'routine' into something new. keep your expectations moderate and try not to make a chore out of it, but do write it into your calendar and make a daily commitment for each day you want to go.

additionally, this is an important thing i've pointed out to most of the women i've coached in the past: at first you may even *gain* weight, rather than losing it. there are many physiological reasons for that, which i won't go into detail here, other than to say the female human body is gloriously evolutionarily adapted to SURVIVE, and things like increased activity and/or decreased food intake tend to throw it into 'conservation' mode, whether or not you like it... this may initially lead to fatigue, moodiness and/or irrational hunger bouts - keep your diet steady, eat well and drink tons and tons of water - your thermostat *will* reset, even if you don't think so.

the point is, the classic pattern is for someone to jump into a workout plan fullbore for the first 2-3 weeks, then be horrified to step on the scale and see that either nothing at all is happening weightwise, or that they've gained a pound or two... despite the fatigue and sore muscles the new workout plan has brought on. expect fitness to come along in spurts, not steadily. you'll have good days and bad days, just be consistent and don't get down on yourself. EVERYONE goes thru this, even me when i ramp up to get racing-fit.

like i said, likely you already know this intellectually. point is, you need to know it emotionally too. put your scale away somewhere for a couple - 3 months and just go work out, relax in the pool, and enjoy yourself. don't try to do everything at once - just work yourself into it a bit at a time.

good work, and good luck. sounds like this will help you get out a bit more, as well :]

Good luck and I hope you stick with it. In the last year I only went to the gym a few times, but my membership just came up for renewal a few weeks ago and I renewed it again. This time I really intend to use it and get in shape. I don't understand why I don't go often, since I know it makes me feel better and is good for me. Since we didn't go to the gym often, my wife and I downgraded to a more traditional gym as opposed to the health and wellness facility we were going to. The thing I miss about that place is the pool and the steam room. But it was twice the price of what we're paying now, so it was hard to justify for how often we went.

Maybe now that I posted here about renewing my membership I'll be guilted into going more often. It's amazing what a little peer pressure can do!

Good luck sticking with essexjan - hoopefully in a month or two we can report back that we actually regular gym goers.

Damn, I think along with going to the gym I need to add proofreading to my list of things to do!

Yay!

Gymgoing is one of the things that keeps me sane.

Even if my spin instructor tried to kill us today yet again...heh.

Go jan go, girl! Send us pix of the new you in six months!

I can't hack paying for gyms. I'm lucky that the building where I work has some weight machines that I hit at lunchtime 3 days/wk, but I'm even happier going speedmarching with weight (about 35% again of my body mass) in all weathers -- on exercise trails in our city's excellent parks. A couple of them are hilly enough to be challenging, but there are also places to go when I want to stay where it's flat.

I look forward to hitting the trail, whether it's hot and muggy, bitter cold, or chilly and raining, and it's a drag when I don't get in three good 5-mi (at least) marches a week. I've lost about 25 pounds, so I'm now in good enough shape to to 50 pushups and 50 leg lifts every other wake-up. I look noticeably fit for a guy in his mid-forties and sleep much better than I used to.

But...

The real secret?

I've been at it a year and built up to to the current level over about nine months. I started doing this early last March to battle depression and made myself stick with it. When I'd get discouraged or bored, I wouldn't let up on myself like I would've when I was younger. I forced myself to slog through some pretty nasty winter wx, when it got twice as hard to do the same workout because of the lousy traction on ice and the aggravation of covering up all that skin with sweat-soaked polypro fleece and nylon.

I've had to get my head into a space where it's more of a drag to miss a workout than it is to go to one -- where I'm eager to get out and see the change of seasons and the faces of others out on the park trails. (And now that warm wx is returning, there's the added benefit of pretty girls in track shorts.) It took me a good six months of steady mind-games to get to this point. I had to talk myself into consistently being the kind of person I want to be, and if that person's one who exercises regularly, I gotta really be my own parent on this stuff. Go thou and do likewise.

(Besides, I'd seen a pic of myself from Apr 2005 and decided I didn't like a spare tire and incipient chipmunk-cheeks. I look better and I feel better. Whenever I feel like slacking off, I think about how I look now compared to that photo from two years ago.)

Get sexy, kiddo.

I was toying with the idea of joining a "fat old women's gym" all this past week, since I'm not ready for a real gym, something like Curves or Contours Express. I want to go month to month because as I get fitter I want to end up doing spinning and pilates and yoga, but right now I'm just not mentally able to suit up and walk into the Y or Bally's looking like this.

So, essexjan, you're my inspiration...I think I'll go ahead and sign up. Oh and lfr, that was a great post-something to print out and tape to the bathroom mirror.

essexjan, good for you! Exercise does wonders for the mental health doesn't it? I find that my days are 10 times more productive when I work out. I never felt better mentally and physically when I was running. I haven't been running that much lately. I know I should, it's my Prozac.

Holly, good for you for joining! lfr, I enjoyed reading your post also. I agree with you 100 percent.

I don't like gyms. They don't let you smoke there.

I don't like gyms. They don't let you smoke there.

But my gym has martini holders on the exercise machines.

I have been planning on going back to a gym I was a member of a year or so ago. It's inexpensive and small - no classes or pool, but those are things I never use anyway. I was going to with my tax refund, but I ended up spending the money on new clothes for interviews and such. So I have clothes that fit now, even though the size is about twice as it used to be.

Good job, Jan. Go a lot and get skinny!

holly, and others--you may be interested to know that the founder/CEO of Curves, a guy from Texas who once did six months in jail for refusing to pay child support, donates a lot of money to anti-abortion groups.

Holly and Lori, i'll mention something here that i've said elsewhere - don't take the easy excuses or let those nagging voices in your head tell you 'it's not worth it...i'm too tired... it's too hard... you're not getting anywhere... blablabla...'

i'm not one of those kind of people who's blessed with good genetics or naturally active. everyone in my family is fat. i'm the only one on either side, dad's or mom's, who's managed to reach 30 (almost 40, now) and not weigh 200 pounds. all of them have health problems. none of them are even remotely what you'd call 'athletic', and, like them, i was a sedentary bookish teenager, and i'm still lazy as a hog in august. it was a near thing for me too, honestly - at age 28 i was 170 lbs, fat and depressed, and my blood pressure started spiralling out of control.

oh and we ain't all that tall, either. i'm only 5'4" and the rest of my relatives rarely top out over 5'10". our family tree would be best represented with a beachball.

i can only speak for myself - the changes i've made are lifestyle changes that i've arrived at slowly over the past decade. i've talked about them many times before. all I'll say here is how i feel and my energy levels totally trump all the pain-in-the-ass elements of my active lifestyle (living car-free, not watching tv, being careful of my diet, and all of it).

and finally, i'd urge you not just to do this just for nebulous health and social reasons. if you'll indulge me for a minute, i'd say sometimes the purely shallow, egotistical reasons are good enough. if i may say so, i look *damn good* at 125 lbs, in these juniors' department size 5 jeans i'm wearing. hallelujah for being able to wear cute clothes, and basically whatever the hell i want without having to worry about 'hiding' body parts, because i played those games for over half my life. i'll be 39 soon, and people who don't know my real age tend to assume i'm in my mid twenties, if not a college student. it's hard work but it's well worth it.

Beware Curves, on preview, oh good, box got it.

You make me feel better, jan. It's worth paying the money to make you feel the need to go, and once you're there, you might as well use it. If i had a decent place to go to, i couldn't come up with good enough reasons not to, but i need to get workout wear as well. i think just being more active recently has been one of the things that has really helped my mood.

Yay, jan! I wish I could afford to join a gym, but at least I like to run.

Yeay! I joined ages ago, and only recently kicked my ass enough to go, because I am tres lazy. Perle doesn't like being in the kids room without me one iota, so I get maybe 20 minutes tops on the machines - but this kicks my ass even more, since I want her to be able to handle being without me in a daycare type setting, and so I go *every weekday* now, and I'm loving it. Even if I only get those few minutes on a machine, the short stints seem to suit me (easily bored), I'm 'schooling' Perle, and I've already changed the look of my flabby arms - so it's all good. :) Sleeveless summers here I come!

Another good for you, jan. It is a long process of building a habit, really. Just GO. Once you're there, if you don't feel like doing much, don't. It's ok.

It is sooo good for the mental health.

Physical-wise, yes you will become fitter, and yes over (seemingly) MUCH TIME, you will like the way you look more - just don't expect a quick fix - that's what frustrates people. (You don't sound like that, but just saying.)

Yay EJ!

There's a community pool near us that I'm looking forward to using this summer. I like swimming and I think it's an exercise I can stick with.

Excellent, Jan! Good for you!

What everyone else said -- ease into it, make a habit of going and you'll starting feeling and looking and being A WHOLE LOT BETTER.

I think this'll be good for my depression too, as well as a lot of the negative feelings I have about myself.

It will be. I go to the gym primarily for my emotional health. Even if I got no physical benefits whatsoever out of lifting weights, I would still do it because lifting weights makes me feel good. Seriously. The bars and machines and weights are my Prozac.

Again, good for you.

Thanks, guys, and especially lfr, for all the great advice and comments.

I'd tried to exercise by walking to and from the station. This didn't work, primarily because of my two days a week working from home. So everyday I would either be bringing home or taking back a load of files, which can be damned heavy. I wear a backpack, and recently bought one with little wheels on it, but it was just too heavy to carry comfortably, especially when I'd be changing trains and having to haul the pack off and on. It was easier to take the car to the station.

I know from past experience that if I don't commit to a membership, I won't go. Also, the off-peak membership is good for me because I think it'll help stop me getting obsessive about it. I can go any time during the day Monday-Friday, with last entry at 4.30, but I have to leave by 5.30, and any time at weekends.

What this means from a practical point of view is that it's only four days a week I'll be able to go - the two days a week I work from home and the weekend.

Ten years ago when I was a gym obsessive, I was there six or seven days a week, straight from work for three hours at a time, and sometimes five or six hours at weekends. I won't be able to do that with an off-peak membership, but with my days working from home, there are yoga & pilates classes that I can attend, as well as swim and use the other facilities.

/excited.

Good for you! I joined one last summer--not to lose weight or make myself more attractive, but because I needed to do it for myself. Even at my proper weight I look like a miniature linebacker with tits.I still need to get it out of my head my father's telling me that using a yoga tape (after I'd taken some classes) wasn't "good enough". Most of what they play at the gym is rap, so I broke down and bought an ipod--and the days I forgot my sneakers in snowy weather, they didn't say anything when I took off my boots before I got on the bike.