Sloth makes waist

After recently seeing myself in some photos it became clear that my lack of exercise and activity is catching up. I thought some clothes were getting a bit more snug but being someone who has 3 sizes of things in my closet, the truth is easy to hide from yourself and it happens to the best of us.

I've never carried weight around my waist; usually it's on the butt, hips and thigh area but suddenly I seem to have quite the muffin top. I'm a fan of muffins but have decided that this one needs to go!

As a start I'm signed up for Nia classes at work on Mondays. I had never heard of it before and have some trepidation about it but what the heck. What is it?

"A Nia class will provide you with the stretch and stress relief found in yoga, the muscle toning for hips & arms from martial art punches and kicks, and the flexibility and freedom of dance."

But I don't think that's going to be enough. In the past I've found that the weight seems to appear pretty suddenly but it takes a long time and a lot of work to take off. At my leanest I was doing 5km intervals on the treadmill and 30-45 mins of weights 4 times per week. So, I've been looking at some options:

1. The free treadmill/elliptical at work. The key is free. The downside is usually by the end of my day the last thing I feel like is trekking to another floor in the building, changing in our scary pinky-grey bathrooms and getting on a treadmill. There are no weight machines either which I've found I need to incorporate to "reshape" things. And of course there is no access on weekends. Cost is FREE!



2. A membership in my area. The challenge there is usually that I need to get home, out the dog and eat dinner before I go...it's tough to go once I've touched down at home. And the facility I've used in the past has gotten busier. Cost is about $445 - $575 per year depending on facility.



3. A membership at a rec centre in the big city on my way home. An extra stop but could stop right after work when I'm not quite starving for dinner. A little longer wait for the dog but eliminates getting home and then going out again. I don't know what the facility is like so need to check it out - nicely when I'd stop is when I'd be looking at going so I should get an idea of how busy it is. One challenge is that I probably wouldn't drive in to use it on weekends - at least not in the winter. Cost is $443 per year minus $200 I'd get reimbursed through work so definitely a more reasonable option.



4. Purchasing a treadmill or elliptical for home. Doesn't take into consideration the weights thing so I might need to purchase some of those too. The positive is that it would be right here in the house. I do have some workout DVDs here in the house that I am able to ignore so in the house may not mean much. Cost seems to run about $1200+ for a decent machine.

I think I'll check out the place in the city one evening this week. In the meantime I will start the Nia class and try to haul my butt upstairs to the free machines a couple times. And try to watch my muffin intake and stress eating tendencies!