Okay, maybe money isn’t as taboo as I thought. I asked how much you pay for your gym membership and I got over 100 responses. One of you also told me your favorite sexual position. (Confidential to Marla: After reading your comment, my mother wanted to know what the reverse cowgirl is. Actually, I think she didn’t want to know what the reverse cowgirl is. I will spend the rest of my life trying to blot that conversation out of my memory.) I read every single response. Here’s a summary of the results for those of you who don’t want to mine the raw data:

People pay anywhere from $9.99 to $139.00 a month for facilities that range from hole-in-the wall joints, community gyms, facilities with movie theatres and one place attached to a pub where you can charge beer and fries to your membership.

People automatically scored free or discounted memberships by:

Being a firefighter

Living on an army base

Being a student

Working at the gym

Working in the same building as the gym

Working for Nike, Microsoft, the state, [...]

• Continue reading "Gym survey results – rates, discounts, and some fries"

Money. One of the last taboos. It would probably be more comfortable for me to ask you what your favorite sexual position is than to ask you how much money you made this year. But I’m going to ask this anyway: how much do you pay for your gym membership?

There are a lot of funny power and status issues wrapped up in money. No one wants to be seen as an idiot who paid too much for a car. It makes you feel dumb and devalued. But knowing what other people paid is important because it gives you leverage to negotiate a better price. So I want to know, how much are you paying for the gym? You can respond anonymously if you wish, but give me the A’s to these five Q’s:

1) How much do you pay a month?

2) Was there an upfront fee? How much?

3) What city do you live in? (Rent for a downtown New York space is going to be higher than the rent for a facility in Nowhere, West Virginia. Gym rates are [...]

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I am a woman of my word, and I have plenty of paper in my printer, so yesterday I printed out my 8-week pass from the Discovery Health: National Body Challenge for Bally Total Fitness as promised and headed for the gym. But first I drove around the mall and through some commercial properties’ parking lots, not because I was lost, just because, um, I like to make sure no one is following me. And I wanted to search for pot holes to report to the department of public works.

Next week I have a training session with Aaron (name changed to protect innocent personal trainers), who recently lost 50 pounds himself. We’ll see how it goes, though after reading an article a reader named Greg sent me about 10 Things Your Gym Won’t Tell You, I’ll be happy to get through the experience without contracting a staph infection or having my spine severed by the weight machine.

Bally’s and Bed, Bath and Beyond are in the same mall complex. Since I was in the neighborhood, and [...]

• Continue reading "Odds and ends on the weekend"

Last week I was sitting in the movie theater, snacking on my smuggled cheese sticks, watching Dan in Real Life (don’t worry, no big spoilers ahead). Most of the film takes place during a large family get together and in one scene a male character and the woman he’s dating lead the family in a group aerobics class on the lawn. My first thought:

“Oh my gosh, I totally need to date an aerobics instructor so I can get free lessons!”

If thoughts like these don’t prove I’m a changed woman, I don’t know what will. Five years ago I would have thought, “Who in their right mind would exercise on vacation?”

But I think it would be great to date someone who was just as much into health and fitness as I am. Or better yet, I could date a hardcore sportsman who could teach me to rock climb or rollerblade or mountain bike. We could cheer each other on and buy each other. . . rock climbing stuff. Ropes? Hmm, that might give him the wrong [...]

• Continue reading "A good reason to get a gym membership"

I was running on the treadmill in my apartment’s fitness room at eight o’clock in the morning last week. I don’t use the fitness room unless I can help it, but my downstairs neighbor didn’t request a wake-up call from my own treadmill in the morning, and I’d prefer to stay on his good side. I put up with the thudding bass of his stereo a couple times a week and he’s never said anything about me pounding through his floor in the evenings. I figure we have an unspoken truce and I don’t want to push it.

So, I was chugging along in the hot, kind of smelly fitness room in my apartment building, listening to some tunes through my earphones, when a slightly overweight, slightly middle-aged man in shorts entered the room. I gave a small wave acknowledging his presence and he pointed to the TV to ask if it was okay to turn it on. I gave him the thumbs up and continued running.

1.30 miles: TV man turns on TV and starts flipping [...]

• Continue reading "One reason I don’t like the fitness room"