So one of the benefits of getting older is that, well you get to get older. However, one of the down sides to getting older is that you get older, and along with it, it becomes a lot more difficult to do some of the things that use to come easy when you were younger. Especially if you’ve had a desk job for over 20 years.

Well, there are so many things in life that you can’t do anything about and I have worked really hard over the last several years to try to not worry about those things. Instead, I’ve really tried to focus on the things that I can influence, and my health is definitely one of those things. So I decided that a couples gym membership was exactly what we needed.

Now I didn’t jump right into the gym, I tried several other things before I finally decided on a gym membership. We do have a pool, and I tried to use it as much as possible, but that’s only good for the summer months. We also have bikes that we ride occasionally. But worrying about traffic and angry dogs doesn’t make for a very enjoyable ride. I’ve also tried free weights at home and those seem to work okay. But I usually end up doing the exercise wrong which can do more damage than good. I’ve tried resistance bands with some success, at least for me. These really seemed to have the most flexibility… pun intended. They are easily portable, and I can keep one on my desk at work and use it when I think about it. But it doesn’t really work for both of us and the bigger issue is that we’re not doing it together. So a gym membership seemed to be what we needed, at least for now.

There were a few different options in our local area and we picked the one that seemed best for us. They offer 24 hour access and they have someone on-site most days until 8:00PM, which is really nice if you have questions. It also ended up being the one that was closest to our house. Suzanne works about 20 minutes west and I work about 30 minutes east, so we end up meeting in the middle after work. They also have a lot of different options: lots of really nice “LifeFitness” machines like tread mills, bikes, ellipticals, stair climbers and more. All of these are interactive with a lot of built in routines and scenery. There’s also an app that helps you keep up with your times and calories and fitness goals. Plus there are no real cars or angry dogs to worry about. This gym also has a lot of different weight machines for all the different muscle groups, which make doing exercises the right way very simple. They also have a lot of free weight equipment and several different group classes. So far we haven’t tried any of these but we have got into a pretty nice routine with using different equipment. I really hope we can make this a long term part of our lifestyle. I think it will allow us to go a lot further together. Well, that’s all for now. So until next time, keep pressing toward the mark.

Still hopeful,
Dave.