It’s a placebo. Well from my eyes it felt like it. When I began my gym membership in the January of 2015, it was purely for better general health, and to implement that into my personal lifestyle, not just for when feel like entering a building full of sweaty and bulky people working about in gym wear.

It was a pleasant surrounding and motivational push for me, seeing people work out, finish their last rep, grab their bottle of water, and stretch, leaving you with no other option than to follow suit.

It was refreshing becoming part of a regular routine. Going with friends was also a big push. I ensured that I had taken photos from time to time to see some progression; now I’m about 5’5 and weigh about (forgot) stone. I’m happy with my overall weight and maintenance but always had a slight curiosity of the inner regulation of my body. How’s my cardio vascular? Is my blood running through my body at a good rate? What are my iron levels like?
Regularly working out and eating good helped to ease these worries. Fitness classes are a really big test of strength and character. Burpees, weights, lunges, gathering in a circle to do 50 squats – the lot! But the question is: would you honestly do this outside of the gym if you didn’t have time/ were too lazy to regularly go, yet you so badly crave the ideal hour glass figure? Or the most defined rock hard abs on the planet?

Sometimes we need to ask ourselves why do we want a gym membership. If you already know why, and aren’t keeping a regular routine in order to achieve that goal, then you’re practically wasting your time, and money.

My  main reason for wanting to go to the gym was to implement the active lifestyle into my personal life, not treat the gym as an on and off switch of when I choose to care about my body. The reason why I called this a placebo is that it’s all about the mind. For example, before drinking a glass of orange juice; tell yourself again and again that it’s apple juice. I guarantee you that it’ll taste like apple juice when you take a sip!

I’ve seen many people feed themselves with the ideology that the only place to look after their bodies are in the gym. Wrong. There are so many alternative ways to regulate your body. Your body deserves more than a lazy membership (if you’re not regularly visiting) – think less, do more.