And the Biggest Tease Award goes to.......

THE GYM!  You are lured there on the basis of becoming body beautiful and because it is expensive you also become upper class.  Then when you get there, well, it is full of slim blondes that dont need to be there and dont break a sweat at all (and I dont believe they look like that BECAUSE of the gym) and pumping muscular men.  This all adds to the insecurities of going in the first place.  But I go anyway in hope rather than desire.  Then if you stick to THE GYM and eat healthily you can get nearer to the body you want.  But - and it's a BIG but, (in my case a big butt) the gym is bloody hard work.  And then, just to kick you in the teeth, if you decided not to go just once in favour of doing something more lazy, you are immediately on a slippery slope back to flab.  And the results DONT last! 
And then there is the problem of the personal trainer.  As I walk in to the gym with all my flabby bits swinging from side to side, how can I tell this 19 year old toned and pecked PT that I cant run, jump, skip, stand up on a bike without weeing myself, and he should swim for it if I should sneeze?  Oh well, caution to the wind and double tena lady installed, lets go for it.  The gym is supposed to be 'my time'.  But then really 'my time' would involve coffee, a good book and a big bar of chocolate, all which equal the opposite effects of the gym. 
So on the basis of persuading myself to go I have renamed it THE Jim.  I have a session booked with THE Jim.  Then I make sure my ipod is charged and head out the door.  My aim this morning was not to worry about getting sweat patches around my VPL but TO get sweat patches around my VPL!
Ipods are great but again the distraction of loud music leads to other insecurities, am I singing out loud? am I panting too hard? did I just fart?  A tip in this situation, I have found, is to cough.  How loud my cough sounds gives me a gage of sounds I may involuntarily be making.
So with all the hatred for the gym and my body built up I relucantly got on my bike and cycled to the gym with the fantasy that all I needed to do was cycle there, have a coffee, cycle back and that would have the same effect.  It was a good workout, really it was.  But why the bloody hell, when leaving, did I sign up to do the New Forest half marathon next September?  Have decided that maybe the gym isn't as good for me mentally as I have been lead to believe.  Time to embrace the wobbly bits?