I’m an exercise addict and I’m #gymfree –

I’ve been an exercise addict most of my life. It started long before I came crashing down from drugs and alcohol. But, my exercise addiction really got some steam behind it when I got sober. Suddenly, I had all this time on my hands that used to be spent either pursuing drugs, consuming drugs or coming down from drugs. Sober life left a vacuum that could only be filled by one thing, exercise.

I started taking aerobics classes at the gym where I was working. Then, I got the idea that I wanted to be a lifeguard, so I got certified and spent the next three summers guarding the lives of the privileged members of a downtown Boston health club – they never swam, thus I never had to do anything more than look pretty. My off hours were spent swimming laps and in the gym downstairs pumping my chest towards an ever evasive perfect form. Whittling my waist down to twenty eight inches became an obsession too. Oh, and let’s not forget that mandatory bubble butt.

When a friend of mine suggested that I start teaching fitness classes, I laughed. It wasn’t long before I was in the front of the room taking the same privileged women in thong leotards through endless workout routines that never delivered that feeling of perfection that we all so desperately were seeking. “Just a few more pounds honey and then he’ll love you,” I would tell the chubby women in the back of the class.

Over the next thirty years I’ve spent at-least five hours a week in the gym. For most of the nineties, my gym-time totaled about 25 hours a week. That was in the hey-day of step aerobics when I was paid a hundred dollars an hour to step up and down on a plastic platform climbing endlessley to a nirvana that I never reached.

Running was the next right step in my quest to fitness bliss. It has lead me to half marathons, full marathons and logging miles all over the world – many of those miles were run on treadmills in gyms, going nowhere! I can’t say that my fitness addiction has hurt me in any way. But, I’m coming to realize that I’ve spent more waking hours pursuing an impossible goal that will never be reached than I ever spent doing drugs – go figure. That’s why I’m reevaluating my fitness routines for 2016 and I’ve decided to become #gymfree. That’s right, I threw my gym membership key card into the Hudson river one day this fall on a seven mile run. Why do I need to pay for a gym membership when the world is my gym, I thought. And with the current trend of using your body weight as your only exercise equipment, you too can become #gymfree. Save yourself $80 – $100 per month and cut the cord. In 2016 everyone will be going #gymfree. You’ve been warned.

*Note – The video above is George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex”. It was the very first warmup song I used for my very first fitness class.