I’ve never been a member of a gym. The summer between High School and College I went to our local rec center to work out fairly frequently but that ended as soon as college started. Hubby and I have talked about getting a membership many times but it’s never happened. We looked a few different options in Dublin but two things made us decide it wasn’t worth it:
1) Childcare. A lot of the bigger gyms offer on-site childcare where you can leave your children while you work out. Sounds great, until you actually look into it. The ones we looked at in Dublin charged €8 per hour, per child. That would have been €32 every time I went to work out (assuming I was there 2 hours) on top of the monthly membership fee and gyms here are not much better. I decided in Dublin to get a babysitter and go take dance classes instead which I like better anyways and we probably saved money overall.
2) Location. We didn’t have a car in Dublin so getting to a gym with childcare involved either a 15 minute train ride plus 10 minute walk or a 20+ minute walk each way. There is no way I would have worked out regularly knowing I had to then get home afterwards. Even now with the car, the closest gym with childcare is about a 10 minute drive and that’s 20 minutes of my life I don’t want to spend in my car and gas I don’t want to pay for.
So instead, in addition to dancing, I’ve relied on walking. I walk everywhere I can. This morning I dropped Honeybun at school then went to Target for milk before heading home. Total walking: over 2 miles (not including wandering through nearly every aisle of Target).
I realize walking is not the best exercise, but I figure I get added benefit due to the fact that I’m usually pushing close to 100 lbs of children and buggy (and whatever I’ve bought if shopping) plus it’s a bazillion freaking degrees outside PLUS I have to speed walk to keep the 100 lbs of child/buggy easily moving in a forward direction.
I may not be exercising the way I want to or the amount I “should” but a mommy’s got to do what a mommy’s got to do!
