Would you like fries with that?

Today, I found a new religion ... [drum roll] fitness! Yes, I joined a gym for the first time in my life, really out of fear (of what I may become here!) and a feeling that I was going to need it for my mental health, rather than out of any intrinsic motivation to be "in the best shape of my life", to quote the gym blurb.

As mentioned in previous posts, there's nowhere to ride or walk here, and incidental exercise consists of walking to the car and back. Local 'restaurants' mostly consist of fast food chains and/or southern fried or highly sauced BBQ style food. Interestingly, the better options tend to be the steakhouse chains, where you can get a decent steak or even salmon, if you prefer, but it's difficult to resist the fries, because they're usually just sooo yummy!! 

Last week, Daniel's child care teacher, Ms Lajean, asked me how I was finding the local food, and when I replied that there seemed to be a lot of fried options, she nodded sagely and remarked that it's why people in Georgia tend to be "a little round"!!! (Ms Lajean, it should be noted, is a little spherical in shape, herself.)

We sampled a BBQ place on the weekend, with the post-service rush, and like others we'd tried locally, polystyrene 'plates' and plastic cutlery are standard, along with disposable cups with straws for your soft drinks or sweetened ice tea. (Can you see why we don't go out much AND why I've joined a gym?!!!). We're yet to experience anything approaching the quality and variety of some of our better cafés, pubs and restaurants in Melbourne, but have a hunch we'll need to get a babysitter and drive to the next town to do so.

Here's a sample of the local fast food offerings, as deposited in our letter box this week. (Discount coupons are quite big here!)

Not much appeals, though the Dunkin Donuts one is a little tempting ...

So, back to the gym ... What did I learn after my assessment with Gray, the resident Personal Trainer? Apart from the fact that I don't like doing squats because they hurt, and I'm wobbly when I do more than 3 push-ups, that weight loss and fitness can only occur when there is a strong tripod: weight training, good diet and cardio exercise. Gray was big on diagrams and flourishes of his ballpoint to emphasise his talking points, which for me, as a visual learner was perfect. He also warned me of the trap of American portion sizes. Yes, we had noticed that.

What was a little disconcerting, however, were his personally revealing tangents, which included revealing to me that he was in the throes of his 2nd divorce, as his wife was jealous of his 15 year old daughter from his first marriage ... I won't go into the uglier details that ensued. He then asked me if I had a son or daughter and remarked that his advice to any young man would be to not drink too much Tequila at the age of 21 and marry a Hooters Girl - that was his first wife. (I'm not making this up!!) He added that his Baptist pastor, not generally in favour of divorce, had met both he and his 2nd wife and suggested he go right ahead and file for divorce. 

Gray also shared that he was hoping to join the fire department as the benefits are better, but loved personal training. He then proceeded to show me a photo album of before and after pictures of clients he'd trained - his motivational "show and tell" tool.

Luckily for him, I've gone in with a fairly low bar, regarding my fitness goals, so hopefully that will be workable. If nothing else, there's a good yoga teacher there and one of my reasons for joining was to be able to do some classes, or go for a walk (on a treadmill) in air-conditioned comfort, as the summers here are supposed to be quite unbearably hot and humid.

My membership includes a once a month session with Gray, so that should be interesting!