In The Red: To stop spending on new clothes, I'm paying for a gym
Saturday, 5 July 2008
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My kit kat habit is starting to show. Well, I say "starting", but what I really mean is that I'm at the stage where none of my clothes fit. Several months' fast food got me through a mountain of work, but they are proving rather less helpful when it comes to me getting dressed.
So I'm going on a health kick – or, rather, not a health kick, but a diet. Who I am kidding? I couldn't give a toss about health. No, I want to be thin.
This is true for a number of reasons. First – and, admittedly, foremost – for the sake of vanity: I care (probably too much) about the way I look. But secondly – and more importantly – because I can't afford to jump a dress size. Who can? Given that virtually everything I own is beginning to squeeze, I'd end up buying new jeans, new skirts, new dresses... new everything. And there's no way that's happening.
So, this is the plan. 1) To eat as healthily as possible. 2) To exercise as much as possible.
Simple. Well, yes, it is simple – but also expensive.
I'm not sure I'd ever grasped how costly healthy eating could be. Mainly, this is because I haven't really practised it; or at least not for a long time. When I have, someone has subsidised my habit. First Mum and Dad and then others: university dining halls did a pretty good job, if only by making everything so unappetising that I was forced to subsist on All-Bran and side-salad.
Likewise an old office helped, where staff clocked up points to be spent in the canteen. I, of course, was so extremely unimportant that my points rarely stretched to a starter.
Anyway this time there's no way around it. I'm going to be healthy and thrifty, which probably means a long, hot summer of soup. From Lidl.
Exercise is just as bad. Habitually slothful, I get a perverse thrill from pounding out on the treadmill – but the cost of a gym is, to say the least, a slight deterrent. And before anyone suggests I take my running outdoors (as in: without the high-tech machine, techno soundtrack and smell of others' sweat) I should mention that this is absolutely not an option. I know it's healthier, cheaper and much more environmentally friendly, but I just can't be doing with it. All that having to run in public, red-faced and sweaty arm-pitted, grinning though the comedy cat-calls and bumping in to people I know. It's intolerable.
So here's my compromise: I will budget on food, but I'll pay for the gym.
I can think of more than enough inessentials to stop buying and plenty of nutritious items with which to replace them. But the gym's my hobby and for that I'll fork out.
Not too much, mind. Gyms may cost money but there are plenty of ways to whittle down the price. When living in the States, for instance, I discovered the wonders of the local YMCA. It was, entirely unexpectedly, terrific. They had perfectly decent facilities which cost no more than $20.
Here, unfortunately, the prices aren't quite as low; a call to the central London branch reveals rates as high as £40. Still, it's a snitch next to others' £100-odd fees.
Council-run leisure centres are another option. My local branch offers a range of facilities for less than £40. And for those determined to get something for nothing, you could probably get by just surfing the wave of special deals and freebies.
Insurance companies, for instance, often offer a free gym membership – which can leave you paying £20 (or even less) for health cover and absolutely nothing in gym fees. Most gyms will offer discounted trial runs, too, at some stage, which can often last up to a month each.
As for me, I'm going for the leisure centre. It's an option I don't mind paying for, as long as I'm cutting back elsewhere.
So there it is, my plan for the summer: cheapo soup, no more Kit Kats and discounted gym-time. Doesn't it sound fun?
