I think I may have done something that I may possibly regret in the immediate future…

I’ve signed up for a low impact aerobics class.

Oh dear.

My weight has been a source of frustration for years. In my youth I exercised almost every day – I swam for a club, played on badminton teams, reached my brown belt in karate – and as a result I was strong, slim and could eat and wear whatever I wanted with little thought.

Moving away and going to university was the start of what has been an ongoing weight gain over the last 17 years that has now reached the point where I am starting to feel ill. I have two problems: I’m physically lazy and an enormous emotional eater – I eat when I’m happy, and I eat to console myself if I’m angry or upset. While my calorie intake was something I never used to worry about, my change in metabolism over the years and edging ever closer to my 40’s has meant that just looking at a chocolate bar results in at least a 10lb weight gain, and I’ve now lost control of myself.

I’ve made attempts to exercise and get healthier at various points – my last effort being to run the Birmingham Half-Marathon which required months of training. I did it (even if I was overtaken by a guy carrying a FRIDGE on his back), but since that point I’ve found it easy to slip back into a comfortable routine of sitting.

I’m BRILLIANT at sitting. And eating. And sitting.

I’ve watched from the sidelines for quite a while as others have started to make changes. My close blogging friends exercise regularly, my lovely next-door neighbours are now doing yoga, eating well and obviously losing weight, another friend goes to the gym several times a week and kicks ass on a roller derby team, but I’ve experienced a mental block and lack of motivation to do something for myself. However, when scrolling through Facebook this evening I saw an advert for a low-impact aerobics class and spontaneously took it as a message from the universe that this was the opportunity I was looking for. It seems perfect – a group of women my age in a relaxed location just a few minutes walk from my house, reasonably priced with no obligation to pay monthly fees. I used to do weekly high-energy aerobics as a teenager with my mum so I generally know what to expect, but it’s been SO long since I took anything like this seriously that I’m actually a little nervous.

I can’t seem to shake the image of 1980’s Callanetics or Joanna Rohrback’s Prancercise videos.

Perhaps I’ll leave the leg warmers until later…