Why I chose my Gym

So I think by now everyone knows where I go to the gym. It was made pretty clear when there was the big hoo-hah last week of my account being cancelled (Part One, Part Two, Part Three) and everyone blaming everyone else as to why but just in case you don't follow me on Foursquare or Twitter and saw this saga then, I go to the Bletchley branch of Beaumonts Health Club, handily at the local leisure centre. I chose this gym over another gym in the area (that I had belonged to before) for a lot of reasons and not just because it was impressive. These are those reasons.

The Beaumonts Health Club is in a great location for me. It's about a five minute drive from my house, which means at 5:50am I can leave my house and make it to the gym in time for opening at 6am and be back home at 7:30am ready for my family to get up. Of course in a few weeks time when BB starts School and my fitness levels have improved, the gym is also located continently enough for me to walk or cycle to it.

There are classes upon classes. I go to Aquafit and I'm about to start going to a Spin class and I've been told about the Zumba class, and a range of others that I could go to but I'm too self conscious for (I shouldn't be, the instructors are great and have said I should go). Still at least I know as I continue on my fitness journey I'll have a wide range of classes to keep me interested.

The hours the gym are open are great. Well, apart from at the weekend, but during the week they are great. I can go before the children get up in the morning and I can go after the children go to bed at night. It fits around what I need to do in the day, which means I'm more likely to go.

The Gym has a lot of equipment, even on the busiest day I've been there were plenty of empty machines and enough space to get around without invading anyone's personal space. I can also whilst at the gym watch the TV on these pieces of equipment. It's a good way to catch up with the news in the morning and as the TV doesn't have to take up the whole screen I can still keep an eye on how well I'm performing.

Talking of which, the other members are great. It turns out one of my neighbours is a member (and goes at the same times too), and so are a few of the School Mums that I see in the playground. There are a few people who I can use for inspiration and a few others who like me are overweight and trying to do something about it and a lot of "normal" people too. I'm self conscious about my weight, but at the gym I don't care.

The staff are friendly, and I don't just mean the reception staff. All of them make eye contact, smile, say Hello and give advice as and when I need it. I've been lucky and managed to get one of the nicest staff members (Hello Danny) to first of all give me my induction and then to give my routine an update a month later. When he goes back to University next month I'm going to be quite sad!

There was a large pool I can use, along with a Sauna and Steam Room. Okay, so I haven't yet used the Sauna and Steam Room, but only because I'm not really sure what benefit sitting in them has for me. Okay, so the showers are sometimes cold instead of being a nice temperature but they are clean and well maintained as is the rest of the place. The gym gets washed down regularly (I've seen the staff do it) and there are plenty of towels to wipe down the machines you get on or off.

There is a computer system which keeps records of how much weight I've lifted or how many cardio minutes I've logged and if I want to I can link it up to my ipod to record all the data over on the Nike+ website. I'm a geek I like computers, it's a selling point okay.

The fee is a little higher than I would like (I'm yet to find a free gym with air conditioning, something the outdoor gym sadly lacks) but it's reasonable and something that with a few cuts in my budget we can afford. Plus you can't really put a price on good health and that is what I'm aiming for.

All of these reasons helped convince me that this was the gym for me and despite the cancelled membership issue, I think that with my new found love of exercise and my ever increasing weight loss that I made the right choice.


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