My forty-something changing body

And how getting back to the gym is helping me.

Illustration by Glenda Strong - Illustrations by Glenda

It is the sight of my bingo wings flapping in the mirror when I blow-dry my hair that finally makes me confront my changing body. That and the back fat spilling over my bra.

I stand in front of the mirror and a stranger looks back at me. Gone is the toned thirty-something who loved exercise, and in her place is a flabby forty-something whose only exercise is walking from desk to kettle and back again four hundred times a day.

‘What happened?’ I ask myself, as I try to wrestle the back fat into my bra. ‘How did I get here?’

One minute I was young and fit and now I’m approaching my mid-forties with a body I don’t even recognise. My muscles are rapidly disappearing and the loose skin under my arm (the bingo wings) hangs from my triceps as if it’s no longer connected.

I make a cup of tea and consider my options. It seems there are only two. I can carry on as I am, not liking but accepting the deterioration that comes with age, or I can do something about it.

I sip the tea and decide that if this ageing thing has to happen (and it obviously does), then I am not going down without a fight.

Before I can change my mind, I go online and look at rejoining my local gym. It’s a no-frills, not-for-profit gym only five minutes from my house. For years, I was a regular, going to spin classes, kettlebells, step (back in the day) and even boxercise once (it wasn’t for me), but then came the pandemic. I haven’t been back since.

Given my past love of all things fitness, I should feel comfortable rejoining, but there is no ignoring the nerves fizzing in my stomach. I dither about pressing the sign-up button. Am I doing the right thing? Do I really want to do this? Should I just accept that my life has moved on?

Doubts racing, I take a deep breath and press ‘join’. And then regret it, feeing like an imposter.

I book my favourite class, a Monday night disco spin, and spend the next few days fretting. On the night, I leave early, something I’ve never done before. I’ve always whizzed in and thrown myself on the bike as the music was starting.

That was three years ago and it seems like a lifetime. The fit version of me is like a different person, someone whose life I occasionally glimpse. Like last week, when my niece Olivia and I were shopping in Meadowhall. She wanted a snow cone, which involved walking from one end of the shopping centre to the other and back.

‘It’s a long way,’ I’d said, wanting to go to the bookshop.

‘It’s not,’ she’d said. ‘It’s good exercise. I thought you were all about fitness.’ And she’d bounced on the spot, full of energy, demonstrating that I was supposedly all about fitness.

As I walked and Olivia bounced to the snow cone shop, a memory from my old life flashed into my mind—of me returning from running events with medals and prizes when Olivia was younger. She’d been impressed that her Auntie Liz could win things. Now the only chance I have of winning anything is in a raffle.

The spin class is my attempt at facing up to the fitness (or rather lack of fitness) situation. I tell myself that I am not too old, that it’s not too late, that I will get fit again and other positive things to make it more bearable.

When I arrive, I head for reception to sort out my photo-card, but think I’ve come to the wrong place. This is not the tired-looking gym I remember. Gone are the vending machines selling fizzy drinks, chocolate and crisps. Instead, there’s a stylish new cafe. And it sells cake.

My nerves turn to excitement. Even if I don’t do any exercise, I could come and enjoy the tea and cake while I read or write or sit and watch the swimmers doing their lengths in the pool. Perhaps joining wasn’t such a bad idea after all. I take a seat, admiring but resisting the delicious-looking cakes.

‘Your spin class is about to start,’ reception tells me, twenty minutes later.

There is no getting out of it now. I head to the civic hall, which is outside the main fitness centre. While the gym has undergone a significant spruce up, the civic has not. It looks much as it did when I came to playschool here in the 1980s.

The class takes place in a small room (previously the buffet room) with battered old spin bikes lined up in rows. There are no big screens or state-of-the-art fitness technology. Just old blinds, peeling paintwork, and the closest thing to an air conditioning system is opening a window.

No one else is here yet, so I stand and wait, my heart rate shooting up before I’ve even got on the bike.

When the group and instructor arrive, they give me such a warm welcome, smiling and chatting and catching up, that I almost break down in tears. It’s like I’ve never been away.

Back in the saddle, I go steady, careful not to give my ageing muscles too much of a shock. A few tracks in, confident that my legs and hips won’t seize up, I go for it. No pain, no gain. Through the sprints, climbs and intervals, I cycle hard, pushing my body to the beat of the music. I can’t help but smile.

By the end of the class, I’m sweating, gasping, and feeling every one of my forty-three years, but I am still smiling. I stagger home, my legs weak, my body drained, and I realise what I have lost. Not only the fitness, but the friendships and fun that come from pedalling next to like-minded people once a week. The camaraderie, the laughs, the chats, the serotonin boost, the toned body and healthy mind. I’m so grateful to be getting it back.

Spinning becomes a regular thing and then I try kettlebells and body tone and consider boxercise before deciding against it (it’s still not for me). But there’s a step class, and Pilates and yoga, and I decide to give them all a go. Because why not?

I embrace the variety and have fun, and after each class, I feel a bit more like me again.

Fitness is about consistency. I know there are no quick wins, that it’s a lifestyle choice, that improvements in physical appearance take time and effort and don’t happen overnight, or even at all. I know all this, but still, two months after returning, I stand in front of the mirror to assess my progress, checking if the bingo wings have been blasted into oblivion.

They haven’t.

I am still wobbly, and I am still forty-something. But I don’t half feel good.