The Fitness Club

It’s an age of communicating everything with the help of technology. Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp are the most famous and widely used platforms to make a statement, get noticed, meet up for coffee or lunch and it is also used to lash out on someone, start a rumor or a fight. That’s the ugly side of technology. I use WhatsApp regularly and am active on many groups on that. There are groups of school friends, of the moms of my son’s school friend, of all the ladies in my apartment and then there are groups of my parents and my in-laws. There was one more group of my friends (whom I added from my acquaintances and friends to form a group) who wanted to participate in the yearly event of Pinkathon, which is usually held in Bangalore on last Sunday of January every year.

We trained separately for Pinkathon as we were spread across Bangalore but we kept each other updated about the routine and met up at the event. 7 of us participated in Pinkathon, 2 friends did 10k and 5 of us did 5k. After the event I asked them if they would like to continue or delete the group as I was sure all of them had 10 other groups to cater to. But the majority were of the opinion that we continue with the group and update each other with Marathons, Walkathons happening in Bangalore. So, we decided to let it be and continued with the group.

There is a group on Facebook called Dumbbell Divas which has inspired me tremendously and I am into working out regularly and thanks to this group of wonderful ladies, there are monthly challenges which happen and we compete against each other and score brownie points and the winner is announced at the end of the month. This flashed in front of my eyes and I thought why not implement this same thing to the WhatsApp group of my friends. I immediately popped the question and everybody loved the idea and were happy to find motivation and inspiration in each other. I renamed the group from Pinkathon 2017 to The Fitness Club and my crush, Milind Soman’s pic had to take a backseat and I put a lovely image of women working out as the Display Pic of the group. I created a Google Doc and at the end of the month, we will calculate who did the maximum workout routine and that person will get a small token from all other participants.

So, from today, 9 of us, including me have taken up the challenge of giving 150 minutes a week for any activity of our choice. Be it walking, running, jogging, dancing, or cycling or strength training. But the key is consistency and making time for ourselves, for our own health, for improving stamina and endurance and for giving that time to your body when it will create good hormones, the feel-good hormones in your body and lighten up your day and mood. There will be an after-burn even after the activity for many hours.  All the body parts will be strengthened and used in some or the other activity and our heart will thank us for what we do in these 30 minutes each day. 

We all have started with a bang. And I will continue to cheer them up and motivate them to stick to this routine. I am sure, at the end of the month, most of them will be addicted to this routine and won’t give it up for the rest of their lives just like I won’t ;) 

Go girls go!