Why I’ve Chosen To Workout From Home Versus A Reopening Gym

When I first found out that my school’s gym was reopening, I immediately went to book a gym session. Each session allows up to 100 people for an hour with a break in between for the workers to wipe everything down and sanitize. While I am fully vaccinated, I still felt the panic creep up on me as I parked right outside for my booked time slot.

I’m not entirely sure if it was panic from not being able to work out in a gym for a year or some leftover Coronavirus fear, but I turned my car around and went straight to Five Below to buy some new weight equipment that I’ve held off on buying because I knew the gym would be opening soon. I bought some weights, a yoga mat, and purchased the viral Weighted Hula Hoop online.

I’ve spent the majority of quarantine trying to lose weight through meal prepping, daily walks, and a calorie deficit. While they’ve all helped to keep me from gaining weight, at least until I crave McDonalds and binge eat 30 chicken nuggets and two chicken sandwiches, weight training will also be needed to get me to my goal weight.

Gyms in my area have been open for a while, but most have their equipment in a parking lot under a canopy – not really my thing. Especially when the weather isn’t the best, paired with wearing a mask while working out, it doesn’t have the same appeal as gyms did before. I feel so restricted. Hence, why I haven’t paid for a gym membership yet.

The panic attack outside of my school gym did give me a renewed motivation to workout. It might be the shopaholic in me, but after buying new equipment I went home and worked out for an hour and a half. I loved it! It’s obviously not the same – things might not be the same for a long while, anyways – but anything to get moving and exercise is good!

I don’t know if my panic rose from the idea of going into a gym while coronavirus still has us on a lockdown or I just chickened out for fear of the new changes, but for now it felt like the right decision to keep working out from home. Once I find out exactly how working out in the gym will be, I’ll definitely rethink my choice, but who knows, I might just have found out that I like working out from home in general.

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