Gym.

Assalamualaikum. We meet again!

Three or four days ago or is it last week, (I scarcely remember things in details recently) while me and Bubbs were having a tête-à-tête, I noticed he kept saying about his diet determination. It struck me a lot so I said, “You’re not that fat” and he frazzled, “Sheriel Aizan, I have high blood pressure.”

Jaw-dropped.                   

We went to register for gym the next day. (It’s definitely a thing now. My Twitter timeline has been flooded with photographs of friends working out with steels and treadmill.) This is without doubt for the sake of friendship and health. People who know me well would come up to say, “Biar betik Sheriel pergi gym. Lari pusing satu UIA merungut berkajang!” Liddat. It’s not that everybody else is doing gym to swank, I mean some go for the shaping and guys want the six packs, some consume the protein, some have been doing this humdrumly, but the focal point is to get vigorously healthy.

So, gym is a good thing. At the same time we cannot negate that it’s really an ‘in thing’ for some people. Agree?

My observations went wild. Now that there are various apps that allow people to post their records and check into fitness places (via Foursquare, Nike running app) in addition to platforms like Twitter and Facebook, it's more omnipresent than ever. I am not sure if everyone’s annoyance is warranted when someone constantly tweets specifically how crazy his/her runs are.

Don’t get me wrong, some of my friends have been doing this gym thing since forever and I have no issues with them going to gym and not even once I noticed such contentions made to the Internet professing their gym activities. So that’s fairly rousing to me. And I have one friend often posts how to get fit and live a healthy life, the do’s and don’ts in gym, how to maintain the enthusiasm of working out, how not to give up, all that jazz. They inspire people without having any onuses to blow the horn.

And to be fair with some people, I understand the excitement to share their accomplishments in gym. They want something that makes they feel self-assured. They want to strive for the best determination and they want to receive acknowledgments from people. They have my kudos. Sometimes they need extra help to keep motivating themselves to work out. This group belongs to they who just want to share and not guilt everyone else.

So it’s not all bad news and braggarts. These people have a lot to offer when it comes to living healthy: for every person who hides the app on their wall, there’s another who loves feeling like they’re part of a great running community.

Fitness newbies can be zealous in their enthusiasm but that excitement can be just what a friend needs to encourage them to make healthy changes. Other people find that posting their fitness highs and lows provides them with much needed support, kudos and accountability. And where better to get ideas for fun workouts or healthy recipes than from your healthy living friends?

Finding the balance between annoying and amazing can be tricky. Kan?