Home or Gym?

It's an age-old problem...or at least an old problem to aged me.  Where to exercise?  The logical answer is at a gym.  After all, these are places pretty much devoted to exercise.  They have a bunch of weights, machines, and people who seem to be there for the explicit purpose of exercising.

Therein lies my problem...or neurosis.  People.  I hate 'em.  Well, I hate being around them in a gym.  I know, I know; it's all in my head.  I get very anxious dressing up in exercise duds and getting on the machines, especially when I'm surrounded by fit young people pounding out twice my effort without breaking a sweat or interrupting their texting conversation.  I keep telling myself that I paid my dues at the gym, I have a right to use the place, and besides...so what if I'm horribly out of shape...that's why I'm at the gym.  Still doesn't matter.  I'm all self conscious about people who, even if they did notice my presence in the gym, could not care less about what I am doing there.

Then there is the hassle factor.  Working out at 5am is NOT what I really would like to do.  I'd rather be sleeping, having sex, drinking coffee, surfing the internet, washing dishes, just about anything but get dressed and drive to a gym.  In this effort to change my lifestyle any excuse at all to skip going out to the gym will rear it's ugly head and derail that effort with distressing ease.  Too hot, too cold, too dark, too wet, too sleepy, I woke up with a bad case of bed head.....the list goes on.

The one way out of this is to do my exercise at home.  I bought a few hand weights at Wally-World.  Nothing fancy and they are fairly cheap.  Just to keep them all together I also bought a stand for them, also fairly inexpensive.  I rounded it out with some wussy weights my wife had on hand.  This works pretty well.  There is no exercise done on a machine in the gym that you cannot do just as well, or better, at home with a pair of hand weights.  All I have to do is shove all the cat's crap aside, unfold my exercise bench, and go at it....no need to dress or wake up enough to operate a vehicle.  No waiting for somebody else and I can take my own sweet time.  I don't have to check my appearance or body aroma and, when I'm done, I'm home and a pot of coffee is ready for me.

And with gas prices lately.....