‘Gradually I learned to love taking care of my body’

After years of being more sedentary than a slug, our columnist has discovered that she enjoys exercise – as long as it involves a punchbag

My relationship with exercise is much like my relationship with Countryfile – thought it was boring when I was younger, ignored it in my 20s and 30s, and now I can’t imagine my life without it.

At school, like many readers, I (reluctantly) took part in team sports as part of the curriculum. To this very day, I often wake in the night screaming as I remember the pain of being hit by what felt like a cannonball, on a hockey pitch, on a never-ending cold January morning.

Left to my own devices, I convinced myself that taking the bins out and the odd walk to the shop was sufficient exercise to keep me in full working order. That was until one fateful Christmas, when I was given the gift of a fitness tracker by a passiveaggressive relative. I put it on eagerly, knowing that despite being a self-employed writer who worked from home, I was surely practically the same person as Dame Kelly Holmes!

Unfortunately, and surprisingly quickly, a terrifying number hit me: 254. That’s how many steps I took the first day, and I was left with the certain knowledge that a slug probably travelled further than I did in a 24-hour period. I clearly needed to make a change but was terrified of where I needed to go to do it. I’d met ‘gym people’ before and I did not like them. Tall, athletic women who delighted in wearing bright, tight clothes and talking constantly about how brilliant they were. But my sedentary lifestyle was undeniable, so I took the plunge and went to my local council facilities to try to get fit.

I discovered a lot about exercising in public in those first few weeks. Mostly that a gym contains a lot of people who want you to know exactly how much exercise they take. The changing rooms were full of women proclaiming the number of classes they’d done and calories they’d burned. All the while I was sitting in the corner sweating and silently weeping as I coughed up a lung.

But I persisted and tried every class going, like speed-dating my own body, to find what I enjoyed and what I hated. I found that anything that required coordination simply led to frustration and a sprained ankle, and I was still too traumatised by verruca checks at school to brave the pool. Surprisingly, the classes I relished were the nasty kind, the horrible kind, the ones that made me feel sick before, during and afterwards: highintensity training, and hour-long spin classes that left me unable to talk.

I tried weightlifting and loved it. I challenged myself to lift heavier and heavier weights, imagining myself as a tiny Xena: Warrior Princess ready to face all foes. My confidence soared as I achieved more. Then I found my real calling: boxing. As a pacifist, I initially resisted any suggestion of physical violence. That was before I realised how amazing it felt to punch things.

It’s all very safe with gloves and pads and consenting adults, and the intent behind it wasn’t vicious, but my goodness – the first time I nailed an uppercut, I was delighted. Not only did it help me get fit, but finally all my internalised anger had somewhere to go. I got a punchbag for my garage and, when I feel particularly upset, I disappear in there. The change was slow and gradual, but I learned to love taking care of my body. Not to lose weight, not for anyone else but for me.

Going to a gym might be intimidating, and it might fill you with dread, but you never know. If you take that leap, you might find something you love. As I punch away my frustrations in my garage, in my head I really am a Glaswegian Xena: Warrior Princess. And I love it.

I imagine myself as a tiny Xena: Warrior Princess