Intro

Hi, my name’s Suzanne Payton, and I live in Wigston, a town outside of Leicester. I work in Leicester and commute each day. I’m 27 years old, have a boyfriend, and I still live with my parents. Is marriage around the corner? Maybe, but there’s no rush. I work for a web design company whose offices are near the De Montfort University. I love my job, creating something new from scratch.

Exercise at Work

My work means a lot of hours sitting at a computer, and we have some great office practices for all our staff because of the sedentary jobs we have. We used to have an alarm go off every 30 minutes, and you have to get up off your chair and so some exercise. The alarm was a bit annoying, so we changed it by rostering a staff member weekly to remind people they had to move about for 3 minutes. Unfortunately, when you are immersed in a tricky part of designing a web page, the last thing you need is an interruption so sometimes you just can’t leave your desk to do a couple of push-ups or run on the spot.

The Gym

That motivated me to join a local gym to ease the sore back I had from sitting and to help me gain some extra fitness. Fortunately, there is a gym exclusively for us ladies in town called “Simply Women”. It’s not that I’m shy or anything like that, but experience has shown me that you can get some unwanted attention from some creepy guys at the gym. So this women-only place was a real godsend.

Another aspect of going to a gym for women is that the exercises, weights and circuits are all designed specifically for females and funnily enough, there is a real difference. I think men tend to work out in a gym for some different reasons to a woman, and they will focus on different areas of the body to us. My general body shape was alright but who doesn’t want a toned tummy, inner thighs that didn’t touch and a tighter booty? I also wanted something to ease my back pain that was a result of all the sitting in the standard office chairs we had.

Getting Toned

I had no desire to add a lot of muscle and look like a female body builder, but there’s no harm in doing a few weights to help tone muscles and make you a little bit stronger. For that reason, I added weight training to the aerobics and other circuit work. The main idea behind weight training is to burn calories. If you burn calories, you can stay lean and fit. Weights do increase your muscle mass, but that means adding shape to your body.

Weights

I have progressed on the weights and can now do squats and lunges with more than 40 kg on the bar. I can bench press more than 145 kg and after a workout with weights and some circuit machines, I feel great. I hope some of you ladies can join me on this blog with emails, questions, suggestions and a general gossip.