Ilse Hayes

It’s 10:30 Tuesday morning. My oldest has been off to school for a couple of hours and my two younger daughters, 3-year-old Adelina and 16-month-old Ava, are watching cartoons. There are countless toys throughout the floor in the living room, their bedrooms, the kitchen counters look cluttered and the morning dishes fill the sink. If I walk into the laundry room I’ll find clothes that need to be folded and plenty of clothes upstairs that need to be washed. I have two choices: stay and clean or head to the gym. I know better than to attempt to get the house in “order’ before heading out; one thing will lead to another and before you know it the entire day has gone by and getting to the gym becomes bleaker as the evening approaches.

So I decide to leave the house “as is” and make a dash for the gym with my girls. This means letting go of the idea that the house has to be “perfect” before I can leave. I have to focus on how doing my daily exercise is MORE important than having a spotless home. But trying to head to the gym right now means I must get myself dressed, get the girls changed, comb their hair and place them in their car seats in the mini-van in a whopping twenty minutes! Since the child care at the gym closes at noon, I must arrive no later than 11 o’clock so that I can have a solid hour to work out. It’s a challenge but you just have to make the decision to do it. The countdown begins.

I know many people who hate the gym environment and just as many who love it. In all honesty, I understand both points of views. I can recall my first experience in a health club at the age of eighteen. Shortly after high school graduation, I moved in with an aunt and uncle near the L.A. area where I was working full-time in a medical office doing clerical work. I had struggled with my weight since the fifth grade and had decided to finally do something about it, so I hired my first personal trainer.

Socializing in high school came somewhat easy for me. I loved being a cheerleader and for the most part I considered myself outgoing. But because my diet consisted of primarily junk food, my weight reflected that. My self image was basically the “chubby girl with the cute face.” After high school I longed to make some drastic changes in my life - losing weight and getting fit was one of them.