Getting fit and doing good

*Transcript from my talk the other month*

I've been thinking about gym memberships, in particular, all the gym memberships I've underused in my life. I'm definitely one of those people who likes the idea of being fit far more than the actual reality of getting fit. In my youth, I really, really wanted Brad Pitt's abs. These days, it's Jason Statham's chiselled physique. Every now and then, I'll get all excited about getting buff and sign up to my local gym. "This is it," I tell myself, "from now on, I'm going to be fit, healthy and happy." I do not have Brad Pitt's abs, and I only have Jason Statham's hairline. The sad truth is every time I've signed up to a gym, I've barely attended. When I have gone, I've found it a truly miserable experience. And I think I've boiled that down to two main reasons: connection and purpose. 

I find the gym a particularly isolating environment. Here I am, surrounded by all these people I have at least one thing in common with, and I couldn't feel more distant from them. Almost every machine caters for one person only, can't be shared; we all have headphones in to block each other out; and we actively avoid eye contact, never mind strike up conversation for fear of looking weird or creepy. That sounds more like my morning commute than it has any right to. Then there's the act of exercising in an artificial environment. Lifting things that don't need lifting, and generating all this energy that has no meaning or impact on anyone else. The treadmill is the perfect embodiment of my life at its worst: going nowhere fast and paying for the privilege. 

It's been said that if exercise were a pill, it would be prescribed to everybody, such are the wondrous health and wellbeing benefits. That may be the case but I still find it hard to swallow, and I don't think I'm alone. In 2018, gym memberships in the UK rose to nearly ten million across 7,000 locations. However we still have a physical activity challenge with around a third of UK adults not getting the minimum recommended levels of exercise. We know we ought to be fitter, many of us even want to be. We just don't enjoy it. So what if the answer isn't more ways for us to exercise and feel bad about ourselves, but instead more ways for us to connect and feel good about ourselves? 

This is where GoodGym came into my life. GoodGym is a community of runners who get fit by doing good. We run in groups to help community projects such as city farms, community centres or food banks. We undertake missions for older neighbours, helping out with tasks around the home such as changing a lightbulb. And we visit isolated older people, giving them an opportunity to meet a younger local runner, and in turn, become that runner's coach. GoodGym makes the act of getting fit  a way to be both social and make a difference. It has grown from a small project in Tower Hamlets back in 2009, to a UK-wide social movement with around 1000 people every week, getting active and doing good. Be that helping older neighbours feel more connected, setting up beds in a homeless shelter, building toilet platforms for water voles - yep, that exists apparently, which is great! - and shovelling a lot of compost. What drives the social movement are the stories behind everybody who takes part. We're not just missing something in our exercise. Quite often we're missing something in the way we live our lives as well - a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose. 

My GoodGym journey started six years ago in Camden. Running each week to a different community project, making new friends, and achieving ever further distances. I used to think that five kilometres was the absolute furthest a human being could or should travel by foot. Within six months, I'd completed my first half marathon, supported not just by my fellow GoodGymers, but by all the projects we'd supported along the way as well. Then my world shook. All of a sudden, my mum became very, very ill, very, very quickly, and she passed away. I felt a lot of horrible things at that time, but one of the things I struggled with was feeling very, very useless. 

My first GoodGym run after my mum's death became very important to me. It wasn't about exercising to make myself feel better. It wasn't even really about seeing my friends. I think there was a need to take all that negative energy and chaos inside me and know it could be used for something positive. That evening, we were running to bring an old community space back into use - ripping up carpets, repairing beaten up walls. My vivid memory of that evening is, first-off, not being very good at it; being covered head to toe in plaster and dust; laughing a huge amount; and most importantly to me, just feeling useful again. 

You know, in a lot of ways, my real GoodGym journey started that day. As I increased my running, now I was increasing my volunteering. I started to do jobs for old people in the community, mainly clearing gardens or moving furniture. I came to appreciate how a simple act of kindness can completely transform a person's sense of self-worth and identity. And then I got matched with a coach. An absolutely beautiful, wonderful woman called Marian, who taught me running up a massive hill to deliver a TV Weekly Magazine was far more motivating to me than how chiselled my stomach looked. In all honesty, I've never been fitter, happier, or more confident than when running to a community project, helping someone with a task, or visiting my coach. 

And you know what? I've not completely given up on those abs of steel. But I'm confident now that if I'm going to find them, it's not going to be in a weird room full of machines, but it might just be amongst all the people I've connected with and who make me feel like I mean something. Thank you.