About

Hello! I’m Paula and starting tomorrow, I'll be embarking on a journey across London of all things fitness. Over the next 80 days, I will sweat & stretch, skip & soar in search for London’s fun and fit activities (which herein shall be known as “Fitivities”).

Recently, I left my job in banking to pursue a career in “me.” A risky (/foolish according to most, /idiotic according to my Mother) move perhaps but sometimes you just need to have faith in yourself and take the leap. After 7 years in the job, some personal trials and tribulations, it was simply time for a change of pace and I was fortunate enough to be in a position to make it.

While I was working, I'd always tried exercise regularly but was often guilty of hitting that snooze button (every 10 minutes, for an hour) in the mornings. It’s a strange truth – you know you'll never regret working out and will feel infinitely better afterwards but in those crucial few seconds when the alarm goes off, your mind can come up with a whole host of reasons to stay in bed (usually something about being so tired for the rest of the workday).

And yet surprisingly, I found it harder to motivate myself to workout when I no longer had a day job. Morning gym was excused as I could always go in the afternoon and then as the afternoon came and went, it was easy to write the day off and start afresh the next day.

And the reason is so very simple. Working out at the gym is boring. So so boring.

Running on a treadmill is not fun. Lifting weights is not fun. The stairmaster is definitely not fun (and requires a weirdly high level of concentration). But that post-workout virtuous feeling, those happy endorphins, the abs that won’t be hiding behind that layer of goodness for much longer – that’s what makes it worth it.  Being fit is fun. Looking good is fun. And feeling great is definitely fun.

So why can’t the exercise itself be fun? It certainly should be. There are so many alternatives to working out, on your own, in a gym.  There must be something that suits everyone. Maybe its releasing your inner Rocky on a punchbag (or person!) or releasing your inner goddess on a dancefloor. Maybe it’s finding your balance as a tree or finding your zen in a hot room. Maybe you want to be agile whilst suspended mid-air or maybe you just want raw grunt-astic challenges in a warehouse. Whatever it is, we’ll find it!

And finally, why 80? 100 was too much? 50 is not quite enough? Ahh...in 80 days (from tomorrow), I will turn 30. No biggie, I’d kind of known this was coming for a while so it’s not entirely unexpected. But it’s always nice to have a target isn’t it? And if I am freakin’ fit when I turn 30, I can finally rock that dress that I’ve had for 18 months and been waiting to fit into.