POLLY VERNON
COLUMNIST OF THE YEAR
I NEED TO START by making something very clear: I had absolutely no intention of getting fit. There was no new year’s resolution (nonsense idea, licence to fail), no couch-to -10k fandango, no epiphany stood naked in front of a mirror. Back then (BF, before fitness) I considered the very idea of exercise gauche. Try-hard, care-too-much, you probs didn’t have enough fun stuff going on to stop you spending drab hours in the gym, treadmilling to nowhere, sweating sans reason, eyes lifeless and trained on your own reflection.
That was not for me. Staying thin by not eating much was my MO, which, I’m aware, isn’t the kind of thing you should think, let alone publish – but this was 10 years ago and, I swear: I’ve changed!
Although, like I say, I didn’t mean to. I just did.
Having done nothing sporty since school (where my fitness career was notable for the leng ths to which I went to avoid PE), I walked into my first Pilates class 10-and-a-bit years ago. I was in a foul mood because I had back pain, as I’d had every six months for bloody ages, which is why I’d finally given in to the endless recommendations of endless physios, signed up for this… endeavour, which obviously wasn’t going to work, how could it? And why was its name so stupid? And what even was it?
I walked out an hour later, thinking : I didn’t hate that! At all! Also : my back doesn’t hurt!
I went back. Silly not to. And I went back some more. I met people. I learned stuff. I got… ‘fit curious’, I suppose. Started boxing classes, because a Pilates teacher thought I’d like it (I really did). Started cold water swimming because it’s good for sore muscles and, blimey ! Mine were sore, what with all the exercise I appeared to be doing , totally without meaning to. I started lifting weights. Mobilising. Eating to support my body, not just to keep i
