I’ve never seen the results of the psychological tests various would-be employers have subjected me to, but I don’t need a report to confirm my avoidant tendencies. Bills, emails, “hard talks”, exercise. Above all, exercise. Like a child who can only eat vegetables when concealed within the fun-food casing of a meatball, I can only exercise if I’m not consciously doing so – vacuuming the stairs, putting the doona cover on, hightailing it out of a crowded Westfield. My last serious attempt at an exercise regime was more than a decade ago, an austere Northcote gym (Grim Gym to locals) before something diverted my attention – a reel of Labradors jumping into piles of autumn leaves, perhaps – and I stopped going.
But there is only so long the human body will hum along amiably without regular movement. I am slender, but flaccid, my tone once denounced by a doctor in an Italian hospital, where I was receiving treatment for an infected foot wound, the consequence of ill-fitting holiday sandals. “Very thin” he said, holding my leg aloft disdainfully, “but no muscle. You should exercise more.”
Reader, I did not. It was not until this year, when my friend Lucy found out she had high cholesterol, that I began to reconsider the words of the Italian doctor. Middle-aged health issues were starting to encroach on my friendship circle – high cholesterol, bursitis, gout. Exercise is a key factor in dialling down the undesirable side effects of menopause, and the recent spikes in my menstrual cycle suggested this was on the horizon. I decided I would follow whatever advice Lucy was given by her GP, as a last-minute prophylactic against, well, everything.
But the advice Lucy was given amounted to little more than “eat better”. A note to GPs: there is never any need to tell women in their 40s to “eat better”. We grew up in the ’90s, when female celebrities who looked like they took the occasional bangers and mash meal were pilloried by the press until they had the good grace to develop an eating disorder (for which they were also pilloried). We already “eat better”.
Our mutual friend Tracy, a sensible surgeon who once removed 30 unpitted olives from the stomach of a patient under the knife for an unrelated gastrointestinal issue, had better advice: “Aerobic exercise” she said. “Cardio”.
But I was not willing to submit myself to the expense, smells, and fluids of the gym again. With cosy childhood memories of sick days on the sofa and the comfortingly anodyne Aerobics Oz Style on the TV, I decided to look for at-home options.
Aware that a number of fitness gurus had started uploading workouts during the pandemic, I turned to YouTube, which, for me, has always functioned primarily as a source of Bette Midler interviews. There I discovered a whole other world – one that promised to lift my ass and eliminate my FUPA (fat upper pubic area). To my dismay, though, most of the channels were helmed by taut women with tight ponytails who looked like they entered the world in a Lululemon onesie, gripping a giant Stanley cup between their infant pincers; women whose slender frames are the product of gym memberships and lean protein, while mine is the ongoing legacy of under-fed Europeans, their exercise comprised mostly of running away from the secret police of whichever authoritarian regime they happened to be living under at the time.
At the exact moment I was ready to abandon my search for a tolerable guru, a beaming young woman caught my eye. Johanna Devries – aka Grow With Jo – has accrued more than 8 million subscribers off the back of basic aerobic workouts and a preternaturally cheerful personality. Even more impressively, over the past six months, she has turned me into someone who works out. It’s impossible to overstate what an achievement this is: I don’t even like washing my hair, on account of the vigorous arm movement.
We are not, at first glance, a natural fit. Jo likes God, neutral interiors, and positive affirmations; I like red walls and Persian carpets, and have an almost anaphylactic reaction to inspirational messaging. But Jo has bypassed the large part of my brain dedicated to rejecting inspo-speak, and tapped into the equally large part that wants to be told I’m a good girl (my school reports always noted “thrives on positive reinforcement”, a polite way of saying “won’t lift a pencil without being reminded of her own greatness”). Exuding the sincere enthusiasm and encouragement of a prep teacher, when Jo tells me she’s proud of me for showing up, I believe her.
What Jo doesn’t do is equally important, steering well clear of the restrictive eating advice and exercise-as-cure-all hyperbole that many other channels lean into. The routines are simple enough for a primary school child to follow, requiring no special equipment, and no more space than an arm span.
Last winter, I spent a month bedbound with parainfluenza, and found myself pining for my workouts with Jo in a way that would have been unthinkable with Grim Gym, or yoga, or any of the other activities I picked up and quickly put back down again. Working out by simply opening my laptop and jumping around for a bit feels as close to not exercising as possible: the zucchini-in-meatballs of exercise regimes. This is the great gift of YouTube workouts: no membership fees, workout gear, swimming costume, or equipment required. While there are plenty of other at-home fitness options, most require a financial commitment of some sort – in the case of Peloton, a serious one – and I have always found the fastest route to resenting exercise is paying for it.
My loyalty to Jo has been tested by fellow YouTuber Mr London, a jacked, shirtless charmer with a gold tooth. Mr London does a smooth line in body-positivity; during an ab workout, he grabs his (immaculately chiselled) stomach, and with a sly wink to camera says “Ladies, don’t worry about your belly sticking out when you sit down. It’s totally normal”. Mr London, like Jo, has the good grace to pretend he finds a gentle 10-minute workout as challenging as you, the panting blob sweating it out in your lounge room. Now that I’ve finally found a way to exercise without resentment, it’s likely there’ll be other YouTubers who will pique my interest, too. But I will always come back to Jo. And I will never again set foot in a gym, grim or otherwise. Some things will always be a four-letter word.
Bunny Banyai is a freelance writer and author. Around The World In Eighty Meatballs, is published by Hardie Grant.
The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.
