experts, each pair has about only 200 “good”
kilometres in them, so they need to be
replaced every few months.
Let’s not forget the apps. I have a premium
subscription for Strava (£6.99 a month), which
logs my running routes, and MyFitnessPal
(£7.99), which counts my calories. There’s
also Whoop, which comes with a wrist strap
that tracks your heart rate and measures
recovery (£30 a month). Then there are the
supplements. The protein I put in my porridge
(£21.99 a month), the CBD oil that promises
to help boost my “brain power” (£80 per 30ml
bottle) and balm that soothes sore muscles
(£43 for 50ml).
All in all, I easily spend a quarter of my
monthly income on my fitness addiction
and its many accessories and accoutrements.
I know I am in a privileged position to be able
to do this – I am mortgage-free and childless.
But I also know people with equally expensive
habits and addictions – coffee, trainers, weekly
facials – and at least my choice of slot
machine keeps me healthy.
This isn’t the once-a-week evening step
class your mother might have gone to in the
local church hall. For a growing number of
people I know, being “into fitness” is front and
centre of their social calendars; a lifestyle and
identity rather than simply a hobby.
I’m talking about the friend who started
a fitness account on Instagram, alongside
her day job as an accountant, and now has
20,000 followers. The pal who has quit
cooking and has all her meals freshly made
and delivered to her office by a fancy health
food service, with the calories and grams of
protein stamped boldly on the packaging.
And before you get all Kirstie Allsopp on
me and say that this, along with avocado toast,
Pret coffees and Netflix is the reason why my
generation is struggling to get on the property
ladder, I can explain.
Like many women I know, I got my first
taste of endorphins in my early twenties at
Barry’s Bootcamp, a global chain of studio-
style gyms that run punishing back-to-back
60-minute classes, a brutal mix of sprints on
the treadmill and weights on the floor. Held in
a pitch-black room lit only by red lights, it was
unlike any class I’d been to at my local
community gym – part workout, part rave.
The instructors were notoriously hot – the
men tall and ripped, the women lean with pert
bums and enviable abs. They were also
famously mean, shouting and often swearing
at you to keep running. “The best investment
you will make in your life today is here in this
room,” instructors would bellow over pumping
house music. It was sadistic, but I loved it. So
I coughed up, time and time again, at £18 a
pop (classes are now £24 each). Part of the
appeal was the aura of exclusivity, achieved by
an online booking system as competitive asThe Times Magazine 25y name is Hannah Evans and
I am addicted to the gym.
Yes, there might be worse
vices, but this is the world of
fitness with a capital F – and a
hefty price tag: glitzy members-
only gyms that cost many
hundreds of pounds a month;
pay (a lot)-as-you-go high-
intensity interval training (HIIT)
classes with disco lights and banging music at
£25 a single session; luxury activewear brands
with clothing that is “sweat licking” and “waist
cinching”; complicated gadgets that track
heart rate, sleep, recovery and a dozen other
measureables that I don’t quite understand.
But I buy into it all. Anything that promises
to make me a better, fitter, more optimised
version of myself I will fly to like a Lycra-clad,
dumbbell-wielding moth to a flame.
And I’m not alone. Millennials (the
demographic aged 25 to 40) are the biggest
spenders on fitness, splashing out on average
£365 a month on gyms, supplements,
subscriptions and health gadgets – nearly
five times more than those aged over 55.
Women account for more than half of gym
memberships in the country and 76 per cent
of group fitness class attendees. And women
like me, in their mid to late twenties and
living in cities (I’m 28 and live in London),
are the biggest investors of all. Thanks to us
and, no doubt, the pandemic, which fuelled
a lucrative spin-off market of home workouts
and virtual classes, the fitness industry in the
UK is now worth £1.8 billion.
Granted, there was news from the business
pages last month that the health and fitness
sector had slightly declined recently, falling
back to its pre-pandemic size. But, according
to the annual State of the Fitness Sector
Report, most of the closures have been in the
“squeezed middle” of the market and certainly
not among the luxury lifestyle spaces my
friends and I frequent.
If I sit down and tot up how much money
I spend a month on fitness – something I try
to avoid doing – it’s clear that I’m making a
pretty sizeable contribution to that industry.
There’s my gym membership: £190 a
month. That might sound extortionate, but
there’s a pool and the towels are really big and
soft, so I’ve justified it. I go spinning with a
friend at her gym, which costs £22 a class.
At both of our gyms there are also delicious
shakes you can order for afterwards that cost
a not insubstantial £7 (almond butter doesn’t
come cheap, you know).
I’ve recently got into long-distance running,
which, in theory, should be free, but somehow
that’s ended up being expensive too. The latest
It trainers cost roughly £200, but you also
need an everyday pair for casual runs and
another for races. And if you listen to theM
Top to bottom: Hannah Evans enjoying the facilities at
the Body Lab, an exclusive gym in west LondonI easily spend 25 per cent
of my monthly income on
my fitness addiction and
all the kit and supplements
CHRIS MCANDREW