I think I’ve got the wrong attitude about going to the gym.

I mean, I enjoy it, and I make an effort to go regularly, and I do feel like it’s worthwhile, but there’s a fundamental problem with the way I think about it.

See, most of my gym-going friends say things like:

“Oh no, I shouldn’t have a biscuit because I’ve done all that work at the gym”

…meaning that it’ll undo all their hard work. I, on the other hand, find myself saying things like:

“I can have a biscuit because I’ve done all that hard work at the gym”

They’re goal-based - everything counts towards an eventual prize; while I’m reward-based - everything is relative, and unpleasant tasks deserve compensation.

Perhaps it’s because I don’t have a goal in mind - no race to train for, or target weight to reach - I can consider a biscuit as a reward for being good. Put simply, if the gym is a positive action (+1) and a biscuit is a negative action (-1) they cancel each other out: I can only have a biscuit if I’ve been to the gym, or, it’s ok to have this biccie, because I spent two hours in the gym (=0).

It’s a fine balancing act, and one I’ve been infuriatingly consistent with ever since I can remember. When writing essays or studying for exams at school, college and university, I would eke out potential pleasures as rewards to be attained. I’ll make a cup of tea when I finish this chapter. I’ll watch ER only if I finish another thousand words by nine. I’ll have another chunk of chocolate when I’ve memorised all the radical-changing verbs.

It made studying easier, and distractions less, well, distracting. It didn’t matter that I was taking a break, or watching telly, or having another biscuit, as long as I’d worked hard for it. Perhaps this is a sign of a latent protestant work ethic, somewhere deep within.

As a child, my sister used to be infuriated that I could make my penny sweets last all afternoon on a Saturday after we’d been around the corner clutching our 10p pocket money (!!) to pick up the Beano and some flying saucers. Rather than jamming the lot in my mouth at once, as we were all was sorely tempted to do, I would ration the sweets out, to make the pleasure last longer. This was much to the irritation of Anna, who would scoff hers and then have nothing left an hour later, when I was still savouring the midway point of my stash. Every week, she would without fail ask me to give her a sweet from my selection, and I would naturally refuse, explaining in a big-sisterly way that if she’d not gorged hers all at once she’d still have some left, too. We had the same amount, only I’d made mine last longer, and that was perfectly fair. Inevitably, a fight would break out - I remember a particularly viscious one about a Curly-Wurly which I’d eaten half of, and then in full view of my hungry sister, carefully folded the other half back into its wrapper, to return to later. She accused me of taunting her, but that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t about demonstrating to anyone else that I had what they didn’t; it was all about making the pleasure last that little bit longer. Little and often, rather than all at once.

I find myself doing the same thing on long journeys even now - spreading out treats and activities across the hours which stretch off towards the destination, in order to have something to look forward to, and not run out of pleasures too quickly. I’ll get on a train at, say, half one in the afternoon, with three hours ahead of me, and a couple of sandwiches, a magazine, and a flapjack in my bag. Despite being hungry, I’ll make myself wait until two for the first sarnie, and half past for the second. Then there’ll be some magazine reading, and then, somewhere around half three, a bit of flapjack, and so on. The idea is not to run out of pleasures too soon, and be faced with an empty sandwich wrapper, a read magazine and dead walkman batteries with two hours yet to travel. This habit was born of long flights from London to Vancouver in the early nineties, and then to South America, years later. Got to have something to look forward to, otherwise you’ll get stuck watching some godawful Kenneth Branagh movie and talking to the family next to you. For nine hours.

I do it in cinemas, too. I’ve never understood how people can buy popcorn and then scoff the lot before the lights have even dimmed. I’ll sit there, in the plush seats, with the lights down, resisting the temptation to plunge my hand into the salty bucket until the trailers have begun, at least. For me, that’s part of the whole cinema experience - watching a movie while scoffing popcorn, rather than watching a movie having previously scoffed a bucket of popcorn the size of your own head, and now wondering my your lips feel as if they have been flayed, and gasping for a drink.

All things in moderation, including pleasure and popcorn and penny sweets - but only if they’re ever so well deserved.