I JOINED a gym last week — no laughing at the back please.

It was prompted by two things. I’ve put on a stone in the past 18 months and as a sufferer of a chronic disease it gives me more of a fighting chance if I’m fit and at my ideal weight.

Secondly, I’ve just returned from Greece where just about every female under 90 was wearing a bikini, regardless of size, and I opted for a one-piece to cover my flabby bits. It felt like I’d surrendered to old age. “My life is done, just take me now,” screamed that cozzie.

It’s been about five years since I last walked into a gym and I was a little nervous to say the least.

It didn’t help that my daughter found my old sports bra and posted Instagram pics wearing it on her head. What horrified me was her head didn’t even fill one cup... we used to call her football head when she was a baby!

During my absence, fitness clothing seems to have undergone a revolution. The baggy T-shirts and loose-fitting jogging bottoms of yesteryear have been replaced by crop tops and multi-coloured knee-length leggings which are very unforgiving on walnut-cracking thighs.

“Are pink leg warmers still acceptable to wear for the gym,” I half-joked on Facebook, hoping someone might advise me what to wear. The response was a tribute to 80s music — “Let’s get fizzical, fizzical”, headbands and Jane Fonda. I opted for black leggings and a tent.

I took it very easy in the gym — weights on the machines were put at their lowest, much to the amusement of the meatheads who followed my pedestrian efforts. I also encountered the Power Plate — a machine which simply shakes you. I didn’t think it was doing much so I upped the vibrate and my backside started twerking of its own accord.

I did an hour and managed a Nana swim for 20 minutes. Not bad for a first attempt, I thought as I wobbled to the changing room suppressing the urge to vomit. There I was confronted by a pair of huge breast implants stuck onto a skinny girl’s chest. Ah, the changing room nudity, I’d forgotten about that too — the only place where women of a certain type blowdry their hair while topless. Why???

This week, I’m going to attempt Zumba. I may even invest in a pair of zany leggings. Crop tops and bare-breasted hairdrying, forget it. The gym can fix lots of things, but it can’t work miracles.