Nothing says “I’m out of shape” more than panting in all my sweaty glory in front of a crowd on Spring Garden Road as two really fit men tell me to deepen those squats and jump higher.

Did I mention the exercise was less than 15 minutes?

Alongside 30 or so exercise-hungry Haligonians, I donned my pencil skirt for running shorts and tried to keep up with was dubbed a free “flash mob” fitness class held in front of the Spring Garden Road Memorial Public Library at noontime on Wednesday.

The Council of Canadians, the Nova Scotia Citizens Health Care Network and the Maritime Health Centre joined forces to put on the circuit-style fitness class.

The class was held for two reasons: the first and most obvious was to promote an active lifestyle (yes, I got the message.)

The second was a bit more pressing for those involved: to fight for accessible public health care.

“We need the premiers to stand up to the federal government. This is an event to let them know we’re watching, we’re paying attention and we want action,” said Kyle Buott, provincial co-ordinator for the provincial health care network.

Ten premiers will meet next week in Halifax for the Council of the Federation. Buott said Harper announced in December he would be cutting health care by $31 billion over the next 10 years.

The event was one of many held across the country as a Day of Action for the 2014 Health Accord.

In other news, I can scratch off “exercising under the hot July sun as Olivia Newton-John’s Let’s Get Physical plays in the background” from my Halifax to-do list. By the end of the class, I had done countless reps of squats, pushups, crunches, burpees, and certain exercises that can only be described as poorly executed.

Free fitness

The Maritime Heart Centre is providing free fitness classes four times a week at St. Andrew’s United Church to make healthy living more accessible to Haligonians.

The non-profit charity provided a free exercise class Wednesday as part of the Day of Action for the 2014 Health Accord. This was just one of many of the classes led by Jason Davis Fitness Consulting and his team.

“The classes are meant to be all-inclusive, which is one of the reasons we dropped the cost. We think they should be barrier-free and everyone should have the right,” said centre organizer Laura Clark.

They meet Monday and Wednesday at 5:15 p.m., Thursday at 6:30 a.m. and Saturday at 9.a.m.