YVONNE: Time magazine this week reports that thousands of fitness centers now employ professional chefs "who have moved gym food from granola and smoothies to gourmet cuisine. As gyms compete for customers, these in-house restaurants are being seen as amenities that can keep members happy as well as healthy. Since 1992, the number of health clubs with restaurants has nearly doubled, and 11% of the 25,300 clubs in the U.S. have sit-down dining facilities."

Ladies, how do you like the food at your gym, if there is any? And would you be motivated to join a gym or visit more often if it offered you tasty, healthy food?

JILL: I envy anyone who has time to lounge around the gym eating food! I'm thrilled if I can just get there long enough to work out and then fly out the door for work. My gym does offer food and the aroma is often very tempting, but I'm in such a hurry, I can't make use of it. I avoid the gym on weekends when I have more time because I can't stand the crowds. A restaurant is a nice amenity, though, and on occasion I've been happy it was there because I ran out of bananas at home and can't work out on an empty stomach.

WENDY: Pretty soon, there will be no need to be home at all. Except that's where the TV is.

Seriously, I can see the benefit.

LAURIE: Well, I don't know if I'd feel like eating right after a workout. But it might be a good way to control evening overeating, I guess. Just eat at the gym and no more that night once you got home. But the cost would be a factor.

Bottom line: I can't imagine this would be a decider for me. Probably I'd prefer to go home and cook for myself.

YVONNE: Laurie and others, I hope you aren't always reluctant to eat soon after you work out. Your muscles need protein within 30 minutes of a hard routine, my trainer tells me. And here's a quote from the same Time piece:

"There are great physiological benefits to eating within the first half an hour after you've exercised," says Amy Lanou, nutrition director for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. "You're replenishing your water, carbohydrates and protein right when that's most essential."

KIMBERLY: When it comes to in-house restaurants in gyms we should proceed with caution and not assume that the food is "healthy" because it is in the gym. Some fitness facilities do sell healthy and nutritious foods but most do not. Not to long ago one of Philly's finest fitness facilities used to have a bar. You could have a smoke and a martini after your workout.