I loath the gym,
I'm just unlucky enough to not be able to go unless it's during peak hours.
Filled with people, queues for weights just kill me.

I have a set of kettle bells at home I worked out with, Turkish getups are my favourite, and swinging around weights always felt great, I never really got massive from it though and used to run religiously 3 times a week....
Until I fucked my back.
Out running one day and I just felt a pinch in my lower back... that was weird, next morning woke up and couldn't move.

When that shit starts happening go see a physio or osteopathist as soon as you can, I left it a few months with the "oh it'll get better" couldn't run, couldn't lift, constant pain, couldn't stand sleeping in the same bed as someone else as it'd throw my back out the next day.
Fucking horrible.
It's much better now, getting back into running which is probably the hardest thing ever.
"I used to run this distance in 4 minutes 30 a kilometre, let's go at that pace again"
And 1 minute after I'm wreaked for the rest of the run.

If you're not well off financially you could always try the prison workout, or body weight stuff.
There's a guy el diablo, who has a body weight pogresion program which you can ease into lifting,
http://www.fitness666.com/p/exercise-progressions.html?m=1
I used to run to a nearby playground and do some of that.

man back pain sounds very not fun. im trying to be very careful with mine with limited success.
 
i lost like 10kg in new zealand doing squats after my friend made my start going with him (it turned out to be fun and i felt a lot better health-wise being a more normal weight) but there's only one squat rack in my town and it's unsafe to bike there in the dark after work due to the nature of the roads so i have to use the ordinary gym with the sad pulley machines, which is Not Fun (but still more fun for me than running.) i think the thing i enjoyed the most about doing a simple 5x5 workout is that there's a lot to think about, and the pause between sets gives you a bit of time to contemplate, either things related  to moving the masses around, or other stuff. you can also chat with your workout pals. we had an extremely productive six months or so game-design wise before everyone went overseas. anyways i always thought i could only enjoy sports where you have some kind of competitive interaction with other people but doing a powerlifting workout actually turned out to be loads of fun and was one of the things that really helped with working through my social anxiety disorder stuff.