Advice from a shrinking fat man pt 2: The Gym
Thanks!
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Advice of the week: Wear flip-flops. That puddle is probably no****er.
As every fat person knows, there is a dark, dank, terrible place we all may sometimes find ourselves in. A place of pain, of agony, of blood, of hot sweat and cold tears where we suffer and struggle to pay for our sins.
This place is called “The Gym".
I joined the gym partially because I’m trying to lose weight and, to be honest, because I’m a gay man and they threatened to take away my toaster if I didn’t. The thin or the merely-chubby may never grasp the horrors that a gym holds for the truly fat, like myself. Not only do we have to go there to huff, puff, sweat, get dizzy, wheeze, chafe and occasionally vomit, but we have to do it in front of an entire room of fit people grinning at us while we do it. “What is HE doing here," Muffy and Buffy whisper as I wonder if I’m having a heart attack on the life cycle, “I’d never be caught DEAD looking like that at a gym!"
Ah, yes, the dubiously named “life cycle", the stationary bike for those who like to recline like Cleopatra while working out. I, for one, have never felt more alive than when I’m pumping my chubby little legs furiously and not actually moving anywhere while staring at Fox news or, preferably, a bare wall.
Not yet being a peak physical specimen I chose to go with a straight gym, for now. Straight gyms are considerably more kind to their more “substantial" customers than their gay cousins. Well…to be honest, I’ve never actually been to a gay gym, but I’ve heard the stories. Well, not HEARD, exactly, but read them in articles that usually start with the lines “Dear editor, I never thought this would happen to me…." While there’s a lot less eye candy for me in a straight steam room at least I don’t need to bring along latex and three flavors of lube. It’s much more economical, really.
Like every newbie lost in the gym, I’m likely to hurt myself on the equipment if left alone for any length of time. I consider myself brighter than the average bear (no offense to our Silverlake readers), but let’s face it – with my fitness record over the past 30 years I’m more likely to accidentally fall into a three way with Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp than actually use one of the Nautilus machines correctly.
The first trainer they introduced me to was Grimhilde. She was a former marine drill sergeant with spiked hair you could cut glass on, a no nonsense attitude, and a physique that would make most of the American Gladiators say “oh, now, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?" I strongly suspected she wasn’t working at the gay gyms because they, like me, were scared of her. Still, I must say she seemed like a lovely person, and I’m not just saying that because she has access to my address. Since Grimhilde and I didn’t hit it off, though, the gym assigned me a new trainer: Johnny Angel.
No, really. Let’s pause to digest this. Johnny Angel. I saw his driver’s license. Apparently personal trainers buy their names from the same places as porn stars and 50’s rock ballad personalities.
Johnny Angel is soft spoken, has as shy smile, dark eyes that twinkle beneath a mop of wavy black hair, a killer physique and perfect stubble that he apparently had surgically transplanted from Don Johnson’s face from the mid-80s. He reminded me a lot of all the beautiful, athletic people I knew in high school. Needless to say, I hated him instantly and prepared for him to throw me in a locker.
Johnny Angel then proceeded to lead me through a series of strange, medieval torture devices which he promised me would work on a series of muscles that he assures me I have somewhere. Then the workout began.
Have any of you noticed that your ability to count seems to go down proportionately to how fit you are? You can always see this in aerobics instructors and anyone counting your reps when lifting weights. “And 4 more…3 more…2 more…12 more…" If gym memberships allowed people to beat math skills into their trainers, they might sell a lot more memberships. And baseball bats.
Move 6 weeks forward and tune into the present. I’m still going to the gym, I’ve lost 27 more pounds since joining, and I can go longer than I ever thought was possible on the elliptical machine without dying. Johnny Angel is now a solid ally in my weight loss rather than a reminder of all the people who helped me become the size I am now. Sure, he still throws me in the locker now and then, but sometimes he’s even willing to admit he knows me in front of the other trainers.
My favorite thing, though, is that I’ve been there long enough to see other people, like me, setting foot into this fat person’s purgatory and start working towards a healthier, happier self. Knowing what it was like for me, I can take the machine behind them while they pump their little legs and jiggle like crazy on the dreaded life cycle. I can glare at Muffy and Buffy until they go away and start dishing on the juice bar attendant. But most importantly I can smile at this new person with their hopes for a better future, and I can nod at them as they walk on by. Sometimes that’s all it takes to keep trying.
I personally joined an all women's gym in the hopes that it I wouldn't have to worry about people staring at me as much. Yea, that didn't work. Instead of stares of judgement, I get stares of OMG she scares me LOL But at least all I have to do is look at a machine and they scatter like Moses parting the Red Sea.
and WTF is up with Fox news always being the channel they use in Gyms...
I loathe anything related to Rupert Murdoch.
I'm going to ask them in Feb if they wouldn't mind rotating the news channels. Put CNN on every now and then, instead of a channel like Fox where the news is biased, dictated, and really not news.
7-09
