I was making the rounds of my favorite blogs and on one of them exercise was discussed. It brought back some vivid memories.
A girlfriend and I decided we are tired of looking frumpy and signed up for a free trial of exercise sessions at a local business that specialized in that. We had visions of being clones of Suzanne Somers dancing in our heads. She and I, dressed like the Bobbsy Twins in black leggings and sweatshirts, enter into this world of the fit and fabulous. The first thing I notice is that we are the heaviest two in the whole building, including the janitor and the butt-crack showing plumber working in the restroom. I cannot see one inch of fat on any woman in the place. The biggest female there is maybe a size 6, if that. This does not make you feel like you're one of the girls. You immediately feel like an outcast, the red-headed step-child at the family reunion, so to speak. But you stiffen up your upper lip, hike up the bra straps and venture on.
These women are bouncing around, happily using the equipment and chatting with one another as they adjust their sweatbands and flip their ponytails. You can tell they all feel very comfortable. They all look fantastic. We start out on one of the simplest pieces of equipment, that being the stationary bicycle. I had never in my life felt so out of place as I did then. The walls are covered in mirrors so there is no way you can avoid seeing the image of yourself as you are puffing away, putting effort into the pedaling. Where the other women look cute with the thin line of sweat on their upper lips, you only look like a sweating pig. All that's missing is the grunts and snorts. There is absolutely NO way to regain any kind of self-esteem you may have had before you entered through the doors of this building. Endorphins? Where the hell are they? They sure never showed up to make ME feel great. They had packed their bags and deserted me a long time ago. Even when I was sweating copious amounts and grunting like a pig, red-faced, on that bicycle, I had absolutely NO indication that endorphins were happily surging through my body. They had jumped ship.
I tried various pieces of equipment. Some of it I was unable to do. I kept going back to the bicycle and eventually just stayed there. At least I could sit down while doing it. I must have pedaled 1900 miles on that bike that day. My friend was a little more adventurous than I because she tried more things but also ended up doing the bicycle more than anything. I think its because we felt comfortable with it and lord knows any sort of comfort was worth grabbing in this hostile atmosphere.
The next day I could barely walk. I had hurt my knee badly with all that pedaling and so ended my journey to having a beautiful body. (which would have taken no less than 2,900,000 visits and the frequent use of a highly skilled plastic surgeon). We felt more comfortable doing stuff in the privacy of our living rooms in front of the TV with no mirrors and no sized 2 females prancing about. We kept it up for maybe a couple weeks before getting side-tracked onto something else. Some bodies were just not meant to be put in these awkward positions......besides I had a lot more important things to do like tweeze my chin hairs and nap.
2 comments:
I live mostly in my mind anyway, so I haven't tried to go to one of those places of body worship and egotism. I have an exercise bike in the basement and it's mostly used for hanging stuff on but I do try to ride it sometimes. I like it because I can sit down, like you said. I usually ride in the winter-there's enough to do around here that makes me sweat, but in winter not so much.
Eeew... my biggest complaint about the gym is going into the locker room! I'm pretty modest, but most of the women in there are not. I walk in and can't figure out where to look, because there's a nekkid body part in every direction. Sorry ladies, glad you're comfortable with your body, but that doesn't mean I need to see every bit of it hiked up on the bench.
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