"Why are you here?" asked the woman at the front desk, clearly astounded to see me. I'd like to make this clear: I wasn't at the local jail, paying a visit to an incarcerated drug dealer, hoping to get a new source for some slap or smack or whatever it's called. I wasn't at a county fair trying to enter my pig into competition. I wasn't at a fashion show looking for a pair of studded high heels to go with my new crocodile purse. I was not, heaven forbid, at a weight watchers meeting. So, what strange and unexpected behavior could have provoked this question?
I went to the gym.
Now, unlike a lot of people (you know who you are, slackers) I love going to the gym. It makes me happy. (Beer makes me happy too, but, you know... calories.) That's why it's so inexplicable that I avoided the gym for so very long. Of course when I say avoided, I don't really mean avoided. I just didn't go there. Well, I went there. I went there faithfully every Wednesday at 9:30, but only because I had to. I mean, it's my job. I'm the teacher of the 9:30 class. I meant to go more often, but that just never seemed to happen. Wait, let me explain.
I used to be fit. I taught 7 classes a week. I did a sprint triathlon with almost no training because I figured 'hey it's only two hours I can do that no problem' and it wasn't a problem. I could do more pushups than my husband. I participated in fun runs (for the t shirt, not the medal. I was fit, not fast.) But then something happened. I went back to school. Suddenly my evenings were full of lectures and homework. I still had my day job. I was tired, and I was busy. I gave up one aerobics class, then another. I told myself that I'd make up the time working out at home but apparently I lied.
Do you want to avoid the gym too? Don't have college as an excuse? Here are some other ways to get out of going.
- Give away your car. Move ten miles from the gym. See, how are you supposed to get there? Totally not your fault if you can't work out.
- Break your leg, or, even better, remove one of them. The recuperation time from either of these will keep you out of the gym for weeks or months. Enough time to watch all the seasons of Lost even if you only watch one episode after work every day. And then you'll have the added bonus of finally understanding what everyone else has been talking about.
- Get a job at the gym, and get fired from that job for doing something awful like drinking at work, embezzling, mocking the members, or vogue-ing like Madonna, scaring the silver sneakers class. Chances are you won't be welcomed back either as an employee or as a member.
- Burn it down. Please note that if you choose this option you're going to have to come up with a whole new set of excuses for avoiding the gym in prison.
- Become famous for something. (best if it's not fitness-related) Claim that you can't get past the paparazzi. Have your assistant work out for you.
After a few months of near-professional levels of gym-avoidance, I suddenly found that taking the laundry upstairs got me out of breath. It seemed sudden anyway, but I guess it had been building up for a while, or maybe I just don't do laundry that often. Whatever. I could hardly do any pushups. And on the few occasions that I went to yoga I found my own fat getting in the way of the poses. I knew I should go back to the gym. But I still didn't go.
I kept telling myself I'd get back in shape. And I kept not doing it. (I know this is sounding familiar to a lot of you. Don't deny it.) Then I went for my annual physical. My doctor took my blood pressure and said gently that perhaps 357 over a million was a bit too high for good health. Then, less gently, she told me to come back in two months, and that if those numbers (and my weight) were not lower by then, she was going to "get aggressive with me." I thought she meant some sort of wrestling smackdown at first, then realized she was talking about medication. And then she said to cut down on the cheddar cheese! How awful! Yes! She really said that! Suddenly working out looked really, really good. Better than medication for the rest of my life, right? At least she didn't say cut down on the beer.
So last Monday I finally went back. On my own. To the gym. To, you know, lift weights and stuff. Once I got past the doubter at the front desk, I bumped into one of my coworkers in the weight room. She looked at me, confused. "It's not Wednesday, is it?" she asked. I hung my head.
"No," I mumbled, "I just thought I'd come in and work out."
"Oh, she said doubtfully. Well, good for you."
I made it twice more on my own that week and the front desk staff stopped giving me those shocked looks and questions ("Are you sure you're a member? At this gym? Really? Hmmm.")
Now that Thanksgiving is over, I'm sure there are a lot of people needing to hit the gym. You need to work off the turkey and potatoes and stuffing and pie, right? Plus you know you'll be eating candy canes and fudge and hot chocolate at any minute. Darn it, I'm making myself hungry. Anyway, as a service to all the other irregular gym-goers out there (I mean your attendance is irregular, not you personally. Well maybe you are. I don't know), I have created this handy guide to let you know whether you have let too much time go by since your last workout.
- No one knows your name even though you work there.
- You can't remember what those heavy metal things are called. And you can't pick them up anyway.
- You get winded opening the heavy glass door to get inside.
- Treadmills are no longer wood-powered.
- Your clothes. Oh, your clothes. Well, let's just say that great advances have been made in the field of spandex.
- Your shoes are made of canvas. And leather.
- Your water bottle, which you forgot to empty out the last time you used it, contains some swirling miasma of organisms, which is either the cure for swine flu or some toxic untraceable poison that you can use should you decide to become an international hit man. Of course you won't because those guys have to be pretty fit, and you're not.
- The 90 year old on the machine next to you tells you not to worry, she has CPR training.
- The 16 year old on the other side has to turn up his iPod to drown out your huffing and puffing.
But you just keep plugging away at it. Someday soon you'll be able to get past level 1 on the bike. People will wave at you because they recognize you, and you'll wave back. You'll be able to walk the day after workouts instead of lying in bed begging for ice cream and Advil. And you won't have to be threatened by your doctor. Doesn't that make it all worthwhile?
