And this is why people buy cocoa butter.

I’m going to tell you a secret: I’ve joined a gym.

I’m not going to tell what all my reasons for doing this were, but it doesn’t seem to matter because I’m losing weight, and discovering that the nice, firmer shape I had  way back during my halcyon tennis days hasn’t actually moved off to Wisconsin.

It’s just been hibernating under a large, more-than-adequate supply of cheese, soft drinks, and vending machine goodies.

Because let’s face it – that’s all a vending machine has.

The one on campus, in Scooba, even has Necco wafers…two kinds.

But, one of my New Year’s resolutions was to get back into the gym. A third of the way into my thirties and I’m already struggling with the potential onset of diabetes and high blood pressure.

What choice did I have?

I changed my diet, lessened my intake of alcohol, and have subsequently saved a lot of money in doing so. Why did no one tell me this could happen?!

Still, one thing has remained constant: I still hate going to the gym. The actual physical part of getting there, you know.

I drag myself there with pure-D dread, but it never fails—despite the myriad of excuses I tell myself, I walk away with a plethora (a plethora I tell you!) of energy. I sleep better, I feel better, and I think I am (to date) hating one-eighth fewer people on my Because You’re You, I Wouldn’t Help You Know Matter What List.

I haven’t taken their names off the list, mind you, but I have asterisked them.

I know I’ve only been going for two weeks, but I’ve been reminded of just how much of my life I actually have control of. A lot!

When I get out of the shower and look at my body, which, by the way, is no easy thing to do, I find I have a surge of positivity. (Even though I discovered stretch marks last week. Where on earth did I even get those?)

I guess I ought to put cocoa butter on the grocery list.

There are, on the flip side, a lot of things to like about the gym. For instance, you can watch TV while you trek a mile or two on the treadmill. There’s also a fancy treadmill that goes by the name of Woodway, hidden over in the corner by the stand-up tanning bed. I don’t know what happened to it or on it, but there’s a small sign glued to the wall above it that states clearly that “No one, under any circumstances, is allowed to spend more than 35 minutes on the Woodway.”

That sign scares me because I know too well the lure of obsession. The last time I had such a close relationship with a gym was during my early college years when I was anorexic. I’m still not entirely sure how I got to that point, exactly. My best guess is that when something feels good we tend to wipe away common sense and solid boundaries.

Looking, as I was yesterday, in the mirror, though, I admit there’s no danger that I’ll find any toe of mine on that thin line of anorexia, this go-round.

I will add to that admission, however, that plopping a TV in front of the treadmill (and the Stairmaster, and the, let’s call it, the Cyclotron) is clever and dangerous in and of itself.

I’ve forgotten, twice now, that I was on the treadmill while I was watching TV and tripped.

I also get so involved in what I’m watching that I often walk for nearly an hour before I realize that my legs gave out probably a good twenty minutes earlier. I’m not sure how to address that issue with the owners, so I’m considering taking a sofa cushion with me from here on out, to place behind me should my legs eventually give out, completely.

There are also, and this is both good and bad, very beautiful people at the gym. You’d think they’d finally get to the top of their personal pedestals and stop coming, but a) I’m not really that stupid to believe this, and b) besides, they don’t, which I must say, makes it harder for the likes of me to endure the staring.

I stare right back, though. (For one thing, I want to look like them in some respects. And for another thing, well, I think you know why I stare. I was almost “that guy” who joined the Y for all the wrong reasons. It’s a temptation that has followed me here, as well).

They’re probably staring at my attire. I don’t own what you’d call “workout clothes.” Though I did catch that episode of the Golden Girls where they joined a gym and so I know what’s “in.” I just haven’t had the chance to find a store that still sells silver-sequined jodhpurs and double-velcro, hi-top Reeboks, in any color or style.

Another positive result is that I find myself less irritable, overall…to the point that even today, in the midst of what we in Mississippi call a blizzard (i.e., it rained a little and it was cold enough for some of it to stick to the shrubs in front of the funeral home; therefore, all schools and most businesses have been closed for today and possibly tomorrow), even today in this wild, winter weather, I went to the gym. I stretched (and as the entire place is under 24-hour surveillance, I’m sure I gave a tickle or two to the people in the back office, with the door closed. What else could that have been laughing about?), I did my treadmill, I pretended to know what that machine by the first bathroom did and probably violated it, and I looked very fierce climbing on to that chin lift tower and well, that’s all I really could do to it…so, then I got off it and went to the water fountain.

All in all, I think I’ve begun to earn some respect in my gym. People notice me. Why yesterday, a young man even asked me if I needed help. I count that a victory.

Of course, I was sitting on the machine backwards, but still…

People give me a wide berth of privacy and space, for the most part.

And I’m loving it.

I just go on from contraption to contraption, as if I owned the entire gym. When I do my version of Sun Salutations, or whatever the Mystics call it, I don’t just take one yoga mat, I take two…because I can. I am not afraid of sitting on that gigantic red ball and bouncing all over the room, if I have to, to work up a sweat, and last night, I stayed on that Woodway for 36 minutes, on a dare. (I dared myself).

The point is: I’m coming back, America. Even if it’s one wrong Stairmaster step at a time.

I am fully, if clumsily, perhaps, on my way.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts