Fat Girl Conquers the Gym March 4, 2009

A fat little girl in elementary school is lined up against a painted cinder-block wall with her classmates.  Two boys–the best athletes in the class, of course–stand several feet away, surveying the group critically.  One by one, the students are called to join the respective teams the boys are forming, until only one student is left.  You guessed it.  “Nancy”, one of the boys mumbles.  The fat little girl keeps her eyes on the ground, too embarrassed to look at anyone, as she joins her team.

These are the images that pop into my head, so many years later, when I think of myself in a gym.  Anyone who’s been a fat kid knows that gym is the worst place to be.  So last year when my diet buddy suggested that we join the gym that’s housed in our building at work, I literally laughed in her face.  “No way!”  I said, without even thinking about it.  When asked for an explanation I told her that it would devastate my weight loss efforts.  “The moment I go in there and get laughed at, I will feel like a failure.  I can’t take that kind of pressure right now.  I need to keep things positive.”

She let it go, and I thought–hoped–that would be the end of it.  But for those of you who know Kimmy, you know that she’s nothing if not persistent.  Every month or two she would find a new tactic to try to convince me to go to the gym.  At first she was touting how inexpensive our gym is (it’s only $100 for the whole year), and that I’d never find a better deal anywhere else.

“I don’t want to find a better deal.  I’m never going to the gym.”

Then she tried to convince me that it wasn’t that kind of gym.  “There are people of all sizes and skill levels at this gym.  Everybody does their own thing, and nobody pays attention to anyone else.”  But how could a girl like me believe that?  I knew that as soon as I walked in the door, the big, athletic guys and the tiny, perfect girls would instantly see who I was: a fat fourth-grader whose only goal at the gym was to get through it without a “piggy” or “fatso” joke.

One day, during the holiday season, I was foolish enough to complain about how little time I had to work out.  I tried to do it when I got my son to bed at night, but by that time I’m usually wiped out.  And I had just had an extremely unsuccessful two weeks of attempting to get up at 5:00am to workout before my family woke up.  But since I am nearly unable to function before 8:00am, I was a zombie during my workouts and was quite literally going through the motions with almost no benefit to my body.

“You know, there’s a really easy solution to your problem,” Kimmy replied.  As I came up with one excuse after another from my impressive arsenal, she sat silently and listened to all the words she’d heard before.  She was very quiet when she said, “Nancy, it doesn’t have to be this complicated.  You’re not a kid anymore, and this doesn’t have to own you.”

And I knew she was right.  As much progress as I’ve made in my weight loss, I know I’ll never be able to reach my goal weight, let alone keep it off, without conquering all the old demons that still haunt me.  I need to step out of my comfort zone, and get as far away from it as possible.  It’s the comfort zone that traps me now and makes me feel like I can’t succeed.

Four weeks ago I started at the gym, and I have to be honest with you: I was scared to death.  People were lifting weights, running on the treadmills, and cycling imaginary miles on the stationary bikes.  A man on the elliptical was shouting to his friend about how hard it is to do “two eighteens” in a row.  A woman jumped off the treadmill with her first two fingers poked into her neck.  And I started to panic.  What if somebody wants to talk to me about “two eighteens”?  I don’t even know what that means!  Should I poke my neck too?  Am I checking to see if it’s still fat?

Kimmy and I put our dvd into the player and started our workout.  It was surprisingly fun to workout with a buddy, much more entertaining than doing the dvd by myself.  Between the music from our dvd, the sounds of all the machines and people talking, it got pretty loud at the gym and the scary thoughts in my mind began to get quieter.

Four weeks later, I don’t hear those thoughts much anymore.  The big guys that intimidated me on my first day give me a warm wave when I arrive now; and the super-skinny girl that kills the elliptical has told me she’s never been confident doing workout dvds at the gym.  I told her she can join us any time.  Fourth grade was a long time ago for everybody I see at the gym.  As far as I can tell, no one is thinking about dividing into teams or deciding who the weakest link is.  At this stage, everyone is really there to work on their own goals–health, weight loss, empowerment and strength.

And though I will always remember the little girl who was picked last, I can now look at myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors at the gym and see just how far I’ve come.

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