Week 2: The Horror of the Gym

Being Good:

Down the Gym for nearly an hour. That was cycling (on the broken bike thing) for 30 mins with two minutes at a steady pace followed by 30 secs going flat-out, and also a whopping 10 mins on the horrible walky thing that makes me feel like I have skis, and will soon lay down on the snow to shoot at targets, and in the pool for an hour also, 50 widths of the pool with 4 breast strokes to one front crawl. I find I get a little dizzy after the one front crawl, so the next breaststroke width is normally a slow one. Not so good, but it's Easter weekend, and I miss my girl.

Being Bad:

Like I said, it's easter weekend, so I did very well to stay away from chocolate, well almost staying away from chocolate. One packet of chocky-bickies over easter is pretty good in my books. Unfortunately I made it up with a selection of lemony cakes. Not clever. The worst truth though is that I really failed in the "eating last thing at night" department. I failed pretty miserably in fact. That has to become my third target to reach from now on. So no chocolate, no sandwiches (oops, had two this week, not clever) and no eating after say 11pm. I sleep somewhere between 2am-4am so 11pm should do me fine.

The Horror of the Gym

This week I once again found the gym empty, which is a very good thing as it allows me to gasp for breath like a true fatty. Sometimes it is so hard to get breath that I have to stop before I even get sweating. A very disappointing aspect. If anyone has ideas on that then please let me know. I started off by killing myself on the walky thing for as long as I could without collapsing, and then after a good 5 minutes of OMG my heart has stopped... breathe.... BREATHE...  I jumped on the cycle.

A guy joined me shortly after that, and started to do the rowing boat thing, but the machine wasn't up to much so he jumped on the dreaded walker. We started a conversation. Oh how I wish I could have a conversation on that thing. I had enough trouble having a conversation on the broken bike without sounding like a set of bagpipes with extra holes. He told me about how he had broken his leg and how he had let himself go a bit.

I ought to point out the guy was a man-mountain, and would probably stop a tank if he were so inclined. I actually hate being in the same room with these guys, for two reasons. Firstly because they can't help but being intimidating, and I'm a short fat english guy who gets intimidated by 12yr old skateboarders, and secondly the simile I used last week about my fat feeling like a life jacket around me, well these guys have the same problem. They have trouble clapping and touching their feet and stuff, not because they are fat but because they're all muscle.

Now some may say that my problem is my own choice. That may be true, but it doesn't feel like a choice. I don't feel like each and every time I am making a decision to be fat. It always feels like a series of compromises, and I like compromise, but these guys really really really don't need to be like that. Their choice is far more clear. Or is it.

After all when I get bored I think of food. I can only guess that when these guys get bored they think of working out. Except that I don't think that's what happens. To be seriously built up, you need to put hours of work into it, hours of work means a specific choice to stop doing one thing you enjoy and to go to the gym. I am wondering to myself how bad their self-conscious issues really are. I am also now wondering that society should really start to consider both my problem and his in the same light.

Anyhow, he seemed very nice, bearing in mind he was a man-mountain, and told me about his "slow" recovery. My slow recovery from a torn Achilles is still going on after I heard the horrible bubble-wrap pop in August. His broken leg happened just 6 weeks ago and he was working out on it already. Quite honestly, with that many sinews of muscle, does he really need a bone there, or is it just overkill?

When he started to ask about me I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable. Yes, i'm overweight, and yes I have taken on the responsibility for my weight, so then admitting it without going through the tirade of different excuses I have lined up was quite hard to do. Particularly so, as I am not that bothered by my body shape itself. The truth is that I don't really care what other people think of me (except my girl of course), but I just want to have more breath and run. Anyhow he continued to probe and I eventually opened up. It was at that point that I remembered why I hate going to gyms.

He began, perfectly innocently, to tell me about his regime of eating small amounts during the day, about how he works out as often as he can, and goes for fast walks... la-de-da. I began to feel more and more like a failure at how remarkable his dietary and work-out plan was compared to my "let's go down the gym once a week and try not to eat chocolate" plan. When he started to give me recipies on cucumber smoothies I knew I had slipped into my own private hell. I am sure this is why people wear headphones in the gym, it's not to listen to music, it's to avoid the "we know how you should be doing it" brigade.

For the next 20 minutes he went on and on about how he "changed" from a butterfly into the grotesque caterpillar figure in front of me, until once I had completed my 30 mins on the bike. Then he insisted I go on the walker again. Now as I said, I am easily intimidated, and this guy could have picked me up and placed me on the thing without breaking a sweat, so after a good 10 minutes of very animated and enthusiastic jostling, I went across to the demon device like a man awaiting the hangman's noose. With his encouragement, I completed another 7 minutes and came close to another heart-attack.

http://www.annekeckler.com/gym-etiquette/">

(I learnt that its good to ping, so here's Anne. She has some nice ideas about Gym etiquette. Take note of Number 6, and I'm sorry Anne, but I still don't know the difference between 1 and 2)

http://perpetualfatty.com/?p=56

I know you might read this as a good thing, another 7 minutes, but think about the humiliation of it. Think about what that would have done to me, or anyone, if it was done in the company of people you see about town, or your neighbours perhaps. I am a cabbie. I pick random people up all the time. Psychologically, it's a horrible thought that I might be reminded of this by some drunk loud-mouthed stranger trying to impress his girl in the back of my car.

Try to imagine me coming up to you in a pub and yelling at the top of my voice about how drunk you were in my cab last week, and is this really the guy you were talking about? He seems alright to me.

If I wasn't so committed to doing something about my weight, I would not bother going back there at all. In fact I have chosen not to go back there this week for exactly that reason, which is why I only went once this week instead of the two times from last week. I know the meat-man wont be there next week. It's a holiday camp and he left yesterday.

Please, I beg of you, if you see a fatty in your local gym, don't encourage us. If you feel the need to talk to us, then keep it light and not about what we "could be doing". You don't know us, you may never know us. If we ask for your help then fine, but stick to what we ask of you and don't tell us where we are going wrong. I know I could have asked Meat-Man if he knew how the bike works, but he would have only set it on its hardest setting and told me I had to push myself through the pain barrier.



I don't need him, I don't want him.

I just wanted a little private space to sweat buckets and wheeze like a dying haggis playing bagpipes.