The Gym

When I travel for work I like to use the hotel gyms. I don't currently have a gym membership so it is almost fun to go to the gym. Note I said almost. Tonight when I was at the gym I started thinking about some of my experiences in the gym over the years (I forgot my iPod and the boredom was killing me).

I can actually remember the first time I went to a gym. I was 16 and my high school best friend and I decided we wanted to lose some weight (so the boys would like us of course). Our small town didn't actually have a gym, so the next time my mum went into the big smoke we tagged along and asked her to drop us off at the gym and pick us up in 2 hours. My mum was concerned and decided she better take us in and check the whole thing out. She then proceeded to humiliate us by asking the hot young guy at the desk if we should be exercising for 2 hours because we really we weren't fit enough. He looked us over and agreed.

So after my mum finally left we went into the cardio room and I decided to try using the treadmill. My friend stood beside me while we tried to work out how to start it. There were 2 hot skinny girls in their 20's who noticed my confusion and were 'helpful' enough to tell me to "Push start and then set it to level 6 because that is the beginners level". I did as she said and promptly went flying off the back of the treadmill and onto the floor while they collapsed in fits of giggles. On my way out I looked over at their screen and noticed that they were jogging on level 6 and that it was clearly not a beginners level. So that was my first (but certainly not my last) experience with gym moles. We decided after the treadmill that it would be safer for us to go and sit in the spa.

After we finished our 'work-out' we went and waited in the car park for my mum to pick us up. We were red in the face from the exercise and embarrassment of the whole experience. Then we spied a girl from our high school class walking up to the door. She was one of those popular girls who was skinny, athletic and pretty and we just knew she would have a field day with seeing us fat losers at a gym. So we did what anyone would do, we hid in the bushes until she went inside. Of course that was the same moment my mum turned up and just looked at us and said "I don't want to know".

It was years after that until I went back to the gym. They can be a minefield for overweight people and have had my share of embarrassing experiences. There was the time I got stuck in a machine. You know that machine you put your thighs in and open and close your legs to build your inner thigh muscles? Well the machine somehow got locked in while my legs were wide open and I couldn't get out until I called someone over to unlock it. There was also the time when I was joined a new gym and they had to give me a fitness test and couldn't find a pulse band that was big enough to go around me and were so puzzled because they had never had anyone as big as me. I almost left then and didn't come back. The time I joined a diet program at the gym and the leader told me I had to learn to cook healthy meals for my future husband. I told her I didn't care to cook for my future husband and she asked me in a very worried tone if I was a lesbian. Not to mention when the fitball burst while I was doing a sit-up and I fell flat on my back. I still don't trust those things.

I laugh about it all now, but to be honest, in the hundreds of times I have been to the gym over the past 10 years there is probably not a time when I haven't felt self conscious and like I didn't belong there. It only takes a disgusted look from a gym bunny or a clumsy attempt to learn a new piece of equipment or for me to glimpse my rolls of fat in the mirror and I start to doubt myself and my right to be there. Even tonight when I was on the exercise bike I started thinking what the skinny girl on the elliptical behind me must be thinking of my huge arse. I wondered if she was using me as inspiration to keep going so she doesn't turn out like me. I wonder if the day will ever come when I can walk into a gym and feel like I deserve to be there as much as anyone else.