Gym Goddess!

I’ve been posting about starting out at the gym and how uncomfortable I felt. Thanks to inspiration and support from friends at myfitnesspal.com, I’ve kept at it. I’m getting rid of my paranoia that people are staring and laughing. I walk in with the attitude, “I belong here. Look, I have a towel over my shoulder — I’m one of you!”

I’m still pretty wimpy at the gym. I can’t go longer than 20 minutes on the elliptical without my knee saying, “Enough. Stop.” But I do the twenty and then go do ten to fifteen on the bicycle (no resistance, alas, but at least I’m moving.) And i’m working with a trainer on resistance exercises and some beginner lifting.

Yeah, I’m a wimp. But I also think I’m a baby gym-rat waiting to blossom.

I have gotten over the fear that people may be watching, or that somebody will come tap me on the shoulder during a workout and say, “Quit kidding yourself, you don’t belong here.”

While working out the other night, I was doing abdominal crunches working on the exercise ball, and I actually felt the tap-tap-tap on my shoulder. Wiping sweat from my eyes I look up and see a rather attractive gym-rat-type standing over me with a questioning look. Was this my fear coming true? Was someone going to tell the fat old broad to hit the road?

As I precariously got up off the ball, he introduced himself and asked what i was doing on the ball — what kind of exercise it was and what it was supposed to do for you. He has a bad back and was wondering if that might help relieve the stress on it.

I told him what little I knew about the exercise and addressed his fears about how to get on the thing and not fall on your butt (the same fear I had when my trainer showed it to me).

I left the gym beaming that night. Here I am at 268 pounds and 55 years old, and I’m the person someone goes to for exercise advice. I’m not a gym rat. I am gym goddess!