Eyeballing the Fitness Dimension

Recently I've decided that I must become more fit. Partly because I am fat and out of shape, and I don't like it. Partly because I haven't been feeling good. But a good portion of it is plain old vanity. I'm past that big 40 and feeling my years, and I figure if I can face down 50 fairly buff, I'll be happier and more accepting of it.

So some eight weeks ago I joined a fitness center and began dieting and excercising. It's not been easy, but I've sloughed off some 26 lbs - I still have a long way to go - and added some definition to arms that had become decidedly... well, jiggly. My belly has gone down quite a bit - I can see my johnson without a mirror, anyway!

The denizens of the fitness dimensions come in all shapes and sizes. The TV would have us believe that all those people are fit; we see rippling muscles and enough six packs to stock a bar when the hero of the movie goes into a gym. But we all know that's wrong - there are always a lot of fat people (like me) there, trying to become fit. People do some really stupid shit to 'get fit'. I know ellipticals are all the rage right now, but I gotta tell you, nobody in the gym looks as stupid as the folks on the ellipticals, bouncing up and down like they're on pogo sticks, boobs, ponytails, bellies, and anything else not bolted down bouncing like mad.

Of course, riding the bicycle to nowhere isn't any smarter, although it doesn't look quite as foolish. It's immensly boring and I'd give it up if I didn't feel so good from doing it. Pushing weights isn't much better, but it's more fun; there's a concrete goal, an accomplishment, a challenge, and it can be met or missed in about a minute and a half rather than half an hour.

Everyone there has some kind of headphones on or in their ears. So little conversation happens that we might as well all be living in completely different dimensions. An occasional nod or smile, but that's about the limit of interaction as all of us proceed grimly on our path to 'health'. I find myself wondering who's listening to what... is that dude over there with the giant muscles listening to Wagner? An audiobook of Dan Brown's debacle "The Davinci Code"? Limp Bizkit? And that blond over there with the stunning ass (I lost my cadence and nearly fell off the bike the first time she crossed in front of me!) - maybe Britney, but I kinda hope its the Decemberists or Jethro Tull or Andrew Bird or anything that would speak of substance rather than fluff. Either way, isolated in my universe composed of an iPod, a stationary bike, and canalphones, it wouldn't matter if she was looking to discuss the philosophy of Science, I'm too wrapped up in "Break Stuff" because it helps motivate me to keep those damnable pedals turning.

There's the two really annoying guys who seem to believe they really are the only people in the gym. You see, there are many pieces of equipment, devices of torture designed to stress one group of muscles or another to exhaustion; typically, one does ten or twelve 'reps', and moves on to something else while that muscle group recovers. Some people, however, feel that they must rest for a few minutes and do that same set again, and a small subset of those people feel that they have every right to sit on the piece of equipment while they recover. They're like the guy with the cash in the credit card commercial; the normally rapid moving and efficient use of the equipment comes to a screeching halt against the wall of their obstinate possession of the equipment, as they sit perched on the machine, watching the clock on the wall - twelve reps in 48 seconds, then FIVE MINUTES of sitting. Repeat three times, at least, and you're not getting on that particular piece of equipment for fifteen minutes to half an hour.

As far as locker rooms go, timing is EVERYTHING. If you head to the locker rooms at 7:35, you're in big trouble. Everybody and their brother has to be at work at 8:00, and it's a cockfight in the stacks of lockers. Showers are at a premium, and you always get stuck with the one that trickles rather than sprays. And if you're a fat guy like me, the towels don't reach all the way around - actually, they do now, but didn't when I started this adventure - and you're swinging your ass in the breeze on the way to and from the showers. Fortunately, unlike high school, grown men typically are too self-conscious to pay any attention to your fat ass, whether they're an incarnation of David or a human model for Jabba the Hut.

When it's all said and done, the rituals of health are strange and confusing, but the benefits of negotiating that maze of socio-biological insanity are undeniable. People that haven't been told I'm working out have remarked that I look healthy, and more than a couple of people have said things like, "I don't remember you having such muscular arms; have you been working out?" I fell on the ice twice after the recent ice and snow storms, and I'm convinced that a year ago, either one of those falls would have sent me to the ER. I can throw my daughter into the air again, and frankly, I feel stronger than I've felt since I was a kid - and in fact I am stronger than I was when I was in my twenties, albeit probably not as fast. However strange this whole pursuit is, I cannot recommend it heartily enough to anyone who wants to feel better and, perhaps, face oncoming age with a little more equanimity and grace.