Becoming a gym junkie

After almost a year off the weight loss wagon, I got the kick in the ass I needed to help me hop back on. A friend recently joined a local private gym and gave them my name to try and get a referral bonus. So shortly before New Year's I got a call offering a free month trial membership. My first instinct was to say no, but some little voice in my head prompted me to make the appointment knowing that I could simply not go if I changed my mind later. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that this might really be a good idea. I could take the one free month and see just how often I ended up working out. It's not like I've been successful at dragging my ass out in the freezing cold of winter or extreme summer heat and humidity to walk. I decided if I ended up actually using the gym on a regular basis then I'd look into a membership somewhere cheaper, since I just had the feeling there was no way I could afford a membership at a private gym.

So we went. And we sat through the hard sell. And it turned out the deal they offered us was cheaper than a membership at the YMCA because they put us on a joint membership, something all the other gyms would only do for married couples. Plus, they pointed out that a gym membership costs less than the amount we spend on cigarettes and junk food.

And they're totally right about that.

For somebody who has almost 100 pounds still to lose and a marathon still in her future plans, spending money on lattes, restaurant food, snacks at the convenience store, and cigarettes without a second thought while balking at the idea of a gym membership is ridiculous. If I'm serious about getting in shape and dropping a significant amount of weight I should rearrange my priorities accordingly. It's part of the lifestyle change, just like changing one's eating habits and increasing activity. I should be rearranging my financial attitudes as well. I can't claim that I can't afford to pay for something that would help reach me reach an important goal when the truth is that I'm spending more than that on stuff that's impeding my progress.

And then I realized what's really kept me from joining a gym before. It's not the money. It's not the contract commitment. It's the ridiculous idea that I shouldn't need help to train for a marathon or lose 130 pounds. It's the feeling that it's somehow nobler or better to do those things without assistance or expensive tools or traditional methods. It's me subconsciously knowing that if I go it alone and fail that I can try and blame the failure (at least in part) on the fact that I didn't have the luxury of a trainer or a gym membership. It's the fear that others who are striving towards similar goals will be judgmental of the fact that I'm not doing this all on my own.

And all of that -- ALL OF IT -- is ridiculous.

This isn't a contest. It's not a race. It doesn't matter how fast I get to my goal, it only matters that I get there. Someone who loses weight on their own without using any fitness equipment isn't any better than somebody who has to have a personal trainer kicking their ass on a regular basis or somebody who has to have surgery to help lose the weight. If this goal is important to me -- which it is -- then I should be willing to do anything reasonable that would help me get there in a healthy manner.

And that means I need to make going to the gym a hobby. I need to be one of "those girls" who use their days off to take an extra class or get in a longer workout than usual. While I was losing the 55 pounds I dropped in 2009 and early 2010 one of the things I learned is that losing weight takes a lot more activity than the media would have you believe. I didn't lose 55 pounds doing half hour workouts three days a week. I was walking as hard as I could manage for at least an hour almost every day, sometimes over two hours. I'm well aware that it takes serious commitment of time and energy to raise one's activity level high enough to lose a considerable amount of weight at any noticeable pace.

So we joined.

And then we signed up for sessions twice a month with a personal trainer.

That means every month the membership fee will come out of the bank no matter what, and we shouldn't waste it by not using the gym. It means we don't have the option of wasting the money on something else and deciding we "can't afford" the gym anymore. It means we've got somebody whose job it is to hold us accountable and guide us through an appropriate workout plan to get us to our goals. It means we can no longer avoid doing strength training by claiming we don't know if we're doing the exercises properly. It means we have only two choices now: get serious about getting fit or get serious about wasting money and not taking care of ourselves.

It means we've made the choice to invest in fitness instead of investing in junk.

I joke about becoming one of "those girls." You know, the skinny girls who are always talking about spending time at the gym or catching a step class or going out for a run in the mornings. We talk about them like they're some other species, like they're fundamentally different from "normal" people. We look at them like the must have just been born knowing how to use all the equipment, as if skinny people have some special knowledge the rest of us don't get. We roll our eyes like their workouts are totally unnecessary, as if they just play around at working out because obviously their skinny bodies will just stay skinny no matter what they put into them. But the truth is that the skinny girls at the gym are skinny because they spend time at the gym. They care about their bodies. And we can roll our eyes at that all we want, but we should be doing the same thing. If we want to be fit and we want to lose weight, we have to care about our bodies and spend time on them. Period.

So my resolution this year is to become one of those girls. I'm going to become a gym junkie. I'm going to spend time learning how to use all the equipment instead of spending time tending virtual cities and farms on Facebook. I'm going to rush to the gym so I can catch the beginning of a good TV show on the elliptical machine instead of waiting to leave for the gym until after the show is over. I'm going to be one of those people that the front desk staff recognizes. And I'm going to do it simply because I know it will help me get to where I want to be.