I read an interesting piece on the
Internet that said, “Making fun of a fat person at the gym is like making fun
of a homeless person at a job fair.” I want you to imagine an excessively
overweight person coming into a gym. Most people act like they don’t exist or
will watch them out of the corner of their eye, silently wondering to
themselves, What are they doing here?
I know this seems inherently cruel and there is a chance you might have caught
yourself doing the same thing. Don’t fret. It is actually basic human nature.
The problem is that the overweight person does not look like he or she belongs
in a gym therefore they are looked upon as being out of place.
Unfortunately, these are the people that
deserve the most encouragement and need to be made to feel like they belong.
They have swallowed enough pride to actually make it to the gym. I think it was
Woody Allen who said half of success is just showing up. So here is a person
that maybe doesn’t know what they are doing and doesn’t feel comfortable wearing
yoga pants. It was hard enough for them just to walk in the door. The last
thing they need is a lunkhead making fun of them when they are trying to
improve their lives. Everyone has to start somewhere.
For the longest time, when I would get out
of my car and made that walk from the parking space into the gym, I felt like a
fraud. I could see my shadow as I walked up and I just wanted to hang my head
in shame and tiptoe inside. It was nothing that anyone did to me directly. I
just knew I didn’t belong. That sensation washed over me three fold whenever I
was making purchases at Walmart during the initial weeks of my training.
Whenever I was just getting started and I went shopping for my gloves, my
weight belt, my protein powders, or other miscellaneous equipment, I had this
crippling fear that the lady running the check stand would look at my purchases,
look at me, look back at my purchases, look back at me, and then place the
items in the checkout bag while thinking sarcastically to herself, Yeah, that gym belt is going to see a lot of
use. There were even times where I would try to intentionally hit the
self-checkout stands just to avoid that situation.
I am very much aware that this fear is
unfounded. I know most checkers rarely pay attention to the thousands of
individual items that run through the checkout stands on a daily basis. When I
was working in a grocery store, I never paid attention to such things. Truth be
told, most good checkers want you checked out as quickly as possible. They are
not analyzing your purchases. They are just cranking your items across that
scanner to get you out as fast as possible. Still it was my fear. Welcome to
the labyrinth of psychoses that is my mind.
But then months began to pass by and the
trips to the gym began to uptick from three days a week to five days a week. I
would even squeeze in a sixth workout on the weekend from time to time. Pounds
began to shed. Clothes got looser around my waist and I started to drop a size.
Suddenly, I began to feel less and less like a fraud. I began to grow more
comfortable in my own skin. And instead of slinking into the gym, far too
conscientious of my waistline, I began to walk in with a certain level of
pride. The trainers started welcoming me by name. And it was here that I
belonged.
When I am in the gym, I am there to work.
I keep my headphones in. I don’t laze around. I grunt. I grimace. I get stuff
done. But this doesn’t mean I am overly antisocial. I am quick to give silent
“thumbs up” of encouragement and nods of acknowledgement to others that are
there. Remember, be the change you want to see in the world.
You never know how just a simple nod of
encouragement can help someone… especially when they are feeling like a fraud.
Silently, many people feel this way even when they are scared to admit it. Be
nice. Be helpful. Be encouraging. Because the world needs more people like
that.
If I have to boil this down into a bumper
sticker: Less lunk, more pump.
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