I Love The Gynecologist!

Not the doctor, the workout machine. But it got your attention, didn't it?

I love working out. You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I do. And my favorite thing to do is use this workout machine that exercises your thighs. I don't know what it is called because I am illiterate in the world of physical fitness, but I like to call it the Gynecologist because it requires superhuman feats of leg-spreading to get on the thing and then has you use your thighs to squeeze the things- I don't know what you'd call them- together or push them apart, depending how you set it. I do it both ways. I love that thing. Maybe because, being fat, I have developed very strong legs. They do, after all, have to carry my body around all day. So I'm rather good at using the Gynecologist. It's the only machine I can set to the highest weight and still manage to complete 15 reps fairly easily.

Working out should, for many reasons, be a nightmare to me.

The first thing I have to do is brave the locker room. I am not a big fan of getting naked in a room full of other women, especially when half of them are aerobics instructors who weigh roughly the same thing as one of my arms does. I refuse to hide in a bathroom stall, though, like most of the other fat women do, because I read a proclamation by a fat activist who said that she believes society will never accept her body as beautiful unless she treats it as if it is and refuses to act as though it should be hidden. I admire her courage and her point of view and so I have taken them as my own. The only problem is, I am pretty sure she isn't as much of a klutz as I am, and she probably doesn't know as many people with small children who work out at the gym she uses. Because as soon as I have begun to exchange my clothes for workout clothes, I inevitably trip over a bench and slam my shoulder into a locker or have a small child run up to me screaming my name. In the locker room, I am the star attraction.

Once I've dressed myself in the one sports bra in the world that comes in my size and shorts and a tank top that allow my skin to breathe and running shoes, and once I've put my hair up so it doesn't stick to the sweat on the back of my neck and make me look like I haven't showered in three or four years, and once I've settled the headphones of my mp3 player comfortable over my ears so I can be in my own little music-filled world, I head into the workout room. My muscles yell at me if I don't warm them up before I hit the weight machines, so I start out walking a half mile on the treadmill. This is a nightmare all by itself. Walking is not on my top ten list of favorite things to do. My thighs bump into each other and throw my feet farther apart than they should be, which sets my back just a little out of alignment, which hurts. I force myself to maintain a rate of at least 2 and 1/2 miles an hour, and to walk an entire half of a mile (ooooh... tough, hey?), but between my back and the sweat that slowly emerges from my skin, I hate every second of it. The only way I can get through it is to close my eyes so I can't see myself in the mirror or all the people who might be watching me and pitying me because using the treadmill takes so much effort. I hold on to the bars on the sides of the treadmill, squeeze my eyes shut, and allow myself to open them to check my progress only at the end of each song.

When I finally finish, it's time for the weight machines. I go through a series of 5 or so machines meant to exercise your legs. As I said before, this part is easy. I look forward to it. My legs are pretty strong. Then I come to a string of machines meant to exercise your arms. Ugh. My arms are flabby and doughy and not at all strong. I set each machine at 10 or 30 pounds, which I recognize is rather pathetic, and am ready to kick each and every one of them by the time I hit my 15 reps, if only I had the energy left to kick. I sweat and grunt and try to lose myself in music and eventually I get through it. There are 2 things that get me past those stupid machines: the sit up machine (not what it's really called, but the name seems appropriate) that stretches my back out beautifully and after a few minutes of cracks and crunches makes the pain of the treadmill go away, and the knowledge that when I am all finished, I have the pool and hot tub to look forward to.

When I've finished the weight machine circuit, I spend another 5 minutes or so on the treadmill, walking slowly to cool my muscles down. I'm not working so hard this time, and my muscles are warm and limber, so I don't need to close my eyes and focus on the end. I can look in the mirror at the people behind me, look around the room. And this is the biggest reason of all why working out should be a nightmare. I can see all the thin, muscular, healthy people who surround me, talking comfortably while they run at top speed on the treadmills or step their way through an intense workout on the stairsteppers. They all look so- I don't know, gym-like? Cool and smooth and glowing, and they make it look so damn easy! Of course, there is a small collection of other fattish people scattered throughout the room, but none of them is as fat as I am, and they are all much more athletically inclined. Once in a while, I see a bead of sweat above a brow, but all I really notice is how easy it looks for them. Let's just say it doesn't make me feel the best about myself. And when I'm all done, what do I have to look forward to? Going back into the locker room, of course, to change into my swimsuit- yay!

But I've already said it: I love working out. Despite everything, I am motivated. Because when I've walked my half mile at 2 and a half miles an hour, or even pushed it to 3 miles an hour for the last minute or two, and I step off the treadmill sweaty and achy but still alive, I feel strong. I know that my body, even though it may seem like the enemy at times, is there for me. It will carry me through whatever I need it to carry me through. My muscles are warm and used and my blood is flowing and I feel good. And when I push my way through all the weight machines, I can feel every muscle in my body. I know they're all there. I connect with my body in a way that I don't at any other time. I build muscle and I build circulation and I build confidence. Locker room be damned, when I step out of the workout room, I don't care what anyone thinks about my flabby arms and sagging belly and well-padded thighs, because the muscles underneath them are strong and healthy and beautiful.

To the untrained eye, I might look like I've never met a treadmill in my life. I know exactly what assumptions people make about me. I'm fatter than anyone most people have ever seen, and to the uneducated mind, fat can be associated with laziness, filth, illness, stupidity. I know this because I've been accused of holding dear each and everyone of these attributes.

I am not any of these things. I am as healthy as anyone else, and as clean, and as active, and as intelligent. I am strong. There is no reason why I can't be beautiful.

And I can work the Gynecologist better than any skinny-thighed person I've ever met!