Fatty McF***Face

I am pretty tired of all of the clips of people who are so excited to be in the gym! So excited for their run! I get that all of these people are selling us something, and marketing dictates that they present a certain persona. But damn it, what about the rest of us. Sometimes I see how happy everyone is to work out, every day, and I feel like somehow I am a loser because somedays I would rather lay in the grass and watch clouds than go into the gym. I think that most of the fitness marketing aimed at fat people, is fit people showing us how happy they are. But what about the journey. The journey from fat to fit is an arduous one. Its filled with self-loathing, and doubt, and periods of wanting to give up. And I don’t know that smiling, happy, super fit people are what I need to motivate me.

Take yesterday for example… I went to the gym 3 times. I want to end the story there. I want to leave this post at “I went to the gym 3 times”. However, let’s look at the trips I took.

1      1) I took my boys to the Easter egg hunt that my gym was throwing. So while super fun, I didn’t meet my health goals on this trip.

2        2) I forgot my wallet in a locker and had to go back to get it

3       3) I went in later in the day for a workout. Here is the pre-workout I did

a.       I sat in my car listening to music and trying to guess the names of all the people who went inside… there was Fatty McSmilesTooMuch, Dummy McFuckface, Smuggy McProbablyDrinksKambucha, and my favorite, Slimmy McGreatAss… he was in amazing shape. It’s funny how many people at my gym are Scotsmen with oddly descriptive naming conventions. I guess this doesn’t really count as a warm-up. But I did finally muster the gusto to go inside.

Once inside, my mood didn’t change. I lifted, I did some intervals on the bike… blah blah blah… who cares. My real workout wasn’t what got me exhausted or sweaty… it was the people inside. People would walk up and ask “how’s it goin’, dawg”.. and “What’s up bro” (I don’t know that they really talk like that, but that’s what I hear coming from them). I also noticed how many people were talking in canned motivational poster talk. “The journey of 1000 miles starts with one step”, and “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is”.. and “the worse you feel while here, the better you’ll feel tomorrow”. Whatever happened to taking the time to have a genuine comment? Friday, I seriously got a “TGIF” from someone. They are so lucky that I responded with a chuckle and a “have a great day”.. because my instinct was to yell “go fuck yourself” into their dumb looking face. Here is a general rule for me… if I see you and you aren’t in the mood to talk, don’t talk. I wont be offended. But don’t pretend to give a shit, and decide to have a conversation with me in cliché idiocy. It is a waste of both our time. Instead just scream “fuck you” into my face. “Working hard or hardly working”… “TGIF”… “Livin’ the dream”… if you see me and your instinct is to say any of these to me, instead just look at me and say “go fuck yourself”.. because when you say these things, what you are really saying is "I am not willing or able to make a relevant statement here...". 

So as you can see. My workout didn’t make me shiny and happy. It didn’t improve my mood. I am not all of a sudden happier because of it. The idea that fixing my body will be a cure all for the things I hate on a day to day basis, is insane. Skinny people have bad days too. I am pretty over the endless sea of smiling faces trying to sell me workout meals, or diet plans, or workouts.. I am ready to just live. Have working out be a part of my life to improve my health, not some magic elixir that will repair everything. I need to be just as ready to workout and eat well on the days that I am rooting for nuclear war, as I am on the days where I am wearing my $250 workout outfit and smiling and feeling amazing. I do honestly think it would be refreshing to see more of these instagram and twitter workout people with 500k followers be more relatable. Show us we aren't worthless fucking slugs because we have off days.