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Archives from 2002-2006

I mentioned it over at Bodies but I don’t think I’ve written here about how I joined this crazy personal training gym a while back. There was an article in the paper about how the guy on the Bachelor (now forever known as “that douchebag”, I guess) worked out at trainer gym in Bellevue and I was all, hey! I want to look like the Bachelor! With the abs and the ever-present rose and all!

Well, okay, not really, but the article talked about how this gym does all kinds of intense one-on-one circuit training and really focuses on helping you meet your fitness goals and anyway, I’ve been going there once a week for about a month now and it’s awesome.

Last night I showed up at my 6 PM appointment and was informed by the owner that instead of a regular workout, I’d be doing a fitness test, including weight and measurements. They do this quarterly, so you can see what kind of progress you’re making. “Great!” I said jovially, because this is the type of person I am, the kind who says great like a total fucking boner when I’m faced with something I’d rather drink paint than do, instead of just being honest and saying, “Well THAT blows.” (No lie, I once said “sounds great!” when my doctor said it looked like it was time for a pelvic exam, so why didn’t we just go ahead and do that today. SOUNDS GREAT I LOVE IT WHEN YOU CRAM THAT FREEZING METAL DUCKBILL THING IN MY GIRL PARTS AND SWAB MY INTERNAL ORGANS WITH THE MASCARA WAND OF DOOM SOUNDS GREEEEAAAAT.)

The first thing I had to do was step on the scale, which made me super uncomfortable. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my weight, really, it was just . . . I don’t know, there’s something so intimate about someone weighing you with one of those doctor’s scales — you know, standing there so close to you, slowly sliding the thing along to the right until it stops bobbing up and down? And it ALWAYS settles like five pounds higher than your digital home scale? If someone is going to be doing this to me, I prefer that it be a matronly nurse holding a clipboard, not an attractive young gym trainer guy with delineated biceps.

As it turned out, I shouldn’t have bothered fretting about the scale, because the best part was yet to come. The part where the attractive young gym trainer guy measured my FAT with a CALIPER. Seriously: he brought me in the office and had me stand while he carefully and professionally used his fingers to pinch various sections of my body, gathering up the skin into a fleshy blubberroll before fitting the caliper clampy mouth-part around it. I could actually feel myself having something like an out-of-body experience, not dissimilar to the brain-melting moment before Dylan’s birth when I realized that below the surgical drape the nurses were putting a catheter into my epidural-numbed lower section while I was lying there sprawled all frog-legged . . . and nothing was covering my bulbous naked self . . . and the room contained medical professionals who were NOT WOMEN.

The humiliation continued with the actual exercise stuff, which involved cardio endurance and strength tests — I was abysmally terrible at the jump rope segment and managed to whack myself in the back of the head with the rope not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES — and afterwards I got a little printout of my fitness report, including a section titled “GIRTH MEASUREMENTS”, which is so totally the name of my new all-girl, all-D-cup punk band.

It turns out I am formed of approximately 28 pounds of fat, which is thrilling to imagine as a separate entity that slithers around my body depending on what unflattering outfit I have chosen. It’s nicer to think of it in terms of percentages, which at 22% is less disturbing than comparing my total fat-weight to the mighty heft of my 1-year-old, who weighs 25 pounds. Also, apparently my “subscapular” region is made of 20% body fat, which I might care about it if I knew where that was.

Anyway, it was quite the evening. My trainer pointed out which numbers he thought I could improve on over the next few months, and mentioned that nutrition is 90% of the game when it comes to reducing body fat. I nodded sagely (great!) and when I got home, I got rid of the last unhealthy food items lurking in the cupboards. Of course, I did so by dumping them directly into my mouth, but still. I’m on the right track, baby!

There is a family story about me from when I was a very young child. Apparently after enduring a diaper change I looked up at my uncle and shyly informed everyone that Uncle R. was clean and dry. It must have been the absolute biggest compliment I could come up with, something that encompassed all that was impressive and noteworthy in my world at the time.

He was whip-smart, funny as hell, and he was cool. If you’ve been reading my aunt’s blog you may know him just a little bit from the comments. My heart is with her today, because last night, they had to say good-bye.

If you’re the good-thought-sharing type, I know she could use them.

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