I’ve been working out on my own time for as long as I’ve been able to get myself to a gym.
Shout out to J-Bone for introducing me to the scummy, meathead paradise that was the old Lincoln Park Powerhouse gym — home to both the worst and oddly friendly folks I could learn to lift weights around.
A lot of the equipment was old and rusty and not all that ergonomic for people of all sizes. However, it was like $10 per month to go there. It had tanning for people who care about that particular path toward societal toxicity.
While I was there, I fell in love with lifting weights. I was putting just a tiny bit of meat on my 17-year-old, 5’9, 150-pound frame.
Fast-forward about a decade, maybe an inch or two of height, and 50 pounds of sometimes-healthy weight: I still love lifting weights.
However, I also wrestle with the unforeseen effects the evolution of my “fitness journey” has had on my daily life.
I’m not as dedicated as I sound. I fluctuate between caring about the contents of my meals — but I panic if I miss a meal.
This was especially true while I was powerlifting.
What if this missed lunch makes me lose five pounds? How will I squat what I need to squat in the middle of my training block that isn’t really building to anything that matters? If I don’t eat this entire pint of ice cream every Sunday, how will I maintain weight to compete among people I don’t care about beating at a local meet in a bigoted powerlifting federation?
Both before and after powerlifting, I still had and currently maintain the fear of breaking from any kind of routine for the fear of losing something.
If I skip the gym, my mind tells me I’m going to lose all strength I’ve gained over the last decade and my body is going to shrink down to 150 pounds of frail bones.
I’m sure this sounds ridiculous to some — both avid gymgoers and people who wish they had the “motivation” it seems I have to workout.
It took everything in me to cut my training down from six days a week down to five this year — but I did it and look at me now! I’m alive!
I stopped weighing myself every day because all it was doing was influencing every nutritional decision I was making. My wife is the cook around these parts and she was shelling out just the largest meals you could imagine when I was at my peak of weight-worrying.
I’m thankful, and I’m sure she is too, that my brain let me not care about that (as much) anymore.
There are plenty of toxic parts about exercise nowadays.
Affordable, commercial gyms are crowded and full of people that suck.
Locally-owned gyms with pricey equipment can easily turn people away with outrageous membership rates and curious business decisions.
Working out at home is simply not nearly as effective if you have high standards for the equipment you need to achieve your fitness goals.
Want to look and feel the way you want? Pay up.
This isn’t to say there aren’t affordable, fun, welcoming environments to workout in, but they aren’t all that common.
Then there is obviously the toxicity of social media fitness folks. One TikTok says you’re an idiot if you do a pull up on a Wednesday at 5:32 p.m. because it’s totally killing your gains. The next TikTok says, “add this pull-up to your routine at 5:32 p.m. this Wednesday to TOTALLY take your gains to the next level.”
Leave me alone. I have a pint of Ben & Jerry’s “Milk & Cookies” to eat but because I WANT TO not because I HAVE TO.
This was a good one!! So true for all accounts. We’ve been there for sure.