By Mariel Howsepian West Dressed
WHERE DID I PUT MY WEIGHT-LIFTING gloves?
I have not set one sneakered-foot into the gym since December.
Two hundred dollars in membership fees: Gone. There was a six-month period when I was going to the gym five times per week, alternating cardio with weights, lunging, rowing, hip-adducting. Now, dipping and crunching are words I associate with tortilla chips and gua-camole.
Twice a week, a trainer led me around the gym, telling me that, yes, I could run faster, lift more, and achieve everything I wanted to achieve. I wanted to look like a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover girl, but eating right and five hours a week at the gym just isn’t enough. So I quit.
My regimen did help me drop from 21 to 17 percent body fat. I was athletic. I was compact. Now, I am … I’m slim. But it’s a soft slim.
At New Year’s, while everyone was making their soon-to-be-broken-weight-loss-resolutions, I didn’t see the point in lying to myself.
I knew that I was going to be crazy-busy with work and my husband and finishing my thesis, and trying not to have a nervous breakdown over simple household chores like doing laundry.
What would I pay my trainer to tell me? “Ah, Mariel, but stress and exhaustion can be lessened by regular gym activity.” You know what else lessens stress? Happy Hour at Chaya Venice.
But I have no more excuses. My thesis is done, and my summer vacation from teaching middle school is finally here.
Last Sunday, my husband and I were fantasizing about taking a cruise around the Mediterranean. Mykonos. Santorini. Me in a bikini.
So, I pulled on my sports bra, a T-shirt, my husband’s sweat pants, and went to the gym, the most intimidating gym in the world — Gold’s in Venice.
Almost every day during the summer, as you walk through the maze of machines, you have to avoid tripping over backdrops, extension cords, and lighting equipment, as photographers shoot oiled, tanned, freakishly ripped men for fitness mag spreads.
You find yourself “working in” on a machine with the Chicago Bulls, or telling Hulk Hogan “Excuse me” because he’s blocking your way to the treadmill, or waiting forever to use the ab machine because the aging blonde porn star with breasts the size of balance balls has yet to dismount.
Mirrors are everywhere, and everything about my workout-wear is wrong. My husband’s sweat pants make me look ten pounds heavier. My hair should be up in a high ponytail, not a messy bun, and I should not be wearing the socks I got on my overnight Virgin Atlantic flight.
Other women walk around, straight and tall, as if pulled to the sky by imaginary string, as if they’ve just come out of pilates, as if they’re looking at me in all my shlubbiness, feeling smug.
They wear makeup and big hoop earrings, racer back tanks to show off shoulder tatts, cropped yoga pants, ankle socks, and clean white running shoes — treadmill shoes. They acces-sorize with iPods and bottles of Smart Water.
I want to look happy to be here, endorphins coursing through my blood-stream. But all I can think about is how I’d rather be sitting in Red Mango, gab-bing with a friend, and eating a frozen yogurt covered with fresh, sweet strawberries and tiny morsels of dark chocolate.
I pull on my weight-lifting gloves, pick up a set of five-pound weights, and do a set of shoulder presses. All around me, men with great big bodies and tiny heads curl dumbbells that weigh as much as kindergarteners.
“Excuse me, Hulk Hogan. If I could just squeeze on by?” ■Weight-lifting gloves. They’ll keep your hands from getting calluses, which will make gripping dumbbells more comfortable.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 27, 2008. Read the original PDF.