Ugh. The resolutionaries are back at the gym.

[pink-o]

56. Amy Rose, I hope you understand that GCG and I were not ridiculing

those folks who're sincere and trying to change their lives. I was once one of them: I always starved myself in my 20s and 30s, hoping I could become a conventionally sized woman. See, in the 70s and 80s, women were 5'5" and weighed about 115. I was 6'1" and weighed about 165. I tried every stupid diet, every device, every program you could thrust in front of me and only got fatter. I made it up to 190 by the time I was 36. Then circumstances alone changed me: I had bought a HUGE lemon of a car, lost a good job and ended up working for half the wages I'd made the previous year. So I started walking and biking everywhere (my car seriously scared me) and without a lot of money for luxuries, I gave up the restaurants and started cooking at home.

When I was 37, with half the effort I'd attempted in the past, I suddenly weighed 150. And I took a good look at the weight-loss industry and finally understood the snake-oil salesmen and the marketing ploys. Now, 20 years later, I'm still 6'1" and weigh about 143. I credit the gym with being a huge factor in helping me get my metabolism under control.

And now, I go to the gym to stave off the arthritis, metabolic slow-down and all the other ailments that come with a sedentary old age. I will NEVER take pharmaceuticals, I will die on the spinning bike first!

So I see the way some of the newbies watch me, and they don't know my past history, they only see the Praying Mantis Woman working her triceps or doing squats. But I don't snob them out. Never. I know all too well what it feels like to have that hope in your heart, and also an impending feeling of failure right behind it. I cheer the ones who REALLY try, who are open to learning, who don't come to the gym in come-f**k-me gear but are there to improve their lives. I saw, more power to them!