"Up in the gym, working on my fitness"

I belong to a gym. Yes, it's true. Attempting to combat the negative health consequences of being "skinny fat", I have been trying to go three times a week for about a year now. With a four month hiatus. Twice. Whatever.

The gym I go to is a YWCA near my house because if it isn't extremely convenient I won't go. So, because of this, I don't get to go to one of the flashy, clean, new facilities chock full of hard bodied people to check out. The one benefit of my gym is that usually I am the hard bodied person amidst a sea of elderly people - it's all relative.

The equipment and facilities at my gym are severely lacking and probably pretty dangerous. Everyone fights for the best treadmill of the three and the shoulder press has been broken for 2 weeks. The weights sometimes smell like corn and there is an actual cane leaning up against the wall next to the therabands and other equipment. I have yet to see someone use the cane, but I can definitely picture it. After some workouts, I'm sorta glad it's there...just in case.

Members of my gym range from obese kids to frail grandparents and all of Hamilton's finest in between. I recently watched a guy on the stationary bike pedalling along while he drank his Tim Horton's coffee. Another guy stopped his workout to go outside for a cigarette. Then he came back in and continued. I watched someone pass out on the exercise mat for no less than 15 minutes - not moving. If I wasn't so busy sculpting my ass, I would have stopped to see if he was okay.

Currently, I have a silent one-sided feud with Big Guy who comes in every afternoon when I do. He likes to turn the gym into his own personal circuit, not washing the equipment between each set. So, if I want to use something, I wipe it down while glaring across the room at him the whole time. So far, he hasn't noticed. I am not above pulling a Costanza and telling on him.

Gotta love how the heart rate chart is positioned right next to the gun shot hole in the window - "Your heart rate should be the same rate when exercising as when ducking from drivebys for optimal results."