How many of you hate the skinny girls, the muscle guys — the “pretty people”?
I know I did. I used to hate their guts. No lie.
I’d see them out and about, looking toned, with a spring in their step. Clothes fit them. They didn’t wheeze. They laughed just a bit too much. I managed to not kill them by assuming they were slow-witted, giggly or egotistical jerks.
My loathing for them made me stay out of gyms, because I knew that’s where they congregated. But, eventually, my anger at myself became greater than my hatred of “them,” and I sucked it up. I entered a gym.
Wearing my sweat pants and a giant T-shirt, I walked into the weight room. I saw a few heads turn, and I clearly remember feeling judged. I forced myself to ignore it and push forward.
Over time, as I became a “regular,” the others began to chat with me. Muscle-head guys befriended me. Skinny girls complimented me. I began to drop my guard.
The muscle-heads showed me new exercises, suggested books and talked to me about protein. Skinny girls shared their fat pictures, wowing me with how far they’d come.
I had an epiphany one day: The pretty people I’d always hated didn’t just wake up pretty every day; they worked at it.
In front of me was a guy who looked like a magazine cover model, sweating his guts out on a stair climber. A skinny girl was doing ab crunches. It was a weight-lifting guy who introduced to me to the concept of tracking my food on a log. I think he even talked about his “fat pants” once.
They had the same challenges I had; they had just been doing something about them the whole time I was busy hating. I never hated poor people who worked hard and wound up rich. Why should I hate fit people who had worked just as hard?
As I revisit my first moments in the gym, I realize that, in all honesty, they were probably looking at me thinking, “Who’s the new girl?” — not “Who’s the fat girl?”
I wasted a lot of time. Learn from my mistake. Don’t be hating.
• Shannon Sorrels is an NSCA-certified personal trainer and owner of Physix LLC in Ahwatukee Foothills. Reach her at (480) 428-5660 or azphysix.com.
TruProf posted at 11:58 am on Wed, May 4, 2011.
Au contraire, my dear! It has been my experience that many of the "pretty" people do come out of the box, so to speak, with a natural attractiveness. Just as some are born with natural athletic talent or intelligence, others are born with "looks". Now, keeping, maintaining and even enhancing our natural gifts is undoubtedly necessary. But I maintain that some folks (see Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe) are pretty darn pretty right from the get go.