the Hippo Brigade

I’m a fat girl trapped inside a skinny girl’s body.

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January 8, 2009

I’ve never been accused of being fat, jiggly, or plump. Although who would accuse someone of that? That’s just plain mean.

I got pregnant, and lost all the weight I gained, and I’m the same size I was in high school, well…kind of. So, I’ve never really felt like I’ve needed to workout aggressively. Sure, I take the occasional yoga class and 3 mile hikes, but never much beyond that.  But lately I’ve been feeling the effects of eating 12 marshmallow cookies in one sitting, and decided I should visit the gym, not as a new year’s resolution, because those things blow, but more as a ‘Beckey needs to get healthier’ type-thing.
So I joined the throng of others in January and got myself a gym membership. And funny thing about joining the gym is you get gifts. First is the gift of watching a bad salesman do his job: The crazy man with no neck bombards you at the front door, and does not shut up about supplements and a calorie counter you wear on your arm, and when you finally get in a word in to say “thanks, but no thanks” to Mr. Testosterone Junkie, he’s already telling you about gift number two: a one on one session with a personal trainer, you know, to get you all hooked and spend 75 million dollars on keeping him around, because you think he’s kinda cute, in a overly-pumped sort of way.

So I met with mine last night. And it wasn’t very pleasant. He pinched my back fat! There I am having a normal conversation with him about what I had for dinner, and he disappears behind me, and next thing I know he’s squeezing the part on my body I won’t even let my husband touch!!  After several swats and squirms later, he explained to me that I was teetering between an “average” and “high” body fat percentage.
“That’s not possible,” I quickly explained to him. “I’m a size two, and if I loose 5 more pounds, I’ll be considered underweight. You’re just trying to make me spend money on a personal trainer, aren’t you? I see what you’re doing, gym-boy, and I don’t like it. And you’re not even that cute.”
“Well,” gym-boy started. “It’s possible to be skinny and fat at the same time. You just have to work on lowering your body fat without loosing weight, you might even gain some weight, but overall you’ll notice your appearance will improve and clothes will fit better.”
“Did you just call me FAT!!”

As you can imagine, it didn’t end well. After that there was sweating, pumping, pressing, and squatting. Lots and lots of squatting. I’m sore today, and tomorrow I’m going back for more torture. I will NOT be called fat by some not-even-that-cute-gym-boy! I will not.