The gym can be intimidating, especially if you're old and fat, like me. The gym I used in New Orleans was all fancy. It was a state of the art shrine to fitness. A huge facility with high ceilings and glass walls, a juice bar, spinning and step classes; and buzzing over the equipment like bees in a hive were ripped, skinny, fit, pretty people in coordinated work out clothes. I did not fit in.
Where I work out now is a little different. I use the gym at the Cardiac Center of SMRMC, the hospital where my wife works. It's got a decent circuit, OK cardio equipment and a pool/water treadmill. It's cheap and I drop my wife off for work in the morning 50ft from the front door. But that's not the best part. In this gym..... I am King Buff-enstein, I'm out on the toe of the bell curve. Of course my gym is mostly a cardiac rehab facility.
The people using my gym are heart attack and stroke patients. They wear street clothes and do mild cardio while hooked up to monitors. They are not gym rats. They are reluctant rehabers and they are not there to get buff, they are there to not die.
I have to admit, I like the situation a little more than I should. The staff are in scrubs and are very nice. My fellow exercisers are in overalls and flannel and seed corn caps, boots and jeans, reading the newspaper or watching Fox News. By comparison I'm a cover model for Men's Fitness, in my trendy (by comparison only) work out togs, rockin' out to tunes or reading or watching Netflix on my impossibly advanced Android tablet.
In my gym, grading on a curve, I'm young, healthy and not the biggest guy in the room by a long shot.
In a few months when I'm down a few sizes I may switch to the 24 hour place in town with the fancy equipment. For now I'll stay where I am.
Of course there is the added bonus, should I fall out or have a heart attack, I'm already at the hospital. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
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