SWEAT BATH

Something else that makes me crazy at the gym, and I believe this to be a 'big-girl' only problem, is what I call the "skinny-bitch syndrome."  I am performing some cardio on a treadmill or Elliptical machine and some young, skinny, blonde, playboy-looking, bunny enters the cardio area, pans the room of a million empty machines, and decides that she wants to use the machine aside of me.  It's not because my location is near the fan or in line with the best TV, and it's not because she hopes to some day be my friend.  Trust me, it is because she thinks she can show me up.  She believes that I will shrink in her presence, and that somehow her decreased size and youthfulness will enable her to outdo me on the treadmill.  Ha ha ha ha ha...silly rabbit, tricks are for kids!

I get no greater pleasure in life than seeing this plan of attack fail!  YOU WILL NOT BEAT ME!  I will climb, run, increase the incline, pump up the resistance, increase the speed, take a heart-attack- whatever I have to do to beat you.  I guarantee one thing, you will drop before me!  I may be big, but honey I can move!  Your punishment for this lapse in judgment???  A SWEAT BATH!  When I'm through, you most likely will not chose the machine aside of me again!  I have gone toe-to-toe with many and it is always the other person who climbs off the machine in shame.

I'm not sure why I'm like this, if it comes from years of skinny girls always dominating the scene or if it hails from my disappointment in women in general, but clearly I have an axe to grind.  I can recall so many situations growing up where it would have been nice for one of the smaller girls to come to my rescue.  Standing there in the club having some low-life dude make comparisons of your size to that of your skinny best-friend, having to field insults, or just plainly being ignored- how nice it might have been for one of those thin girls getting all the attention to have taken up for me.  But somehow the sexist remarks and degrading attention always became a compliment to the thin girl, rather than the outrage to women in general that it should have been.  "Oh this must mean I'm thin and gorgeous because I am getting hit on more than my friend"  Pfftt!!

I will always defend the under dog!  That's just me.  No matter how thin, beautiful, smart, or popular I grow to be, you will never catch me basking in the sunshine of a compliment who's shadow falls on the less fortunate person aside of me.  I will always be grateful for compliments, but I will also always lift up the person who is going unnoticed.  Maybe for no other reason than I so would have liked someone to have done that for me.  I've never been ugly, but I certainly remember what it feels like to not be the prettiest girl in the room.

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's how quickly you can find yourself on the other side.  You can be thin and gorgeous your whole life and wake up one day to find that you are now fat.  You can be beautiful and through some tragic occurrence end up disfigured in a way that changes your whole life.  I am grateful for whatever beauty and health it is that I have, and I wish that young women would have more of an understanding about this as well.  I hope to reach all of my goals and if and when I do, I will never forget what it feels like to be that overweight girl in a crowd of attractive, thin, girls.

I have considered that not every thin, beautiful, girl who gets on the treadmill aside of me is looking for a duel, and yes, much of this could just be in my head.  But I equivocate it to that instinct a black person sometimes has about the person standing across from him being racist even though he or she has not yet spoken a word.  I have developed a sixth-sense after years of being overweight in social situations.  I laugh because my husband has witnessed these showdowns at the gym and he has joked about secretly paying sexy women to get on the exercise equipment aside of me so I will work harder...LOL.

I'm proud of how hard I work at the gym.  It's a wonderful feeling when someone who is clearly in better shape than me approaches to say, "wow, I'm impressed- you inspire me."  This makes up for all the years of ridicule and lost self-worth to those who were thinner or more beautiful.  I hope this message inspires you to either be kinder to yourself or kinder to those around you.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” -Eleanor Roosevelt