By Francesca
Getting started is the hardest part of any growing experience.
I can tell you it gets better, because I’m on the other side of it now. But in the beginning of any fitness journey, you’re going to feel bad about yourself. Even when you’re working out at the gym, you’ll feel bad. Especially when you’re working out at the gym. It’s a cruel trick.
Because when you feel bad about how you look, everyone else looks great. I never notice more thin people than on those days that I feel fat.
This is the definition of neuroses.
But it’s amplified at the gym.
Those first months working out at my new gym were brutal.
Naturally, I was convinced it was the gym’s fault.
It’s in downtown Manhattan, home to fashion models and gay men—the two most beautiful demographics statistically.
I’d pass the mats and always see some lovely, lithe woman stretching out her spider limbs. Or some gorgeous man making squat sets look like B-roll from Magic Mike.
Maybe I just tell myself the men are gay because I can’t have them.
But these people were just too fit to comfortably exercise with.
In other words, this gym was too effective.
Everyone there seemed so purposeful except me. I felt conspicuously clueless wandering around the machines, so my solution was to take a lot of group classes instead. But that plan wasn’t without its drawbacks.
See, I work best with positive reinforcement, and the mirror was being kind of a jerk.
During Barre Burn, for instance, I’d see myself in the mirror and feel like Santa in line with the Rockettes.
The other girls’ tank tops pulled only across their breasts like comic-book heroines, while my tummy pushed at my shirt.
My jumping jacks were more jumping jiggles.
And thank God I got to face away from the mirror for downward dog.
I didn’t even have the right clothes. There was a uniform among the women of trim black yoga pants and cute strappy sport tops. I typically wore an oversize T-shirt and puffy basketball shorts.
My mental spin on this was that I’m simply too down-to-earth to buy nice clothes to sweat in. But after a couple weeks of avoiding my own reflection, it occurred to me:
They’re not showing off; I’m hiding.
So I bought some new, flattering tank tops, slimming pants of my own, and a sports bra that showed tasteful, workout-cleave instead of binding my breasts into the dreaded mono-boob.
And I felt a little better about myself.
Money can buy you self-love.
But the locker room was a fresh hell. Who are these women who wear such beautiful underwear to the gym? Matching sets, lace, thongs.
Squats in a thong? Ouch.
Lunges? (Shudder)
I saw one woman in such elaborate lingerie, I can only assume it was Dita Von Teese without makeup.
Personally, I work out in drugstore granny-panties, and I don’t apologize for it.
I just need a pair that say, “My Other Underwear Is a G-String.”
And there’s always that one show-off in the women’s locker room. Like the woman who blow-dries her hair in the mirror while standing stark naked. Or the one who lathers her body in moisturizer with more sensuality than Cinemax after midnight.
Your nipples aren’t that chapped, dear.
But the steam room is my oasis.
It’s the antidote of the see-and-be-seen nature of the rest of the gym. There’s a collective understanding that if we’re all going to be naked in a little room together and have any hope of relaxing, we must suspend our judgmental and self-critical impulses and allow ourselves to just breathe.
Bodies of all ages, shapes, and sizes are equal in the foggy eyes of the steam room.
I give myself all sorts of mental pep talks in there. I work out plot twists in the novel I’m ever editing. I envision meetings with agents going well. I say positive affirmations about what I like about my body. I plan out date outfits whether or not I have a date. And I always leave feeling detoxified.
Which is why I dislike this one young woman. She always struts in the steam room completely naked, not even the gesture of carrying a towel to lie down on.
That’s just unsanitary.
Now, is she beautiful? Absolutely. She looks in her early twenties, blond, and in perfect shape. She’s stunning and she knows it. Am I jealous? You bet. But I swear this isn’t sour grapes. I’m not taking issue with her beauty. I’m taking issue with the performance.
This is her routine. First, she makes a big show of standing and posing as she rakes her fingers through her hair before twisting it up.
Please, now you’re making it unsanitary for us and getting your hairs everywhere. And I speak as a curly-haired shedder myself when I say, keep it outside.
Then she begins to stretch. We’re talking full-on-naked lunges.
The general etiquette in the steam room is a benign disregard between women. So when The Hot Girl started her naked yoga near where I was lying down, I resisted the urge to move away so that I wouldn’t offend her. But as she did a full bend right by my head, I wished for more steam to cover my eyes.
I saw more of her than I’ve seen of myself.
And let it be noted that she doesn’t do the awkward stretches. You know the ones, where your belly folds, or your one hand behind your back blindly gropes for the other hand. No, she only does the sexy stretches—those combinations of sun salutations and Playmate poses.
My point is, it kills the vibe. You can feel the collective shift of the other women to cover themselves when she enters.
But then the other day, I entered the steam room while The Hot Girl was in the midst of her act, and the other women were tucked away in the corners, avoiding her. I hoped the steam hid my side-eye as I took a seat as far away from her vagina as possible.
And then, while she was arching her back in some sort of breast stretch, it happened.
She farted.
Twice.
Once mid-stretch, and again when she tried to sit down like nothing happened.
And we all heard it.
Farting in a steam room is pretty rude. It’s one step above space suit for impolite places to bust a toot.
But luckily it didn’t smell. Because, of course, it didn’t.
For about thirty seconds, The Hot Girl tried to act casual, but then the embarrassment got to her and she high-tailed, or likely clench-tailed, it out of there.
A couple of us giggled after she left.
Not to laugh at her, per se.
But because no human can escape the occasional indignity of the gym.