Either the world has ended or something is wrong in my head. I woke up at 5:30 a.m-not to frantically finish homework or a paper (as is usually the case when I’m up before sunrise), but to go to the gym with my friend. The group of people I saw this morning pleasantly surprised me. I saw almost no makeup and few displays of, well, machoness. Instead, the people there seemed to be enjoying the pleasure of an early-morning exercise-induced sweat.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been caught at the gym at such an early hour. In fact, I’ve worked out on-and-off for years; however, this marks the beginning of a new season of my working out. I’m exercising not to achieve some sort of attractiveness, but just to make myself feel good, even to empower myself with a balanced mind in addition to nifty new muscles and endorphins.
This morning, I read an article about our nation’s skewed notions of what constitutes healthy eating. We crave a cure-all for fatness. We want reduced-fat Oreos. We think that this frugality of diet will produce as many favorable results as Suzanne Somers’ Thigh-Master excercise equipment.
With this fat-cure mentality, we come to the gym with a few goals in mind. Some include burning as many calories as possible so that we can look better than our friends look now and look fit enough to get the attention of the object(s) of our desire.
That mentality is bunk. Of course, I’ve attributed many dollars (low fat food is expensive) and many hours in the gym paying homage to that mentality. But this new idea-this empowerment thing-is cool. This means that I can go work out and, novelty of novelties, enjoy my time in the gym. This means that I’m concentrating on my heart rate and my endurance rather than on the number of calories I burn per minute per hour per machine. This means that I’m not working out to “attract” people. Rather, I’m purging out bad thoughts and bad feelings and the unhealthy stress resulting from those feelings.
I’m not subscribing to a workout that will find me a man and secure my position in an archaic gender-stereotyped haven of femininity. I’m doing this for me, which means that I just want to kick butt, and I’m not too worried about how I’ll look while I’m doing it.
I think that many of the people I know struggle to find the good in working out. It’s such a chore because it’s approached with a competitive mindset that allows us to exhaust ourselves instead of finding exercises that build up strength and endurance.
Who needs the fatigue that results from pushing oneself too far? Who needs to find security in bodies that will someday sag and sway in spite of all this toning and training? Forget aesthetics-people should go to the gym with the goal of enjoying themselves and gaining better mental discipline and appreciation for the body’s ability to work and play. If the pounds come off and “beauty” is attained, then so be it.
Joy Murphy is a senior English major.