After putting it off for the past year (yes...year) I think it is finally time to join the gym. My decision was made easier by the fact that there is a gym in my building, so I don't even have to go outside to get there. Unfortunately for me, that means no excuses when it's raining.
Starting at a new gym can be kind of awkward. I always go into it with a game plan. Enter. Go straight to the treadmill/elliptical. Scope out the other machines while I'm running in order to figure out where I want to go next. However, I have absolutely no endurance, so I begin to panic after about 5 minutes because I haven't yet decided where to go.
All of this and I worked at a 24hour fitness for a year.
Now, my biggest predicament isn't figuring out what machines to use (because anyone who has ever stepped foot in a brazilian gym or clothing store knows that they are overemployed to the point of being intimidating "pois não senhora" "pois não moça" "pois não querida"...)
No no no, my biggest problem is the unbelievable Carioca gym fashion. I once had a Brazilian Teacher (Roberto DaMatta, famous Brazilian Anthropologist and prof at PUC) tell me that American women are more oppressed by mochismo than we realize...just look at what we wear to the gym and the office, men's clothes.
My wearing "men's clothes" to the gym is not because I think it is an inherintly manly place and I want to fit in. I am at the gym because I feel like a fat ass (in a bad way, not a brazilian way) and I don't want my junk hanging out all over the place in front of the fitties coming out of spin class.
In addition to not wanting to wear a backless, skin tight body suit with cutouts down the legs, I do not want to wear those ridiculous socks! Brazilians can rationalize it all they want, but they are straight fugly!
So what do I do? Suck it up and wear the socks because I already stand out like a sore thumb? Or let my inner man free?
What do you all wear to the gym?
