I'm too fat to go to the gym...

So I have to rage a little bit here. I can't COUNT the number of times I've heard someone say, "I'd love to go to the gym, I just need to lose a little bit of weight first." 

SERIOUSLY!?!?! What have we done to ourselves? 

I know when I first started working out I was the girl in the back row of treadmills pressed against the wall, PRAYING that no one noticed me in my ratty old t-shirt from some youth gathering and track pants that I had been wearing as PJ pants up until that week that I finally decided to take the plunge. I was a keen watcher trying to discover - What the heck am I supposed to DO here!?!? (or more accurately - What does everyone else do here so I know what I won't be judged for). 

One of the greatest blessings of my gym experience was that I was made to feel welcome. When I looked around the gym at the A.R. Kaufman Y I didn't see a bunch of slender muscular women and men lifting weights gracefully without breaking a sweat. I saw people doing what they could to be fit. I once walked/ran on a treadmill beside a 400 pound man who was carrying his Oxygen tank with him and accompanied by a worker as he sweated heavily through a workout a 2km/hour. I understood very quickly that the Y was not a place where people dressed up and did their makeup to meet men. Nor was it was not a place where bodybuilders stood and checked themselves out in the mirrors, blocking the 60 year old woman's line of sight when she did her bent rows. This was a place where we came to get healthy, whatever stage we were at. 

So I feel lousy when people have a different experience than that. 

My friend Barb sent me some reading today (smart woman, well read), much of it that may inform some of the content you read here day-to-day. The following images were included in the package, and they really tickled me...so I wanted to share. 

Fitness is not for the fit my friends; It is for us all. Fitness does not mean being a size 2 or fitting into the jeans you kept from high school; It means being healthy at every size and every stage. And fitness is not for the put together; it is for the sweaty, the smelly, the grunting and the committed.  Find your fit, and if you're struggling to figure it out, reach out and let someone know you need a hand. We're all in this together!