Fat

I’m officially fat.

Not because I’m overweight, because if you’ve ever seen me… well, you know I don’t look “fat”. But I am.

So the gym offers this free personal training session/evaluation thing upon starting with them, and I decided to just go ahead and do it despite the fact that I *knew* that I’d be roped into signing up to meet with a personal trainer on a regular basis. Stupid sales tactics. I’m a total sucker.

But anyway, so I showed up at that gym all ready to get my ass kicked by the teeny, tiny perfect trainer and her equally perfect-bodied trainer-in-training, and the first thing I had to do after filling out the fitness questionnaire was get my body fat percentage checked. Have you ever had yours checked? You know how they do it? They make you hold this… thing… that somehow zeros into your blood stream, does a quick tour of your body, and counts every fuckin’ fat cell clinging to your organs. And then it calculates how fat you are and spits a number out onto the screen.

And that’s when I realized what a lard-ass I’ve become.

To my utter horror, the number that popped up on the screen was 24%, a number that didn’t fall in the “excellent” category, or even the “good” one. In fact, Miss-I-Dance-Nearly-Every-Day-Of-My-Life and can squeeze comfortably in a pair of (generous fitting) size 4 jeans falls into the “FAIR” category for body fat percentage. That’s only two categories away from being in the “VERY POOR” range.

See, this wouldn’t be embarrassing if I didn’t exercise constantly and eat healthy, but I DO. However, sadly, the number on the screen wasn’t really a surprise. I’ve been feeling less-than-fit for awhile now, and have just luckily been blessed with a set of genes that keeps me fairly thin. Unless I’m pregnant. Then I turn into Humpty-Dumpty’s cousin.

In fact, when she showed me my body stats, I laughed, told her I’m suffering from a case of frumpy, dumpy mama butt, and said I’m totally down with the “Itty bitty waist and that round thing in your face” appearance, but only if that round thing is a toned round thing.

I think I scared one of the trainers, but the other one fell on the floor laughing and choked to death on my humor.

Then I went on to explain that I’m all tits and ass and I like it that way, and could she please make sure that I don’t end up on an exercise program that makes me look like my anorexic aunt because I get really obsessive about things, and if that’s the goal, then I’ll get there, and that would be a BAD THING. (*breathe*)

I think they thought I was truly nuts. Good for them, they guessed right.

So anyway, after my mouth introduced them to myself, they kicked my ass by cheering me through all kinds of horrible torture that included exercise designed to make your legs, ass, and abs rip into shreds and explode all over the gym walls. It was like a scene out of a horror flick. Until... until she told me to do walking lunges that included punching and throwing a knee lift into her little hand-held-I’m-gonna-pretend-I’m-a-miniature-mat-and-handle-a-badass’s-punches trainer thingies.

“Are you ready to make a fool out of yourself?”… She was totally teasing, don’t worry, she wasn’t a bitch.

Oh yeah. Clearly, I’d forgotten to share a tidbit of info about my history, and I tried to ignore the fact that I had the attention of every middle-aged man sitting at the weight machines from there to New York City, which was perched way on the other side of the room.

“Wow, girl, you are REALLY intense. Holy cow!” [insert very surprised look here]

“Oh, um, yeah,” what do I say? I sort of forgot to tell you, “Having a second degree black belt helps in this particular department.” Thank goodness, one piece of hell that DIDN’T hurt like crazy.

She got me back for withholding pertinent information with this obscene core exercise that ended with my lungs breathing fire and my shaking body actually collapsing onto the ground, which caused Seattle to be nearly destroyed in a Tamra’s-fat-ass-induced earthquake before I disintegrated into ashes. It made the leg-squat shit we did next on this really mean-looking machine just pure evil.

Finally, the training session was over, and my jelly legs somehow made it to the babysitting room, where the two mean trainers both pulled out their baby eyes and transformed into the sweetest things ever when they met my monsters, “Oh my gosh, they are SO BEAUTIFUL! Look how cute she is!”.

Thank you, I’m rather fond of them most of the time myself.

So of course, when I got home, I was like, “James, how much do you love me? Enough to spend [insert price here] to help your lovely wife get rid of the blubber all over sore and aching body? I’M 24% BODY FAT, JAMES! OH MY GAWD! I promise you’ll get to do all the rub-downs that include touching my naked skin whenever you want”. Because, you know, I’m a glutton for punishment and now that I know I’m FAT, I actually WANT to face the punishment necessary to get to a healthier fat percentage.

And you know what? Either my husband agrees that my body could use some serious toning, or he just loves me so much that he’s willing to do absolutely anything for me. He said yes-I could start meeting with a personal trainer every week to help me reach my fitness goals.

So, guess what, world? Oh yes, if you thought I didn’t bitch and complain before, you were sadly mistaken. Only this time, it’s gonna come with pictures and regular updates on my progress.

Now, excuse me while I attempt to walk. My kids, unfortunately, can’t take care of themselves.

Owwww… *whimper*

Current Mood:Alarmed emoticon Alarmed & Cool emoticon Cool

3 Comments

  1. Chrissy said,

    February 4, 2010 @ 6:18 pm

    Well hunny I have a few things to say lol…You are not FAT!
    I’m in the morbidly obses category so your size for can kiss my size 24.
    I am probably 2 of you.
    But I like your attitude and I am glad you are doing something about it if you are not happy with yourself.
    I too am doing the same thing. But in a different way. I found a book written by Georgene Collins titled “Obesity Free Forever” and is perfect for me. It might not be for you because you are boarderline tiny…but I thought maybe some of your readers who might be overweight might find an interest to this book.
    Who knows, it might work for you. As it is a permanent choice not a temporary quick way like all the others that don’t work.
    I have struggled since i was about 15. It’s been over 10 years for me struggling with my weight . I have never been happy with my body, until now. I look back and think What was I thinking? I looked HOT then.
    I swear your eyes only can focus on the inconsistencies and not about the good things.
    So I hope this book can help someone out like it has me. I finally can look at me in the mirror and love myself for who I am and not what I don’t like about myself.

  2. Klaity said,

    February 4, 2010 @ 8:28 pm

    To offer some perspective…

    At the time that I was hospitalized for anorexia my body fat percentage was measured at 31.4%. This was at the peak of my disorder, at a time that I suffered from amenorrhea, osteopenia and ketosis. (Those are fancy words for “fucked up.”)

    There’s no number or measurement that concretely indicates healthy or unhealthy, too much or not enough. It’s all about how you feel and where you are finding or lacking balance in your life. Keep doing it for you, and try not to get distracted by numbers.

  3. Kim said,

    February 5, 2010 @ 7:30 am

    I agree Klaity.

    To be honest Tamra, I was impressed by 24! When I last worked with a trainer – all be it many years ago – I thought 24 fell into the healthy category… Shoot, I worked the better part of a summer to go from 31% to 24% – so maybe I’m just easily impressed.

    I also think you will be pleasantly surprised at how fast that number improves when you work with the trainer! Sounds like you got a good team. Remember to drink lots of water – being hydrated helps.

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