Dumb S**T people claim about fitness part 2
Over the years I have heard a ton of excuses why a person can't exercise or various explanations about how they eat in a certain unhealthy or fad-at-the-time sort of way and I am closer to these excuses because I lived it. I was a high-level athlete in my 20's, then somewhere in my 30's I seriously let myself go after an injury and got up to 250 lbs. I am now in my 40's and I weigh 10 lbs more than I did at my actual "fighting weight" when I was a semi-professional fighter. I like to tell myself that it is 10 lbs of more muscle but it is isn't.. .haha.
Here are some of the more absurd excuses that I have heard over the years that stick in my mind.
Bjorn's never-ending "bulking phase"
Ah Bjorn. I will never forget you even though you moved back to Norway many years ago. Bjorn and I attended the same university and became friends somewhere, I don't remember how but I am sure at least part of it was because he had a silly accent and his name was Bjorn, which is something you don't often encounter in middle-America. Anyway, Bjorn was an alright dude but he had some rather bizarre ideas about fitness. I do recall that when I saw him on the weights he was doing pretty good, he is a short and stocky type of person so he is one of those dudes that walks around the gym like he is about to get into a wrestling match at any point. That's ok though I guess, even though he looked like a dill-hole when he was doing it.
There was a time that after I was done working out I asked him if he wanted to play a game of racquetball after he was done and he said "oh no dude, I'm in a bulking phase, I can't get any cardio."
I wanted to tell him that if he was bulking, then mission accomplished because he looked borderline fat. Fat dude with a decent bench.
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The above imagine is taken from a wonderful article that explains how to do certain things such as bulking, properly. Bulking is NOT just eating a bunch of BS food like pizzas and burgers and chasing them down with 2 liters of Budweiser. That is caloric excess, it is not bulking. With Bjorn, I could tell that he was simply justifying his really terrible eating habits and I can relate to them, because after breaking a few bones in my foot in my 30's, I ended up doing the same thing. I didn't call it bulking though, I called it delivery because I lived alone and couldn't go anywhere.
I have pictures of Bjorn but I do not have his permission to put them online so just imagine a dude that is about 5 foot 6, clearly sensitive about his height, and is trying to become muscle dude to compensate for it. Again, nothing wrong with this and it is quite common. But Bjorn was always making seriously stupid choices as far as diet and exercise was concerned and calling it "bulking." Real bulking involves intentionally consuming more calories in a day than your body can burn including with the exercise that you are doing. However, if you want to do this wisely and with results, it will involve a high level of calories by masses of food, not by dunking two sets of cheesy-bread into ranch and chasing it down with 700 empty calories of Coke or beer.
Needless to say, Bjorn eventually became enormous, and although I haven't spoken to him in years outside a few Whatsapp messages here and there, he now has back and neck problems that are directly related to his obesity.
I'm too ashamed to be at the gym
This is quite possibly the stupidest remark I ever hear from people and it is so defeatist, if that is even a word. They are concerned that people at the gym are going to be judging them, or laughing at how fat and out of shape they are, or how they don't know how to use the machines, or how much they are sweating.
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They are worried that the buff dudes are going to be laughing at them and the fit girls in the yoga butt-huggers are going to think they are creepy and gross.
They feel like people are going to think they do not belong.
If you have ever thought this I want to tell you right now, with 30 years of gym experience under my belt INCLUDING at time when I myself was fat, that the OPPOSITE is the case. At all the gyms I have ever been at, the fit people go out of their way to help people who are trying to better themselves and while they aren't going to be like "hey fatty, you need some help" that is kind of what they are doing. They want you to succeed, they want you do join the club of people that are looking after themselves.
There is one gym here in the city that if you have over a certain body fat percentage, they offer free personal training to get you into a program that is going to work for you and not injure you in the process. The offer from the gym is obviously self-serving for getting new customers but as far as the assistance from other people is concerned, this is a very real thing. There are toxic gym people out there for sure, but for the most part, the fit people in the gym go out of their way to help people that need help.
I have never heard of anyone being fat-shamed out of a gym and if that was to ever happen, the people doing the shaming would be banned from coming back to the gym. Sure, it can be a bit unnerving if everyone else in the place is super fit but I'll be honest with you, I have been to dozens if not scores of gyms in my life and MOST of the people in there are not in good shape. That's why they are at the F**king gym!
So while this situation is a bit more sensitive than Bjorn's silly fake "bulking" and Cheryl's completely wrong "meal hacks" it is still a fear that is not genuine. The gym is a place for you to get in shape, not necessarily to already be in good shape.
If you are super-fat though, you should probably not try to "zero to hero" yourself and would likely be better off going for walks and working on your diet first. It might alarm you how quickly you drop weight if you just focus on these two things first.
I could go on and on and on and on about the various excuses I have heard over the past 30+ years of being involved in fitness, but once gain this is over 1000 words so I will cut it off now before it gets so long nobody will read it.