There is one thing I have to confess. This should no longer be called Operation Summer. Because, to be honest, I won’t make it to summer – this summer. Maybe the next one, yes. Who knows. Maybe in a year I’ll be writing a completely different series titled How I Managed to Stop Stairs from Feeling Like the Tourmalet. So I almost prefer to rename this challenge Operation Health. Because that’s really what it’s about.
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And also, something happened that wasn’t in my plans: I got hooked. Yes, again. I have a dangerously addictive personality. I get hooked on work, series, books, people, problems… and now it turns out I’ve also gotten hooked on sports. I never thought I’d write a sentence like that.
I am obese, diabetic, and addicted to work: this is the story of how I decided to save myself
- Writing: ESTHER MUCIENTES (Text)
- Writing: ALBERTO DI LOLLI (Photographs)Madrid
If someone had told me this two months ago, I would have kindly asked them to quit the drugs. But here we are.
The second week started exactly like the first. Rubén Río, my trainer, sent me the routine. Inclined push-ups. Cable row. Bird Dog. Plank. Glute bridge. Pallof press. Side steps with gluteband. Hamstrings. Calves. And the now non-negotiable 30 minutes of daily cardio. Five days of training. Saturday and Sunday rest. Well… relative rest. Because Rubén has a rather peculiar definition of rest: “Active life”. That is, no turning the sofa into your usual residence nor practicing remote control throwing. And it makes sense.
Because, as he explained in one of our conversations, a personal trainer is not just there to give you exercises. He’s there to teach you to integrate movement into your life, so it stops being a temporary obligation and becomes a habit. In the end, he said, “true success comes the day the trainer is no longer needed because exercise is part of your routine” just like brushing your teeth.
It sounds beautiful. Then you get to the gym and discover it works like a completely different civilization. Because one thing is to exercise. And a very different thing is to survive the gym. I, who have spent half my life in journalism where everyone has their own unwritten rules, thought I had seen all possible ecosystems.
Wrong. The gym deserves a doctoral thesis. Let’s start. There’s that 90% of people who seem to have been born doing pull-ups. People with arms capable of cracking nuts without tools. With legs that could replace the pillars of a bridge. With abs where a rescue helicopter could probably land. Then there’s another small percentage of people who also look great but appear reassuringly normal. And then there’s us. Those who arrive panting even before starting the warm-up. Those who have to look at a drawing three times to know how the hell to do a Bird Dog. Those who still confuse one pulley with another. Those who keep looking for the stop button on the treadmill with the same hope a castaway looks for dry land.
I confess that on the first day I felt completely out of place. Not the second week. The second week I discovered something much more interesting, that the gym is the new neighborhood park. Before people met on a bench with two big beers to fix the country. Now they meet around a high pulley with a protein shake. And they talk. A lot. I had never seen so much conversation together in a place where, in theory, people go to train. It’s not a criticism. It’s an observation.
I went with my wireless headphones – from the Chinese bazaar, since I also have a budget – convinced that it was going to be an individual experience. How wrong I was. Everyone there knows someone. They greet each other. They comment on workouts. Talk about vacations. Work. Kids. The Sunday game. The heat. And, between conversations, they lift a dumbbell or two. Gyms have done a lot for human relationships and no one acknowledges it.
That said. I also discovered they have secret rules. And no one explains them when you sign up. The most important one is this. A machine is never empty. Even if there’s no one there. If there’s a water bottle and a towel, the machine has an owner. It doesn’t matter if that owner has been talking to the neighbor on the stationary bike for 10 minutes. The machine is still theirs.
Poor naive me, I didn’t know such an international code. And of course… I messed up. Big time. I saw an empty machine. No person. No movement. No life. I sat down. I had barely started the first rep when a man appeared materializing out of nowhere, as if he had just crossed an interdimensional portal.
-I was using it.
I looked around. There was no one. Or so I thought.
-Sorry, there was no one.
-That’s what the towel and bottle are for.
That sounded more serious than when they explain the Constitution rules. I thought maybe I could still save the situation.
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-I’m a newbie…
Wrong. Huge mistake.
-Well, now you know.
Well yes. I knew. And I learned a very important lesson. In the gym you can get the exercise wrong. But never the machine.
But if there is one episode that perfectly sums up that the gym works with laws no one has written but everyone knows, it was the step episode. Until then I thought the machine thing had been bad luck. A diplomatic accident. A misunderstanding between a newbie and a veteran. How naive.
A few days later it was calf day. Nothing especially sophisticated. Going up and down supporting the tip of the foot on a step. Four sets per leg. Easy. The problem was finding a step. I searched half the gym looking for one -keep in mind I take off my glasses to train and I have quite a few diopters-. Nothing. Until I saw two in front of a mirror. Next to them, a girl talking to someone else. I waited. I wasn’t going to interrupt a workout. Or a conversation. Or whatever that was.
A few minutes passed. The conversation continued. She put the weights on the floor and moved a few meters away. I thought she was done. Wrong. I took one of the steps – just one, I wasn’t planning to start a black market for sports equipment – and went to a nearby wall to start the sets. I hadn’t done two reps when I heard a voice behind me.
-I had them.
I breathed. Again.
-I was shocked that you took the step without asking.
I admit that this time something inside me clicked. I don’t know if it was the endorphins. I don’t know if it was the tiredness. Or simply that I had learned that being new doesn’t mean apologizing for existing. I looked at her. And, for the first time since I had entered that gym, I decided not to apologize.
-You’re going to apologize to me, but you have both steps taken.
Silence.
-Second, you hadn’t used them for a while.
More silence.
-Third, I waited quite a bit before taking one.
The conversation was getting interesting.
-Fourth, you left here.
And I finished with the strongest legal argument that came to mind.
-And fifth… he who went to Seville lost his seat.
I can’t say I won that battle. That would be untrue. Let’s say there was a winner… and it wasn’t me. But that wasn’t the important thing. The important thing was something else. I had stopped feeling like an intruder. I had understood that the gym was also mine. That I had exactly the same right as anyone with ad-worthy abs to use a machine, a step, or a dumbbell. And that, although it may seem silly, changes a lot. Because one of the biggest enemies when you have obesity is not the kilos. It’s the permanent feeling of not belonging. Of bothering. Of apologizing.
Rubén told me a phrase that perfectly explains all this: “The body doesn’t go where the mind doesn’t take it”. And he added something that, seen from the outside, seems common sense, but those of us who have felt judged for years need to hear: in a gym no one is judged. Training should be an escape valve, not a punishment. There are days to push yourself and days to simply celebrate small victories, even those no one sees, like sleeping better, losing fear of an exercise, or stopping talking badly to yourself.
He’s right. Because I arrived thinking everyone was watching me. And, in reality, everyone was too busy trying to survive their own workout. I guess we all carry a mirror with us. Even if there isn’t one in front of us.
The funniest thing is that, at the end of that second week, the scale had barely moved. Not a gram worth celebrating. And yet, I had changed much more than any number could tell. I slept through the night. The knee, the same one that a few weeks ago kept me from finding a position in bed, had stopped protesting. I climbed stairs without negotiating with myself on every step. My glucose checks looked like someone else’s. I had significantly reduced insulin units thanks to the combination of exercise and the diet prescribed by my endocrinologist. I was in a better mood. More energy. And a feeling I hadn’t experienced in years: ending the day wanting to go back to the gym the next day.
My nurse had already warned me: “You’ll see when you discover endorphins”. How right she was. They are the cheapest, most legal, and probably most effective drug. And then I understood something else. For years I thought exercise was about suffering to lose weight. Now I know it’s about finding yourself. Even if you have to argue over a step first. And, if necessary, learn that in gyms water bottles and towels have more power than a deed of ownership. Because yes, I know the rules now. And I promise to respect them… as long as no one monopolizes two steps while fixing the world.