Girl Power

I go to a women only gym. When I do go that is. Actually to be honest I have been going about 4 times a week for 3 weeks now. Four weeks? I should be keeping better track.

Point is, I go to a women only gym.

Its not that I have anything against men. I just don't want to work out with them. Mostly I don't want to work out with the kinds of women that put on full make up to go to the gym to work out with those men.

I never really got the concept of a women only gym until I started working at one. I thought it was highly ironic that they hired me in the first place, since my experience up until that point (I was 20) was that gyms only hired super fit staff. I was not (and am not) super fit. But they hired me and that was the first glimpse I got into this completely foreign (at the time) concept of a women only gym.

Five years later and I don't think I will ever go back to a co-ed gym.

I'm a bigger girl and working out with skinny girls isn't particularly motivating. They are all running on the treadmill barely breaking a sweat while I'm running on the treadmill praying I don't fall off the end and embarrass myself. Women only gyms mean all shapes and sizes of women at all different levels of fitness.

For me this inspires me with a healthy dose of competition.

If I see an old woman on the heavy side busting her ass on the elliptical beside me, you better believe that I'm going to try and work out longer and harder than her. Sure, I will probably fail because those old woman may look weak but if they are gym rats in their 70s, they can kick your ass. But for 10 minutes I'm giving it my all and that results in a better work out for me.

At a women only gym I don't feel like I'm being judged by other patrons. I'm sure that this is probably true of a co-ed gym as well, I'm sure that they are too busy with their own work outs to have any energy to spare on mine. But I'm a judgey person. I will totally judge strangers on their work outs. At a co-ed gym my inner monologue would probably be really catty to make up for my low self-esteem sweating beside glowing Barbie. But at my gym my inner monologue is much more positive and cheerleader-esque. I find myself fist pumping for the heavy girl running on a treadmill, or lifting weights, inspired by the older woman running for 20 minutes beside me.

I belong in a women's only gym. And that's a great feeling when you can't feel your legs.