A Gay Man Getting Fit - The Horror of the Gym
I was not a sporty kid. Not by a long shot. I was definitely in the nerd camp.
Exercise was, for me, something to be avoided at all costs. This wasn’t through a lack of appreciation for the benefits of exercise, rather it was because I associated exercise with one thing above all else: embarrassment.
Fortunately for me, I was naturally pretty slim during my childhood and teen years and this didn’t bother me for a while until my mid-teens when good old hormones kick in and start to make you compare every detail of your existence to everyone else. I’d look at the sporty guys with envy, not only were they the popular ones, but they were the ones I’d drool over. You know what it’s like as a gay teen, secretly eying up the other guys in the changing rooms? Yep, that was me. Looking on in envy, before turning to the mirror with loathing.
Of course, there’s nothing particularly unique about this. You’d be hard-pressed to find any teen that didn’t go through the same thoughts and feelings. Speaking to other gay men over the years, this has seemed to be a common part of our pasts.
So did that motivate me to get fit? Absolutely not. I’d lived a sheltered childhood and adolescence, one where I could survive without good social skills and be content in my own company and that of a very few select friends. This attitude of isolationism and introversion only served to ramp up my social anxiety and my self-consciousness. Going to the gym was completely unacceptable - they’d all just laugh at me and sneer at me surely? The weak little nerd that didn’t belong there. Of course, now I’m older and wiser I realise that’s a load of nonsense but at that age you believe anything negative your brain dreams up.
So fast forward to my mid-20s and my slim body has been replaced by a steadily growing rotundness as I sit behind a desk munching snacks trying to crack on with a career, with a comfy home life with my boyfriend and no incentive to get fit. Then boom, break-up. Nothing like a good bit of heartbreak to focus the mind eh? Now in the mirror I saw an out of shape mid-20s man with a receeding hairline, deeply unattractive and yet in a position of needing to go out to the meat market once again and find a partner.
Here come the joys of the gay world and its obsession with looks. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t speak for the straight world and I know there is a real body image problem there too. However, speaking with bi and straight friends over the years its clear that the gay world has a real deep-rooted problem with looks and image, particularly in the teens-20s-30s range. As much as this wrecks mental health and instills some pretty awful behaviours in people, I did find it acts as a very powerful motivator. I decided then and there (between crying my heart out) that I needed to get my life together and get fit. Admittedly, this was for the somewhat shallow cause of finding a new partner initially, but I’m pleased to say this soon morphed into ‘doing it for myself’.
But back to the moment, how on earth do you get fit? Well, the internet and social media will give you a billion different options, most of which are ineffective in isolation and don’t provide the needed support to sustain them in the long run. With my ex-partner I’d tried the various diets, clearly they weren’t doing much good on their own! So I decided that the best option for me was a PT. This meant going to a gym - grim. I scoured the local area for some options and I must admit I let my hormones do the choosing. I went for the HOT one. Like, seriously HOT. Sadly, he wasn’t available, but he did have a new starter PT at his gym that could take me on. Now, this gym was not a shiny commercial one with bright lights, a pool and sauna. No, this was an old boxing club that had expanded to include the fledgling CrossFit craze. It was dark, damp, smelly and generally everything that prim and proper, clean freak, timid Mark did not want to be near. I can’t describe how much I wanted to duck and run as soon as I arrived. I sat nervously on a worn out couch surrounded by muscle men and women looking amazing and the place echoing with ‘bro-talk’ and the ridiculously loud clanging of weights being dropped. Seriously, this was not my kind of place.
The first session was agonising in that I felt all eyes were on me (they weren’t) and that I was being judged for my sexuality, my weakness, my looks, everything. However, what saved it was my new PT. He was an ex-navy diver and was clearly a great example of how good exercise and diet worked - literally muscle on legs. While not the kind of guy I’d typically talk with, we hit it off pretty well and I found myself actually enjoying the session. It was good to be able to talk logically and rationally through my diet, my motivations and challenges. As someone who enjoys structure and method, this was in my favour.
Over the following months I began to notice improvements in my physique and in my overall health. The flabby bits were going away slowly and my body was gaining some kind of shape other than ‘potato’. It was seriously hard work though, not just the exercise, but the diet in particular. I’ll cover the challenges of diet in another post, but suffice it to say, this was the hardest part of all, particularly with my lifestyle. But despite the challenges I was seeing results. My weight - the only measure I cared about at that time - was going down. From a start at 91kg I was soon down to 85kg, 80kg, 75kg, finally hitting a new low of 70kg. Wow, it actually worked. I had some shape and definition and I was 20kg lighter! On the mental side, my fear of gyms had finally been broken. I didn’t quite feel like I belonged there, but I no longer felt like a total imposter and that in itself was a major win for me.
5 years later and here I am, a happy and confident gay man who’s more than ok with how he looks in the mirror and is eager to challenge myself physically, even with others watching! There are loads of factors that have gotten me to this place, but overcoming that innate fear of judgement and ridicule has helped me get myself into the best shape of my life. So to the guys reading this… I understand it’s hard, dear lord it’s hard. The emotional and mental barriers are way, way bigger than any obstacle course a Wolf Run could dream up. But taking those tentative first steps are the best thing you can do for yourself!
If you’re looking for support or guidance, feel free to ping me a message or read any of my other posts.
Mark The Masseur