A sweet sweat story!

On average, a person can sweat 27.4 to 47.3 ounces per one hour of intense exercise. I never been bothered by the amount people sweat because to me, it symbolizes that they are working their tail off and making an effort to improve their lifestyle. Before I started working out, I never thought I could sweat. I mean, growing up playing soccer, I would shed a few drops now and then but not enough to show signs of my physical ability to kick the ball. Ok, I wasn’t that good and I really didn’t try that hard to be the star player for the Blue Bombers. The first day of boot camp, I remember thinking to myself, “gosh, I’ve never sweated this much before in my life!” I guess that’s a good thing because I knew I worked my butt off. In fact I can truthfully tell you that this gal probably has shed a few pounds in sweat alone during the year I’ve been killing it at the gym. I drip sweat and though this may sound disgusting to most of you, I am not ashamed. Now, let me tell you all a story:

Here I am on the path of self-help. I am determined to lose 60 pounds in one year. Okay, one year plus a few months if that is necessary. Anyways, I have been visiting the gym for many months and enjoying some parts and hating others. I want to tell everyone if they know the inventor of the burpie, to please pass their name on. I will kill them! Back to the story. Over the course of my workout regime, I have been assisted by professionals and have been given lasting advice on how to make my workouts benefit me in the best way possible. Part of this success has been the super important but rarely fun, running on the treadmill. It’s suggested that I need to try for 6 cardio workouts a week! Phew…that sounds like a lot to me. In order to meet that goal, I try to run a few times a week but it’s a constant struggle. My philosophy is a get in, get out method. My best friend is a person, not a treadmill and for some reason, it’s so easy to hit the stop button and walk away rather than finish my mileage. Sticking with my goal, I had planned on running last night after getting off of work. Usually my friend will come with, but she was busy at school so I was tested to complete this task alone. Here I am, treading away, doing my own thing, listening to a little Justin Beiber, mouthing the words and still hating the stickin’ treadmill. Obviously there are other people around me and I never pay attention to who’s running next to me because I’m not there to chat-it-up with a random person. I stepped to the side of my machine to get a drink of water, because I was thirsty and sweating so I must re-hydrate! I hear the man asking me a question and so I pull my ear phones out and ask him what he said and he repeated “what’s your strategy?” What? He wanted to know my strategy for running because I looked sweaty, so I must be working really hard. I said, first of all, I hate running so my trainer helped me develop a plan where I run for four minutes and then walk for one. It gives me something to think about, you know…it’s only four minutes and it’s not going to kill me. He proceeds to tell me that walking and running in not the best option. Ummm…excuse me sir, but you don’t know what the best option is because you are not me. I knew this was going to be one amazing conversation. It proceeded to include questions such as, “How old are you?” “Do you have any kids?” Two very important questions and very logical for the situation I was in. Just kidding! Well this man then went on about how he is in better shape than other people his age and those who are half his age. He mentioned that he never sweats and how people are constantly asking him if he ever gets tired because he doesn’t look like he’s working hard. Oh, Lord have mercy! I was in shock about what he kept talking about. It seems everything was centered around how much I was sweating. He mentioned that he probably doesn’t sweat because of the lack of insulation he has on his body. EXCUSE ME!?! Are you calling me fat? I think so! I had no comment about that. This conversation (if that’s what you want to call it,) was going downhill quickly. He blabbed on about how he wanted to make sure he didn’t have a gut when he put on his bathing suit because he doesn’t want people looking at him and judging his belly. I reminded him that people rarely look at guys at the pool, they only judge the way girls look. True, right? It gets better; he now wanted to talk about how much he weighs! Fantastic! I said, let’s not talk about that. Yeah, that wasn’t going to stop him. “So is this your goal weight?” he so KINDLY asked me. I burst out laughing, no sir, thanks for bringing up how fat I am AGAIN! I told him I monitor my calorie intake in order to help with my weight loss process. “How many calories have you had to eat today?” Are you kidding me?! Yes, he really asked me that. Seriously folks, this seems I’m making this up but it’s 100% real. I’m sure I looked in shock during the length of this conversation that should have never been started. I don’t think he was going to give up unless I gave him a complement about how good he looked. SICK! 5’5”, 155 pounds…I don’t think so! Let me add some more things he said:
“I used to ride my bike to work every day, but I moved further out of town, so I can’t now.”
“I make sure when I go golfing, I walk and not rent a cart. That’s being lazy!”
“So, were you on the track team in high school?”
“Is this the thinnest you’ve been in a while?”
“Gosh, you really sweat a lot.”
“I really have to work hard to stay in shape during the winter because I don’t get to golf.”

As he repeatedly mentioned how much I sweat, I finally told him, I like sweating because it makes me feel like I worked really hard and earned every calorie I burned. Then the matter of being smelly came up. Well, my boyfriend is a farmer and he’s stinky so I know he doesn’t mind if I come home smelly. “Do you shower?” Yep, he was serious. I should have said no, I just love to let all this sticky sweat soak into my body. I only shower once a week…(don’t take that seriously, I shower.) I then decided, this workout is O-V-E-R! I had run enough to feel good and I wasn’t going to put up with this crap anymore. I cleaned off my machine and told him to have a good night.

Let’s conclude this story with this fun fact. I now hate running even more but I’ll be darned if I am going to not sweat when I workout. It’s like taking a salty bath…I guess I really don’t have to shower. Haha!

I now am going to say a silent prayer I will never see him again…. Amen!

Have a good day and I hope you all have amazing gym experiences like that.