Since what I had meant to be a humorous depiction of my gym environment has managed to ruffle a few feathers (must try taking some empathy improvement courses one day…), I thought I’d clarify my position today by re-posting one of my comment responses here:

Hardbodies or not, I *do* respect everyone at my gym for putting in the effort to be there at all. In that they are already doing better than the majority of the people in this country. I hope I didn’t imply that the men and women at my gym were weak or lazy just because they don’t operate in single-minded robo-gym rat mode, but if anyone took my post that way, please believe me when I say that it was not intentional. As I’ve said before, I freely admit to being more than a little OCD and realize that it’s a combination of personality type, comfortable socio-economic status, life stage (single, no kids), etc. that allow me to devote as much time as I do to and set a high priority on eating well and working out.

What I was actually trying (and have apparently failed) to convey is my frustration with the lack of knowledge about the basics of healthy nutrition and exercise in our supposedly advanced technological society. It seems that we can find out anything we want to know about how to fix a leaky sink or resolve a computer driver compatibility issue online, but when it comes to achieving and maintaining a healthy body, people are either too confused by all the conflicting information they’ve heard over the years (a friend of mine calls this “analysis paralysis”) or just default to the formula of cardio plus second-hand, media-filtered tenets of the fad diet of the moment.

I feel that someone–our government, our schools, our family doctors, our gyms (who are happy to take our money every month but usually fail to provide any further guidance without a high fee)–is letting all of us down by not giving us the specific knowledge we need in order to live healthy lives and stave off all the negative medical, social, and emotional consequences of being overweight.

As cheesy as it may sound, I’d really like to see Bill Phillips’s dream of a Great American Transformation come true, not because I see those who are not physically fit as “lesser,” but because once a person HAS discovered just how simple it is to lose weight and how wonderful it feels to KNOW their body can perform anything they ask of it with ease and efficiency, they can’t help but want everyone else to become enlightened, too.

I realize, as proposed in the article that Rob mentioned, that there are plenty of people who really don’t care one way or another about losing weight or getting fit, but I do feel that for those who DO want to change there should be some easy-to-access and FREE resources to help them on their way.

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3/11 and 3/12 Report
(*Diet and workout details omitted by agreement with trainer)
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Nutrition:

Meals - On plan
Water - 16 and 17 cups
Supplements - On plan

Regular (Non-Plan) Daily Supplements - multivitamin with iron, calcium 600 + D

32 days down, 52 more to go!

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Workout:
3/11
Weights - Back/Abs - Done
Cardio - Treadmill Walk/Run - Done

3/12
Weights - Legs - Done
Cardio - Rest

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The Awful Truth:
1. Nothing!

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Brownie Points:
1. Got to gym in the morning on time.
2. Cleaned kitchen.

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Short-term Goals:
1. Work on paper doll sketches.
2. Set up archived version of The Training Journal forum at PDB from Hershey Girl’s backup.
3. Upgrade Wordpress to 2.0.
4. Transplant two tomato vines and plant Swiss Chard.
5. Finish taxes.