Fat, not Fit

I should have known better than to have a fitness assessment at the gym.

Honestly, what was I thinking?

I know what I was thinking; I feel like I am in decent shape.  Sure, I've eaten more pizza in Bangkok than I care to admit, and I'm more dedicated to burgers and ice cream than I was in the past.  There's no Aaron here to make sure that I'm eating home cooked meals that he so lovingly prepares.  Plus, I work in a school of stairs and feel like I'm consistently walking around to get to this place or that.  So, I thought to myself, what is there to lose?

Hm.

I scheduled this for a Friday night.  I met up with this girl trainer, very sweet, with very little English, with her hot pink shoes.

She tells me to get on the scale, and I do.  I'm heavier than I thought, which doesn't shock me that much.  She then asks me my height, in centimeters.

Yeah, I'm American.  We don't do the metric system.  I know about my centimeters, but I'm almost certain I have no idea how many centimeters tall I am.  I say, I have no clue.  And the frenzy begins.  She went seeking information, there was a calculator involved, things going on, chaos reigning.  We finally figured it out, though somehow gained a stray male in the process.  She inputted the height and got some printout about how much of my body was fat and bone and water and clipped it to the paper.

This is what I consider the main drawback of the gym that I attend: men.  This slovenly looking dude with glasses falling off his face was chatting in Thai to the woman attending to my fitness test and looking at my paper.  My anti-cheating reflexes, honed after years in education, rushed to intervene and I told him to back off.  He spoke English, and mumbled some apology, but it took two or three more snarky comments before he actually left the area that we were in.

Dudes.  I was annoyed.

Then I had to run 2.4 km, and I was more annoyed.
Then there were push ups and sit ups.
Then I had to test how strong my hand was with this little tool.

Then I was told I'm fat.

Now, before the affront sets in, allow me to say that I'm not offended.  I was called fat even at my skinniest in Cambodia, because it's just the word that means big, or bigger than what you were, or bigger than whoever the speaker is.  News flash: most people in Asia are quite slender.  After so many years not hearing that, it was a bit of a shock to my system.  But, honestly, I know where I am as a person and as a fit human.  In fact, according to the lady, I have to lost about 10kg to be within the really healthy range, and that is about what I guessed as well.  She also told me to work out 2 hours a day, 4 days a week, which I think is a bit excessive, but the rest of her advice was sound.

I came to the conclusion, though, that I really don't enjoy males in my gym space.  I don't like lifting weights with a bunch of dudes lolling around.  I don't like classes where I'm one woman in a sea of testosterone.  I like supportive females around me.  I really enjoyed the fitness classes I was in in Pittsburgh for that.  Kickboxing only had a man here or there, Boot camp too.

Either way, I feel like I proved myself to the lady when we went around to try machines.  I know, and now she knows, that my arm strength is minimal.  Push ups aren't my thing.  But, when you see me on the leg press, you find out that my legs are very strong.  So, she did tell me after that observation that I was "Fat but strong."  It's not that far off the mark.  I have work that I could be doing, and will be doing, as long as I can keep dancing it off with Tor+ (This is his name in the schedule because of a Thai tonal issue) or getting ab killed by Kwang.

Basically, I like the crazy classes that I go to, but they don't compare to the awesome ILKB studio.  I was in Body Combat on Friday.... with the man that wanted us to yell whenever we hit the air.  It was hilarious.  So, for now, my goal is to trim up and try to work on my tummy.  I think I can do some good things with the support of the gym, and hopefully someday I'll be considered fit instead of fat to the machines that teach my classes.