disappointed or not

I have been losing a significant amount of weight over the last two years. Well, if you consider 22% of your total body weight a significant amount. I like to relate the amount by percentage rather than pounds because I think people (me being one of them) put too much emphasis on the number of pounds than the actual totality of the effort. It seems people's perspective shift when you take the importance off the number of pounds and refer to percentage of body weight.

What do I mean by that?

Consider a two hundred pound person losing ten percent of their body weight. Total weight loss = 20 lb.s . People hear this and only focus on the number. You mention you have lost 10% and the visual in your head is like "Holy smokes! That is a complete tenth of this person!".

Having recently hit a long-lived and unforgiving plateau in my efforts has led me to do what was thought of as folly in the past. I joined a gym. The last thing I wanted was to spend an hour of any time sweating and grunting in the unwelcome company of others who treat the sweatorium
as the equivalent of a social hall and bingo parlor. All prepping for the oncoming weekly work outs by laying out what they will wear on the Sunday prior, arranging their pilates class schedules to make sure they attend the same ones as the rest of their friends.

What was it actually like? Well, first of all, all the major clubs seem to pitch a "free two week pass" type of affair (which I have taken full advantage of) which will leave you exposed to a hard sell from the club "representative". The gentleman who was pitching the offer was not well suited to his work: he did not take time to show me any of the equipment or the facilities (although he pointed and alluded to "amenities" and he did not sound like he knew much about working out. I would find it safe to say he was not interested in any more than being on the receiving end of a "walk-over" contract, which requires zero interaction, only the luck to be standing in the right place at the right time.

I have worked out five times so far and have yet to encounter a clatch of yammering, you-should-try-this-class types, espousing helpful sound bites while you strain to lift some paltry amount of weight three inches into the air. If anything, most everyone keeps very much to themselves unless you happen to be waiting for the same equipment (which has only happened once, so far). It has been so completely uneventful, it would be considered boring. I am compelled to mention that my schedule only allows me to work out between 11am to 12:30pm which seems to be unpopular with the masses, as the place is near empty throughout my entire stay.

I am unsure if I am disappointed or not...

-nn