Overheard in the locker room...

[wshaffer]

I went out and ran 5K (3.1 miles) at lunch today with the fledgling run club at work. (There are now two of us, plus the trainer.) I had to take a couple of walk breaks, but still came in slightly under my best official 5K race time.

As I was getting ready to shower off in the locker room afterwards, I overheard the most extraordinary conversation between two women who were changing into their workout gear:

Thin and fit-looking woman 1: Ugh. I am having no luck losing 5 pounds.
Thin and fit-looking woman 2: Yeah, whatever, I'm trying to lose 10 and I'm having no luck at all.

I'm looking at her and thinking that the only way 10 pounds are coming off her frame is if she amputates a limb.

So, I go shower and they're still at it when I get back...
Thin and fit-looking woman 2: So, I have ten days to get to size ZERO.

And, okay, I understand that women do this kind of fat talk as a social bonding thing as much as anything else, and that they possibly weren't as distressed about their "excess" weight as they sounded. But it really bothered me that these women can't seem to be happy with their tanned, toned, slender bodies when I feel so comfortable with my pale, squidgy, but increasingly aerobically fit self.

But I felt a tiny bit smug, too, because there was a time when overhearing such a conversation would have sent me into a spasm of, "Oh no, if these women think that they're *fat*, I must look like a *whale* to them." And now I'm like, "Pffft! This whale just ran 5K."

Maybe I should have invited them to come running with the club next Tuesday.

Comments

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, maybe if they exercised something below the jaw.... :)

I just signed up for the 3k walk at work and the annual cardio challenge. Go, me!

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Go you! Is the cardio challenge the thing where you track your activity with the Nike+ and iPod? That sounds like fun.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

Yep! Turns out Tim Cook, our COO, is also on the Nike board and is a ginormous Nike fan. Plus these events encourage us to keep up with good habits.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I hate this. I hate it particularly when the people involved parse me as someone who will join on in, and the Total Awkward that ensues when I don't.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, the Awkward. One of the minor blessings of being someone who by our current cultural standards looks like they have rather more than 5 or 10 pounds to lose is that people often won't engage me in that kind of talk. If they do, I usually say something carefully neutral like, "Yes, losing weight is very difficult," or "You know, if I were you, I wouldn't be worried about my weight." And then change the subject, very fast, to something safe and anodyne. Like politics, religion, or the serial comma.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, this should get parsed as "I am saner than you" and instead gets parsed as either "I think I'm hotter than you" or "I don't care about being hot." Monkeys.