Every time I see a fat person at the gym, I’m cheering for them so hard in my head. Mental high fives all day buddy.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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I've never, ever seen a fat person get made fun of at the gym outside of like, highschool: You're good.
It really is pretty rare, but it happens sometimes.
highschool
I wonder if that's the origin of that stereotype. Kids are jerks.
Thanks GiantFloppyCock, you’re the best!
GiantFloppyCock for the win!
I'm voting GiantFloppyCock for president!
He didn't say he high fives with his hands.
"Have seen this way too often"
I guess it can be argued that once or twice is way too often.
Dude! The gym I used to go to when I was still able to lift was brutal about that shit.
And I don't mean towards the folks coming in to improve themselves. The guy that owned the joint was just a super gentle, kind person. But he was willing to make sure anyone there knew they could use the place free of bullshit.
It was a super friendly place for women and girls for one thing. The membership specified that as one of the things that was grounds for immediate revocation if membership. You didn't harass other members, and it did apply to everyone. You know how some gyms get with women. It's fucking ridiculous sometimes. But at his place, a woman could show up and know that not only would the owner and staff intervene if someone got annoying, that they'd never see the person again. Most of the regulars would step in as well.
He was also hell on wheels about people coming in that were out of shape, be it fat or really skinny. You do not fuck with someone trying to do better. It was printed out over the entrance to the weight area. Gym policy was firm on that, but you'd sometimes get some new meathead that came because it was known for having great support for power lifting that didn't believe it.
And we didn't stand for it either. It was always more of a low key , "not cool man, you can't do that here", and if they stopped, they'd eventually stop being watched like a rabbit in a wolf den. But if they didn't, somebody would go get Paul, or whoever was on office duty, and any other regulars would be taking the beginner to the side and apologizing while someone else explained to the meathead that they just lost their membership and not to cause any shit.
Best fucking gym I ever went to. Everybody was super helpful and chill, but weren't afraid to help hype you up for a big lift. And hype you up after one, as far as that goes.
Hell, when I first had to stop lifting heavy stuff and go for more of an overall workout, it was all support. And when I got hurt at work years later, Paul told me not to worry about membership fees at all. Just wanted me to know I could come in and do whatever my physical therapist wanted me to, no worries.
Loved that fucking place. It closed during COVID, and Paul couldn't afford to open back up
I'm a fat guy currently going to a gym where nearly everyone is fit and built, and everyone has been nothing but kind and supportive. I've even had people come up to me and say they've noticed my progress and congratulated me (I've just hit 10% body weight weightloss if anyone's interested).
Wholesome AF. Keep it up gym bro.
Always love hearing people found supportive gyms! Congrats on the progress and keep at it dude, soon enough you'll be on the other side supporting those in your shoes now!
Right on broseph, keep those gains coming :)
I have literally never seen this at a gym.
I’m sure you haven’t
What is this fanfic about fat people being bullied at the gym? This never happens.
Who the fuck downvoted you? I've never encountered anyone bullying fat people in the gym before. Maybe these memers should actually go visit a gym.
Yeah, this literally never happens. Every fit guy in the gym is rooting for the fat guy to make it.
Been both sides and yup
That's precisely why I'm not there. I'm too fat for the gym. There are women and Children present. I'd scar them for life.
ETA:
To clarify: This is not what happens, this is my own self conscious, self loathing behavior giving me excuses for not bettering myself. I am aware of my mental health problems, I'm just not dealing with them.
Literally no one makes fun of overweight people at the gym OP probably never stepped foot in a gym in their life. People are too busy doing their own thing to care. Plus gym goers are supportive people who would respect you for trying to better yourself anyway
Definitely was one of my biggest fears growing up. People absolutely make fun of people at the gym, just not to their face and normally not about their weight. They normally just make fun of your form and stuff like that but only when they’re slackin.
I might quitely make fun of the form of muscular gym bro who is displaying a smug attitude and clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing, despite going there for the last five years. But never a fat person, never a beginner taking their first steps.
See what the fuck? People will swear up and down they’re not hateful, then eagerly indulge in hating “the right people”.
That guy didn’t lose his claim to your respect just because he showed what you considered a “smug attitude”.
Maybe his “smug attitude” is him refusing to let people like you drag down his day. Fuck.
I’m not dragging down his day. I’ll make a mental note like, wow his form is terrible and yet he poses for the camera lol (because of course he records it). I don’t know why you consider this hate.
You don’t see how making fun of someone is hate? Damn
As a middle aged fat person who has recently joined a gym I can confirm you are correct.
Nah bruh, most gym communities are pretty welcoming places. I love seeing fat folks making an effort - how the hell are you going to give someone a hard time for trying to make themselves better? That's pathetic and I don't think that happens much at all. I'm on the other end being a wimpy twig, I step on machine that a 50yr old woman just steps off and I cut the weight in half of what she had it on and start grunting. I'd be an easy target I guess if people wanted to be jerks, but I've seen nothing but respect thankfully.
Building muscle is hard for some folks and it takes time. The biggest dudes at most gyms are the nicest folks. The "big guys" that make fun of people... Get eaten for breakfast by the real gym kings. You don't get huge by being full of yourself, you get that way through a ton of hard work and learning to humble yourself.
I knew a dude that was a pro wrestler, huge AF. Had the world's biggest comic collection in his basement, total sweetheart. He played a heel to further add insult to injury lol
OP is lying, probably never seen a gym in person. This literally never happens. Many/most gym goers started overweight or at least nervous, intimidated. Everyone is very sympathetic for this situation and if anything, you will get encouragement and genuine help if you need. But most like, people will just mind their own business, unless you muster up the courage to ask them to show you how that machine works.
Aside from the fact that no sane person would mock you for trying to better yourself, you could also start smaller and just, say, go for walks or swimming at a local pool or other not-gym forms of exercise.
That said, diet is usually the biggest factor.
I can’t wait until we have good exoskeleton tech. You could reduce a person’s felt weight by 50%. Like those pull-up bar machines with a platform you can stand on. You can develop the muscles even if you’re too weak to do a single rep un-aided.
A great alternative would be an o’neill cylinder or a spaceship under thrust, so you could control the gravity. Like imagine a big o’neill cylinder that was for helping people escape the pit of morbid obesity. People could start out living at 0.1 g, just to sort of remember what it’s like to dance and jump and be nimble. Over the course of a year you could spin that cylinder a little faster and a little faster and the gravity would gradually increase, and people’s bodies adapt to it as it goes.
You could even go beyond 1 g. People could slowly and steadily increase it up to 1.5 or 2 g, and come back to earth strong as fuck.
No bullshit my homie, a good gym, one that's more focused on strength training in specific, is the best place to start. I can't promise there won't ever be assholes, but even the fairly generic gyms that do more aerobics and cross fit type of stuff are good about it. And the typical weight room, even when it's body builders rather than folks that are strength focused are often going to be more than welcoming.
You have no idea how many really big guys didn't start out that way. A lot of them started lifting because they didn't have a good foundation in physical fitness as a youngster (myself included). So I can promise you that assholes making fun of you are extremely rare.
So, if you ever manage to get past the self consciousness enough to try it, I think it would be the perfect start. Even if all you do at first is go in, do some curls on a machine and walk back out, I promise you that you'll start to see improvement from it in a few weeks at most. And once you see that first little bit of change, it'll help your brain realize that the rest can change too. It's your body, and you can own it the way you want it. It's hard fucking work, every single time, and it never really stops. But it's there when you're ready to do that work.
I can't think of many things that shut up the inner critic more than physical fitness efforts. For me, it was lifting and then marital arts that made things work. Dealing with that kind of self esteem and doubt and fear is a giant barrier for sure (again, I've been there), but if you can get that first step taken, it's worth it.
I've been considering it more and more. There's a gym nearish with a pool, and I'm a very strong swimmer, and it's one of the few exercises that isn't physically painful because of my bad back and feet. But for real, I know no one is actually making fun of me or other heavy people in that environment. It's more my own brain narrating the worst possible opinions and applying them to everyone I meet. Which, funnily enough, is me doing to everyone else what I fear they are doing to me: being unkind.
Oh man! Water exercise is so sweet when you've got a bad back and/or joints. Being able to get a decent workout without being laid up for two days is a beautiful thing for me :)
But, I feel you. I've got that same inner critic sniping away. As I've gotten older, it's less about physical things and a lot more about mistakes made, things that were hurtful that I didn't have the ability to see as hurtful when I said or did them.
But along that, I did figure out that the old truism about having to give yourself something first, before you can really give it to or get it from others holds up. If I'm not kind to myself, if I can't forgive myself, and love myself (at least a little), it's nigh impossible to genuinely give those things to someone else.
I don't know if that actually applies to everyone or not; maybe other people can give truly of themselves without accepting good things from themselves first, but it seems to be the case.
I went to one of those ninja warrior gyms. Called Ninja Nation, and you do all the stuff from the Ninja Warrior game shows.
I couldn’t do anything there.
Only reason I’m saying this is about the painful joints thing. One of the simplest things I tried to do there is just hang, from my hands, from a bar. I found I could hang for about five seconds.
The other thing I found is that there a sharp pain in my shoulders when I hung from my hands. I thought this was evidence of my shoulders being fucked up. In fact, my self image for years had been “I’ve got bad shoulders”.
But my friend who’s a massage therapist just said “You know you can get rid of that stuff. It’s just because you haven’t hung from your arms since you were a little kid”.
And he was right. I kept just putting my arms into whatever position would cause that sharp pain (a duller pain would have worried me more) and eventually that pain just went away. It was like cobwebs that had built up from the narrowed range of motion I was using my shoulders for.
The whole reason I’m saying this is for your physically painful exercise. Some of that may just be your body sort of shrinking its range out of non-use.
Pain isn’t always evidence that a body part is “bad”. Like if you were on a plane in a tiny spot for twelve hours, your legs would hurt as you finally stretched them out again. But that pain doesn’t indicate your legs are “bad” and it definitely doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stretch those legs.
Just food for thought
I've been meaning to swim more too. You should do it, so should I.
The simplest way to condition your body is temperature. Just running cold water over your body provides physical benefits, including toward mental health.
Don’t let yourself slide. It only gets darker and darker if you let yourself go downhill.
I’ve never seen even the slightest bit of negativity at the gym. Come to think of it, I’ve seen almost zero negativity between any strangers on the street in like 10 years.
I'll change that for ya
I've had a few "gym-bro" friends and absolutely none of them ever shamed or made negative remarks about a fat person at the gym. Personally I feel a sense of pride when I see someone relatively unhealthy doing any kind of exercise, it takes effort when you're not used to it!
Yeah I never understood people who fat shame people at the gym... It's like making fun of someone for being addicted at a rehab clinic, it's like making fun of someone for not having a job at a job interview... It's lack mocking someone for having a problem in the middle of solving said problem.