I Cried at the Gym — It Was the Best Workout I’ve Ever Had
A tale of reframing self-talk, honoring your past self, and recalling the life-transforming journey
Dear Internet diary,
I cried.
I cried at the gym.
Usually, I talk to myself in the gym mirror, and I dig in like a grizzled interrogator at the end of a long shift. I bark obscenities into that mirror that I’d never want to imply to someone I hate. My self-roasts leave burn marks on my soul, and skid marks on my palms. I wouldn’t call it motivation, much, in the same way, you wouldn’t refer to a cattle prod as a pep talk.
But it gets the job done. What am I going to do, fight back?
I didn’t want to go to the gym today. I left a lead weight in my gut from eating like I was being timed for a record. I sat outside of the building for 40 minutes, plump and bloated, trying to come up with an excuse satisfactory enough to turn around and keep shoveling high-calorie coal into my bottomless simple carb incinerator. I’d have to waddle in there anyway after what I’d done to myself in my kitchen.
I was moments away from drafting that excuse and going home. I can give up on myself without a second thought. I’ve done it plenty of times before.
I began to reverse, and right as I was about to turn my head, I caught my own eye in the tinted window of a car next to me. At least I wasn’t the only one in that parking lot doing something that might hurt me later. Stretched out and fish-eyed, the distorted image reflected back to me resembled someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. Someone I hadn’t been in a long time. Portly, round, puffy. A little sad looking.
Do you know who I can’t give up on?
Him.
The guy in the old picture I still have on my phone. A laborious scroll through my camera roll at this point — it’s been years since I resembled him. In a normal, non-tinted mirror, anyway.
I grabbed his hand and walked us into the gym. He’d never been there before. I couldn’t wait to show him around.
He started this journey with none of the knowledge I have now. He’d never seen results at all, much less the 110 pounds of weight he selflessly lifted from my frame. He didn’t care that he felt like trash from eating trash. He wanted something he couldn’t even imagine in the way I get to physically see now, and yet, he lept blindly forward anyway, not knowing if he’d land. He pushed forward without a concept of what success is even supposed to look like.
The person who couldn’t yet do what I’m doing today — but without whom, I could not do what I’m doing today — didn’t give up on me.
Who am I to give up on him?
Today was my opportunity to let him into my world. The one he created for me, the one he left in my care. There were tears of joy, celebrating his selfless effort that put me where I am today. There were tears of sadness, in knowing each weight I lifted ultimately moved me further away from him.
There were tears of regret, knowing I’d nearly failed him.
And that’s the person I decided to talk to in the mirror today.
I must have looked crazy to the others who scarcely populate the gym floor at 3 pm before the after-work rush, as I flipped recklessly through an ensemble of unpredictable emotions. Happy, sad, wistful, distraught.
Determined.
I had so much to tell him. So much he hadn’t gotten to see. Harder than the sets I was pushing to failure, in an effort to show off to him, I was trying to decide what I’d say to him next. How to show him just how far we’d come since the day he made the butterfly effect decision to have one less soda at dinner. An hour at the gym wasn’t enough to catch him up on the six years he’d given me.
I congratulated him on each of my completed sets. Our completed sets. I forgave him for the few reps I came short on. I told him I’d get it in the next one.
And I did. We did.
Despite his lack of knowledge, despite never having seen those results, he had one lesson to teach me before we parted ways; be kinder to myself. He’d be listening.
I smiled.
I smiled at the gym.
If you’re starting a weight loss or fitness journey, you’re the person I spoke to today. You’re the person you’ll speak to years from now when you’ve achieved a dream, and, in a moment of weakness, you inevitably lose sight of the bravery that got you there.
You’ll be that same person forever — you’ll just have made so much progress from where you started that they’ll be too far behind you to see.
Carry a picture with you.
