Sweaty reality

I have a question that has been bothering me for some time now. Why is it that most gym commercials are devoid of fat people? I am being completely serious. Unless it is one of those before and after commercials, there is not a fat person to be seen, which seems a little suspicious to me.

I was watching a gym commercial the other day and there was not a single person in the commercial who was not fit and in a good weight range. The announcer was spewing some nonsense about losing weight in the new year and the camera focused on a lovely young woman who was in no way fat. I mean if people are considering her fat, I don't want to know what they think of me.

Honestly it is all a little discouraging. I mean the media is busy shoving into my face that what I would find as ideal is still fat. That is just twisted. The media is a bunch of jackholes.

You know I would love to see honest commercials. Is that too much to ask for? I just for once want to see a gym commercial that, or an ad for working out, where the people looked like people look in reality.

I can see it now.

The camera pans over a room of cardio machines. There is a mixture of people in every state of fitness there; the old guy who is jogging along steadily, the tiny girl in matching sports bra and sneakers running for all she is worth, the guy in sleeveless shirt and neon Nike's sweating so hard that you can see sweat puddling on the console of his machine, the really fat chick who is smiling as she manages a steady walk.

The camera then cuts to a shot of the weight area. Mostly it is guys doing various lifts, their faces straining under the weights, veins sticking out of their foreheads and necks as they grunt loudly trying to get that bar up one more time. Their would be a few women too but only a few would be tiny little things. The women lifting more seriously would be thicker girls, red faced with sweaty hair plastered back under an old bandana.

No one would be wearing makeup. You would see unfortunate sweat marks on peoples backs, their stomachs, and their butts. There would be more looks of disdain and concentration than smiles of unexplainable joy. At least one person would be winded to the point that they look like they might puke.

Everyone would be working though and that would be obvious. Sweat. Effort. Energy. Real people.

Now that is a gym I would want to go to. It is not a gym full of plastic people who work out 4 times a day and live on a diet of kale and chi seed smoothies and never have questionable sweat marks on their clothes. It is not a place full of people that make me feel self conscious for daring to exist in their fitness fantasy world.

Actually that is the gym that I go to. I have belonged to a number of gyms in my life, and with the exception of one, they are all full of very normal people. The number of women I see wearing makeup while working out is small. The number of 'perfect' people is grossly outnumbered by people who look like they have something to be working towards and not simply maintaining.

That is reality. Call me crazy, but I much prefer the reality to the fantasy here.