Notes from the gym

I can honestly say that joining the gym was the best decision I ever made. Ever since that day, my life’s been on the up and up. You know how it is. You drink and smoke and you eat shit takeaway or perhaps you sniff, snort, eyeball or inject (in which case you probably don’t eat at all) your way through your twenties and, sooner or later, it all catches up with you. You’re one of two things. A bloated wreck or an emaciated corpse.

My poison was always booze and it was one one boozy night that the sudden urge to change my ways struck me. This unexpected moment of clarity came when an old friend of mine took me to what must be the dirtiest, sweatiest, seediest gay bar in all of London. Not that I have much experience of gay bars — all I know was this one was pretty seedy, the windows blacked out like an old bookie’s, the thudding sound of techno beating from outside. First of all I was astonished that everyone on entry took their shirt off. I’d never seen anything like it. I’m reminded of the Homer Simpson quote: everyone else came with a six pack, I’m the only one who showed up with a full keg.

For me, the opposite was true. The girl of my dreams (I thought — how wrong I was!) had abandoned me and, in silent protest, I’d refused to eat for several months. I weighed somewhere under ten stone. With my pale skin, waxy complexion, and ill fitting clothes, I looked like the skinniest white boy (barely) alive. Blake Fielder-Civil looked like a paragon of virtue, vitality, and health in comparison to me. A virtual skeleton, my body had given up the ghost — and though I didn’t realise it, I was in danger of becoming one.

I wasn’t anorexic. I was on hunger strike. My body demanded change.

The next day I woke up with a habitual hangover and (unsurprisingly) no girl beside me in bed. I looked at myself in the mirror. I thought back to the writhing mass of exquisitely carved male bodies I’d seen the night before. I laughed at the irony. It’s typical. We spend our teenage years making fun of the gays and the geeks, yet they’re the ones who end up inheriting the earth. I was never going to be an investment banker — oh no. A lazy arts grad, I was stuck peddling words for my crust. But it wasn’t too late to do something about what remained of my body. I had two choices. Accept mediocrity, or join the gym. I joined the gym.

Determinedly, I threw myself into my new role. With my geek glasses, wiry physique, and permanenet aura of bacherlorism, I was like an ad for Mr Muscle. Unsurprisingly, my right arm was stronger than my left. Had it really been that long? I guessed so. Every time I felt like giving up, I looked in the mirror. And so I set to work.

Of course I never expected instant results, but results came quickly enough. After the end of the first month I’d slowed down my drinking. I’d started eating better. I’d put on weight. More importantly, for the first time in my life, I felt strong. No longer needing to resort to the withering putdown or the silent snarl (the practised look of contempt) I found myself feeling more comfortable in my own skin. I offered to help people lift their furniture. I playfully arm wrestled my friends. I got into fights, and won.

At three months girls began to notice me or — should I say — a different kind of girl began to notice me. Previously, I’d only ever been able to attract extremly small girls (usually the sort with an eating disorder, a drug problem, or both). After all, what girl wants to go out with a man who weighs less than them? What woman wants a man who can’t put his arms around her and make her feel safe? What woman wants an emaciated wreck? I’d been in the dating paddling pool. Now I was in the ocean. And it’s true what they say. There’s plenty more fish in the sea.

The trouble with fishing is it’s no use having an enormous rod if you’re not strong enough to reel them in.

My work life started to improve as well. I went to bed earlier, I got up earlier, I felt tired less often. Sure, I was spending up to two hours a day, every day, in the company of a combination of muscle-bound posers, butch bears, and muscle marys — all to the pounding beats of balearic four to the floor — but (headphones in) for the first time in years, I felt good about myself.

I began to wonder what had kept me from the gym so long. Was it pride? Was it insistence that it was my mind, not my body, that mattered? Or was it simply laziness? A refusal to admit that results demanded hard work? Personally, I think it was the latter. Before I started working out I always assumed that eventually I would earn something for nothing, that my life would improve without me working at it. Working out made me realise that improvement is gradual. Improvement is painful. But improvement is worth it.

These days I’m healthier, happier, a more rounded individual. I look back at photos of myself from those days and I wonder just how close I was to just disappearing. I became so light, so ethereal, a breeze might have swept me away. Now I weigh a little bit more but I think the most important thing is this — I’ve got both feet planted firmly on the ground.

“The Incredible Sulk”