In perusing some jogging-related message boards recently, I noticed how many beginning-runner members mentioned being afraid of taking up jogging, because they were overweight and were shy/ashamed of being seen in public with their fat “jiggling”. This made me sad.
What I want to say is this: If you’re significantly overweight and anxious about what others might think when they see you running, swimming, lifting weights, whatever, please don’t be. I for one feel genuinely inspired and proud of such folks when I see them–they’re taking positive steps towards a better life, which a lot of folks are too afraid or too lazy or too apathetic to do. And I know I’m not alone; I’ve been a gym rat for years now, and I’ve NEVER seen anyone “thin” snicker or even look twice at heavy folks who are getting their sweat on and their life change underway.
Remember, even if you jog really really slowly or jiggle when you do so, you’re still running faster than folks on the couch. And others admire this. Many more than you’d think.
I don’t mean any of this to sound patronizing, at all. I really do feel that people who try to make positive lifestyle changes are to be lauded and held in esteem. Not laughed at, no matter how they look.
But you shouldn’t give a damn what the unwashed YouTube masses think, anyway. (They’re probably fatter than you, anyway.) Changing one’s life for the better and inspiring others in the process is worth the momentary Internet ignominy, I would think.
Wear sweats. That helped me overcome my self-consciousness when I started jogging. It’s hard for people to see ‘jiggly parts’ when you’re wearing big, baggy clothing. And once you’ve been jogging a while, you’ll just get more and more confident with yourself, and the ‘jiggly parts’ will get smaller and smaller, and just won’t be as big a deal to you.
I started deep water aerobics 3 months ago. It’s working. I’ve lost 15 lbs, a drop in the 150lb bucket I’m carrying, but a start. I’m stronger and more flexible.
Last week our instructor said she had been asked by a bariatric surgery team to talk to a group of potential clients. She’d been asked because these people will need to get moving if the surgery is to be a long term success and many had expressed the same fear of being ridiculed while exercising.
She asked us if we’d mind her taking pictures of us in the water. We all agreed, some of us wrote words of encouragement too. I even let her take a picture of me out of the water.
We are not an attractive group, by any stretch. Many people wear odd clothing combinations. We’re old and young, fat and skinny. Many of us have health problems ranging from bad joints to debilitating strokes.
She came back after her talk and said we were inspiring to the group. We inspire ourselves.
Are you even fat? Have you ever been fat? I’m not trying to hate here, because you have a nice body-positive attitude and that’s really cool to see. But it sounds like you’re dismissing with a hand-wave what is, for many people, decades of conditioned self-loathing. Which has been ingrained through years of being shamed by people around them. If you’d been told every single day by an asshole parent or sibling or spouse that your fatness was grossing them out, don’t you think it’d be pretty tough to just “learn” to be okay with yourself, just like that? The only way to “learn” that is through lots and lots of therapy. And that’s not even guaranteed to work.
Not to be mean, but saying what you’re saying is like telling an anorexic person “just eat!” or a fat person “just stop overeating!” or an arachnophobe “just stop being afraid of spiders!” You can’t tell a truly anxious person “just stop worrying about what you’re worrying about! it’s all okay!” They’ll roll their eyes because you give off the appearance of just not getting it.
I used to be there, when I weighed 275 at 6’3" – only run at night or in morning. It’s embarrassing to be out there with your fatrolls jiggling and mouth-breathing. No matter how many people are like “thumbs-up, fatty,” it doesn’t address the self-perception of being a gross fatbody.
I’m just a bit overweight, maybe twenty pounds, but I do worry about people seeing me jiggle when I run. People say “Oh, nobody notices!” but when I’m in the car with my dad and he sees a runner often no bigger than I am and says “Look at Big Bertha go!” I wonder if he’s ever driven up behind me and not recognized me until he already decided I had a fat ass.
More disturbingly, a security guard who thankfully works at another location now also works as a water meter reader and he ran into me running in my tights a few winters ago and made several complimentary but extremely uncomfortable-making comments about my ass. I’d much rather hear about Big Bertha, frankly. It was skeezy, and he knew where I lived.
My daughter told me that same thing recently. She didn’t want to jog because there was a very skinny young woman jogging at the same time of day and she felt it was an uncomfortable comparison. I pointed out to her that the only person making the comparison was her. She admitted this was true, not sure if she’s gone back to jogging yet.
Me, I’m 30 lbs overweight and I jog almost every day. 5K (thanks to couch to 5K) I’m slow but I get the job done and I don’t really care who sees me.
I don’t know - if I had kids (and sometimes grown-ups) yelling insults at me when I jogged around, as I’ve seen sometimes, then I would also want to confine my jogging to times that they weren’t there.
I think it’s the unfortunate truth that the assholes are the ones that actually say something to overweight people working out. What overweight people don’t realize is that for every asshole that is negative about it, there are ninety nine other people that view them as either an inspiration, don’t notice them, or are somewhere in between.
I used to be overweight (5’7" and 190-ish) and also felt the embarrassment of working out in public. Over the last ten years I’ve been down to 120lbs. and now am up to about 155. Everywhere along that scale, I still felt self-consious about how I looked. I don’t think it goes away when you lose the weight, tbh. It might get easier to shut those thoughts out, but it never goes away.
Anyway, back to my original point. I know that it’s only the assholes that say something, so I make a point of telling people (skinny and fat) if they’ve inspired me. I run and ride a lot, and I do the community stairs regularly (as does a big contingent of the downtown population) and see a lot of different people working out. I feel like if I say positive things to people instead of just silently feeling inspired, I might counteract that assholish comment they received last month or next week.
I would encourage the rest of you to do the same. You might make a bit of a difference is someone’s confidence.
The fact that your dad acts like an asshole shouldn’t stop you.
In the neighborhood where i run, there are periodically a few pretty fat people out jogging. It’s clearly a major effort for them, and in some cases they’re obviously both physically and emotionally uncomfortable, but i always do my best to give them the runner’s nod when i pass. I don’t care how fat you are, or how fast you go, if you’re out there pounding the pavement, then you’re one of the Community of Runners, and that’s enough for me.
I guess I have to admit that I probably don’t really “get it”, because I’ve never been overweight. But I certainly don’t mean to be glib, either, although I can see how it would sound that way to some. I just wanted to express, in whatever small way I could, and for whatever small encouragement that it might be to someone, that I and other folks out there not only are NOT laughing at you*, we’re applauding and admiring you for fighting the good fight. And sometimes we’re even inspired to follow that example of courage and fortitude in our own fitness goals.
When I first started running a few years ago, I weighed 230 pounds at 5’5 and wore a size 18. I lost 80 pounds and was running 6 miles a day several days a week by the time I stopped running (pregnancy and now injuries).
Wear loose clothes, and if people honk and wave, pretend they’re doing it because they think you’re hot. Eventually, that’s why they’ll be doing it. After a while, the ones honking and waving were also stopping and asking for my number.
That’s really nice of you, but honestly, I would hate to have someone say “You’re really inspiring to me!” almost as much as I would hate “Ha ha, you’re so fat, why even bother!?” Either way I know you were forming a judgement about me.
This is why I love my $100 craigslist treadmill. Working out at home eliminates all the self-consciousness.
Also flip the motherfuckers the bird (or carry a golf club) if those asshole give you any static. Some douche in a car is doing a hell of a let less than you are, no matter how heavy you are. Also, blow cigar or pipe smoke in their faces if they stop to give you static. Anybody who exercises rules, way more than some douche cunt in some fat-ass automobile giving static to people in crosswalks crossing legally.
