Good bye for-profit fitness centers

Recently I had a brush with a corporately run gym and it was awful. Once before I thought about joining a Goodlife, but got turned off by the agressive marketing (i.e. calling my house every day after I had taken their facility tour). Otherwise I have stuck with the YMCA, which I worked for in Belleville and Peterborough and which I have found pretty chill, or whatever athletics club I had access to through school. I should point out now that I have no pretensions of being the fittest/thinnest/hawtest chick around. I like to be active, for about the last year I've run at least 20k per week, in high school I did Karate and I cheerleaded (I know, right!?). Buuuut I also like to eat. Cheese, bread, apple crisp with ice cream, avocado and red wine probably round out my list of top 10 favourite things ever. So anyways, fitness is part of a healthy, happy, balanced lifestyle for me but hardly an obsession. I'm comfortable with my body and I know if I ate less or worked out more I could look more like the Hollywood ideal, but thats hardly a priority.

So, our story begins in Sheppard-Yonge subway station a few weeks ago, where a peppy pair of young people are handing out free 10 day passes to Xtreme(!!!) fitness. I recently relocated to North York, I have more time on my hands after quitting one job and my U of T gym access expired, so it seemed like the perfect chance to do some free hot yoga and hit the treadmill when it's cold or rainy outside. A few days later I headed to the gym, feeling pretty motivated. First I had to wait around for a sales associate to be available. When I got to her office she gave me a little survey about my fitness goals and then launches into the membership sales routine. Having done a similar job at the YMCA I can see through her tactics, although it is significantly more aggressive and manipulative than what I was ever encouraged to do. We finally establish that, because I don't even know what country I'll be living in come September, I'm in no position to commit to a membership; "Yeah, you think your disappointed you should talk to my mom! I can just, like, do the 10 days though, right?" "Suuuuure, I guess." All this takes something like 35 minutes, but before I can go hit the treadmill I get roped into a fitness evaluation scheduled for early the next week.

Enter 5 days later. I show up late for said evaluation but everyone is still all smiles. I join Ryan in his office. Ryan is a sincere and sweet young trainer who has been well indoctrinated into the professionally muscular lifestyle at XTREEEME fitness. We go through my little lifestyle survey; "what are your goals?... and how will that, like, improve your life? How will YOU benefit... uh huh, uh huh" *scrawls notes*. He really got a kick out of my dislike for my 'muffin top'. We get to the nutrition and fitness section of the survey which is where things get judgy. In the 'how many alcoholic beverages do you consume per week?:' line I just wrote lots, which gets a pretty big eyebrow raise. Ryan says: "soooo like, 20+??" I say: "more like 15-20". Although considering a standard serving of beer is 12oz and a pint is 20oz Ryan was likely more on the mark here. We talk about my diet, "You eat out 5 times per week!! Thats tooo much" which makes me wonder if Ryan has any concept at all of how busy my life is and how unsatisfying of a meal a protein shake makes to the professionally not muscular. I love cheese, but generally I make an effort to eat a balanced diet. When I eat a meal without fruits or veg I am crippled by guilt. This doesn't seem to convince Ryan that I'm gonna survive past the age of 30.

Once we complete my survey Ryan starts taking my stats. While Ryan seems concerned with my weight I'm thrilled. "ooh that's about the same it was last time I weighed myself, in September, bitchin'!" He then sends a little electric current through my bare feet to take my body fat percentage. This is what reeeaally got me. I'm gonna over-share here and say my measured body fat is 25.5%, as this will be relevant later. He then measures my shoulders, biceps and hips. When he gets to my waste he puts the measuring at least 3 inches below my natural waste. As a girl with a pretty significant waste to hip ratio (Love Your Curves!!, thanks Cosmo), the circumference of my body 3 inches below my waste is quite a bit greater than at my natural waste. Something seems fishy here.

So then we talk about some long term goals. While I assumed Ryan would start with some ideas of parts of my body I would work on and small, achievable steps, he really just launches into all the reasons I NEEDNEEDNEED personal training. He starts by telling me that I will want to get my body fat down to 16%. I looked it up later, this is not strictly healthy for a lady, WHO (thats World Health Organization) says under 21% is underfat for a woman, and 21-33% is healthy. The American Exercise association says 14-21% is an athlete range for women (I'm NO athlete), 21-24% is 'fitness' and 25%-31% is acceptable. Ryan hardly made me feel acceptable. In addition, the little electric pulse machine is reported to overestimate body fat measurements, therefore, on a well hydrated day, I could easily fit into the AEA's 'fitness' level. SO there, Ryan!

Then, Ryan does the unthinkable and starts criticizing cardio! I love my runs, they make me feel great and I am really proud of how my running has improved and progressed over the last year. I know that cardio should be balanced with resistance training, but considering my priorities and my go-go-go lifestyle I can only do so much and I LOVE running. Ryan says cardio should only be about 20% of my workout! Jerk. I was really thrown by this but I realized later... trainers can't charge people while they do cardio, its a pretty solitary thing, so obviously they would undersell its importance and value.

Anyways, I dodged the personal training bill by saying I couldn't afford it and that I couldn't commit to anything long term blah blah blah. All in all a humiliating and disillusioning experience. I can see how this is a lucrative business model, making people feel like shit about their bodies and lifestyles so they will pay someone to fix it. I also realize that, once you get past the attack on your self esteem, personal training can be really effective in helping you to get results from your workouts and attain that toned/tanned cover of Oxygen magazine look. Also, if you are unhappy with how you look or if you do need someone to motivate you to be more healthy, personal training can, again, be effective. But this corporate gym attitude takes all the joy out of fitness, to me, and makes it a joyless, competitive and image-obsessed institution.

Feels good to get that out. See ya never, Ryan.