Four months ago, I set off on a journey to get in touch with my inner athlete by hooking up with a personal trainer and hitting the weights. It’s been an exciting time for me—one filled with all kinds of personal highs and discoveries. In fact, I’m learning all kinds of interesting things about myself and my body—and especially other people. With three more months to go until Project Makeover comes to a close, I thought I’d offer up a few of these interesting discoveries.Private gyms are truly an insecure gay man’s best friend. Working out at Train has helped me get over my case of “gym phobia.” I no longer feel like I don’t belong at the gym. What’s more, I’ve actually grown to become a little addicted to going. Train is like a sanctuary of sorts for me now—a place where it’s OK for things to be all about me for an hour or two. It helps that my trainer, Ronn Burns, knows just how to ease my fears and give me the room that I need to excel, but beyond that, I’ve tapped into a part of myself that I’d always wanted to reach out to, but just wasn’t sure how. Bonus: There’s none of that silly cruising going on in the locker rooms at Train.
60 seconds of pre-emptive stretching can save you days of pain. I found out the hard way before I got onto the elliptical machine that failure to stretch can lead to some pretty serious soreness. Come to think of it, this is a good thing to remember before having particularly athletic sex, as well. Trust me, I know.Running or walking in place can be hell with nothing to do. It was fine when I could only do three minutes on the elliptical machine, but once I built myself up to doing 30, 45 and even 60 minutes (Go, me!), it got to be pretty tedious. Thank God for my iPod. Now I can catch up with Veronica Mars, Lost and Battlestar Galactica while getting my cardio in. Does that make me a treadmill potato?
Jumping rope is a lot harder than I remember it being. Seriously, trying to coordinate swinging the rope around at just the exact moment that I’m hopping off the ground was not easy work. It took a lot of practice at home—and a lot of patience on Ronn’s part—to get it down.
Trader Joe’s peanut butter is God’s gift to healthy diets. When Ronn told me I would have to switch to unsalted peanut butter, I grimaced. Now, I eat the stuff by the tablespoon-full as a snack on my cheat day and put it in my morning protein shakes. If there was a Peanut Butter Addicts Anonymous group, I think I’d be its founding member.Celebrities sweat just like the rest of us. There are a couple TV (and porn) stars who work out at Train. One of them is on one my favorite shows, and we’ve ended up doing cardio next to each other a few times. She always smiles and nods to me. There’s something comforting about knowing that, when it comes to looking good, celebrities have to work just as hard as the rest of us.
High-energy trance music isn’t just for gays anymore. There are these two straight guys who love to work out to really loud trance music. They keep asking the receptionist to turn it up, then they spend the next hour hooting and hollering their way through their session. Which leads me to…Straight men are even more annoying than we thought they were when they’re working out. Look, fellas, I’m really glad that you’re rockin’ twice your body weight on those bench presses, but seriously, do you really need to let everyone in the room know how strong you think you are? A little humility goes a long way. Still, it must be said that…
Gay men are just way too into themselves. OK, so this is nothing we didn’t already know. But, there’s this one trainer who won’t stop looking at himself in the mirror—even when he’s training his clients. I keep waiting for his reflection to shout out, “Hey, dude! Take a frickin’ picture; it’ll last longer.” I know that’s what I want to shout.
There’s nothing like a shopping spree to reward yourself. As I’ve noticed the changes in my body—smaller tummy, bigger arms and shoulders, diminished chin—I’ve taken to making little pit stops at Target on my way home from the gym and picking up some cool T-shirts and stuff. The best part of all is that when I try the clothes on, I no longer cringe at my reflection in the mirror. Things are looking good. I see where my body is headed, and I can’t wait to get there. Even so…Patience is definitely a virtue. As improved as my body looks, I’ve become a little impatient about seeing that tummy go away completely and those shoulders get a bit bigger and rounder. But Ronn says he is very impressed with my progress. “Swimsuit issue, here you come!” he tells me. I don’t know about all that, but it’s obvious there’s a reason I’m keeping this guy around.
(Pics by Kevin Cazares)
