Now I know how Marie Antoinette felt. Walking nervously toward the physical assessment room of my new or, rather, first ever gym, I knew I was being led to my own private guillotine. Noticing my unsteady gait, the tanned, toned and healthy fitness instructor grinned like he'd seen it all before and said: "You look worried." I felt a burning sensation slowly rise from the pit of my mince pie-created pot belly. Worried? I was petrified.
"I'd rather not know how unfit I am, thanks very much," I replied, secretly trying not to covet his biceps. But there was no going back.
Reluctantly, I approached the weighing scales. If you are a male under 30, you should have between 12 per cent and 20 per cent body fat. Deep breath . . . I had 12.1 per cent.
I casually mentioned my banana-a-day regime, keeping my indulgence in Christmas cake and sherry trifle to myself. Still, this 12.1 per cent was no surprise. I have the physique (if not the speed) of a greyhound at Shelbourne Park who's been round the block once too often. But in real terms, does this mean I have 0.1 per cent body fat? It's enough to make one question one's own existence. And the last thing I wanted was to defy medical science - or the laws of (meta)physics.
Despite my fears, the instructor remained upbeat: "If you were overweight, you'd have to lose it before toning up. If anything, you have a head start!" Indeed, most people seem to go to gyms to lose weight. One friend was told at her physical assessment (at another gym) she was clinically obese. She doesn't know why, because if she stood sideways you wouldn't see her.
There are no official figures to show how many people in Ireland are members of a gym, but the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management (ILAM) hopes to research this within the next 18 months. In the UK, one in seven people belongs to a gym. Irish men are generally more into weightlifting and go to "pure" gyms, according to an ILAM representative. Women, on the other hand, tend to be attached to leisure centres and hotels with salons and pools.
My aim? To tone up and zap that zaftig. To paraphrase Michael Jackson (badly), I'm not a bulker or a fighter. The array of hard bodies huffing and puffing on the treadmill and rowing machine almost made me weep when I got back to the changing room. Men and women, I soon discovered, have different motivations for getting into shape.
Most women I spoke to at my gym aim to lose weight and tone up, while most men aim to tone up and bulk up, a fact my flatmate, Sarah, finds bizarre. Its unnerving that society encourages women to lose weight, she says. It's as though there should be less of a woman, taking up less space in the world. Yet we're taught to believe there should be more of a man.
I have tried to answer with anthropological platitudes about men being hunter-gatherers, but not being one myself - I hunt as far as the local supermarket and hope there's a bag-packer there to help me gather - I'm always busted. But back to my physical assessment. It was turning out to be absolutely flabuless. With body fat ticked off, the worst seemed over.
Next came heart rate. My instructor couldn't find a pulse in my neck. He got a heart rate of 50 from my wrist. "I work out," he exclaimed, "and mine is 45 to 50! Are you telling me you don't exercise?" I said I walked a lot, slowly realising his amazement was also a confidence-building trick. But I accepted it graciously. A friend later said something I never thought I'd hear: "A heart rate of 50? Man, that's slow! You should take up smoking." Taking into account my targets - "I don't want to increase my upper body strength," I told my wide-eyed instructor, "I want upper body strength" - and fitness level, I was given leg and chest exercises, plus the requisite bicycle, rowing machine and, of course, treadmill. And so I braved my first workout: one small step for man, many equally small, frantic, agonising steps on the treadmill. I spent 25 minutes on that machine, 15 of which I spent standing, pushing buttons.
I was the new boy all over again. Aside from my fumblings with the technology, I carried my regime card around with me, which is a classic newcomer faux pas. I should have memorised my routine. (I even wore an old pair of shorts and T-shirt to throw the more seasoned aficionados off my scent.) Speaking of which, don't wear cologne/perfume, particularly if you treat your gym like a pick-up joint. Even the most expensive will smell wretched after a workout.
Whether you wear cologne or nothing at all, when you enter a gym for the first time - and especially the shower room - there is no hiding from the naked truth.
