Lessons from the Gym: The Scale

The Lesson: Dudes love to get naked and weigh themselves, a lot.

When I started going to the gym, I figured I’d see a bunch of naked dudes. There’s really no working around it.

As much as my Jebus-fearing, Midwestern self is all about wearing the tiny, handkerchief-sized towels they give us to cover up, some other dudes just ain’t having it.

What I didn’t expect to see was a parade of these naked dudes marching toward the scale each and every time I’m in the locker room.

Apparently it is very important for men on the east coast to know what they weigh at all times. This isn’t that big of a concern in the ole Midwest, so it caught me a bit off guard.

I don’t know why these dudes are so concerned with their weight, but they are.

I’ve seen one dude weigh himself three times in under an hour. Pre-workout, post-workout and post-sauna. I don’t know how much weight he was looking to drop after ten minutes in the sauna, but I can only assume he didn’t meet that mystical milestone, because he looked dejected after each and every stop at the scale.

Today I watched an old dude–with only slightly less mobility than me–wander up to the scale and struggle to pull himself up to monitor his weight. Like seriously, he threw a towel around the back of the scale and used that to pull himself up and still need to use the nearby fan to propel the rest of his 98 pound frame up on the scale.

If you’ve ever watched a sixty-year old dude struggle to drag his naked ass up on a scale, then you know what a horrendous and emotionally scarring sight this is.

Now that I’ve learned this very important lesson I’ve determined that I have two options.

I can either begin weighing myself an inordinate number of times whenever I’m at the gym so that I can monitor my weight on an ounce-by-ounce basis.

–OR–

I can just move to a different locker…much, much further from the scale.