On Gym Clothes

Help me

Last night, at yoga, a gym employee asked those of us taking the class whether we were okay with her filming. “Just for like 30 seconds,” she said. “For the website.” My teacher, who is thin and bendy like a drinking straw, assured us that the focus would mostly be on her and laughed, “Don’t worry, I didn’t get ‘camera-ready’ either!” Ha ha! So we agreed. What could we say that wouldn’t make us look vain or silly?

I knew what I wanted to say, though. I wanted to scream “No!” and then streak like a comet past the ellipticals and free weights and out the door. It’s not just that I didn’t get “camera-ready” between nursing my infant and dashing to class. It’s that I’m never camera-ready at the gym. My work-out wardrobe falls somewhere between abhorrent and abominable, and the reasons why are kind of complicated.

The first and simplest reason is that I have never bought gym clothes. I don’t even know where a person would go to buy gym clothes besides Lululemon, and my impression of Lululemon is that it’s a chain where skinny, upper-class beauties go to overspend on lycra, judge those of us with body fat, and sometimes get killed.

The second reason is that, thanks to the mean voices in my head, I feel like I’m not entitled to buy gym clothes, because — much like gyms themselves — gym clothes are intended for skinny, upper-class beauties.

I have this sense that, if I am so presumptuous as to pick out, purchase, and put on activewear, the people for whom such clothes are meant will think I’m “trying.” They will think I don’t know the difference between me and them. And they will laugh at me.

This is the basic fear that stalks me through my days like the giant rabbit in Donnie Darko, that the world is filled with cruel, all-powerful enforcers of social norms. Though people I admire — Sara Benincasa! — can court conventional disapproval, I still tend to skirt it and hope that my feeling bad about myself will somehow protect me from it. When I’m sidling into the gym in my ill-fitting old t-shirts, I’m telegraphing an important message: Don’t worry about having to cut me down, I’m already very small!

The trouble is that this MO clashes with my current goal of doing yoga three times a week because it’s the only thing that helps my back. (And it’s not bad for the rest of me, either.) Turns out low self-worth makes it hard to commit to self-care! Because, you know, what you don’t value, you don’t work to maintain.

Frankly, I’m tired of it. If I’m going to be taking these hour-long classes three times a week, it would be nice to wear clothes that help, rather than hinder. It would be fun change of pace to get to hit mute on the censorious voices and walk into the gym so that I can focus on getting, and feeling, strong. Maybe even swole.

At the age of 34, I may at last be ready to buy something Spandex-y, or of whatever fabric will make my top fit right and not fall over my face when I’m trying to do a Down Dog, exposing the soft pasty whiteness of my belly to the gym employee behind me, who of course has walked in with her camera rolling. Any suggestions?

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.