Rest of Lean Zone (continued from Where is My Mind.)
...
Wandering through the complex, we talked about my workout goals. Actually I talked about my workout goals, and Ariel talked about what he thought my workout goals were. Invariably my workout goals became standards that meant nothing to me. I sheepishly agreed to strive for 11.5 inch biceps instead of my current 10.5 inchers.

"I guess I don't really care that much if I have a big chest or arms or whatever. I'm not that concerned with being bigger. It's alright, it's just not that important"

Stunned he said, "But you wouldn't mind looking good, right, who wouldn't want to look better, am I right?" "Sure I said" embarrassed that I didn't even know what I was supposed to covet. It was the implied question that makes up so much of our advertising today: "You want to be like these people, don't you?" It's the coercive question, as open ended as a cross-examination. Usually modern commercials
attempt some measure of subtlety, this was a plain declaration and measurement of all of the ways that I failed to meet a wholly foreign and external standard.

Going to the gym felt like being a modern woman for an hour; I found myself judged, measured, and evaluated by standards that seemed to have nothing to do with health and everything to do with skewed beauty. Time and again I was reminded that I was in this place for the sole purpose of being better, different, more alluring, more like what Ariel was and less like what I am.

"But," I interjected, "I'm not all that concerned with numbers. I don't really care what size my arms are, as long as I feel healthier, and feel like I can jump higher. Numbers are fine, but frankly I don't give a fuck how large my chest is." "But if you have goals that you can reach, and touch, and see and hold, then you'll do better. " The irony is that all his goals are ideals and most of mine are
literal, tangible feelings. But that's secondary. And yet, Ariel assuages himself with the notion that appearance and size are the true measures by which I should gauge my own happiness. It's not enough to help me meet my goals, my goals must change. I need to want what they want. I need to strive for be PureFitness's goals. I have to have his goals, and Pure Fitness's goals—because to do otherwise makes me a harder target for the products they sell.

After the tour, Ariel took me to get weighed and measured. Asking someone "Do you know how much you weigh" as they step onto the scale fully clothed feels a bit like "Do you know why I pulled you over?" in the pantheon of asshole rhetorical questions. I answered confidently 167. I'd weighed myself several times in the past two weeks and always balanced the bar at that number. Turns out at PureFitness I weigh 177. But then I don't really weigh 177, my stuff and I weigh 177. Ariel had insisted that I be weighed with all my clothes and shoes on.

It's a tremendous technique, a subtle way of ensuring that the client weighs more than they expect. It worked perfectly I felt heavier and less fit than I did before I talked to Ariel. I was talking about all these goals I had, and here I heavy, paunchy and not even desirous of the appropriate goals. And there he was offering me a solution to the very problem he'd help to create. Pointing to the chart behind my head he said "Let's see, you're at 16.5% fat, that's Desirable, but you probably want to get down into the Lean Zone." The chart indicated that LEAN was a range of body fat between 11-14% for men. My score of 16.5% body fat landed me smack dab in the middle of the "desirable" range, and with the right training program I could move into lean, and wouldn't I really rather be lean. I felt plump and in need of help. Ariel knocked me off the boat then offered me a life vest.

So after being measured, a fit bald man signed me up for one of my two free personal training sessions. In the intervening 5 hours my blue card, the repository for all my measurements and "goals" was lost. So Hailey a cheerful but curt former gymnast, measured me again in the afternoon. Turns out gym memberships work even when you're sitting at a desk, because my waist size shrunk 2 inches and I lost 5 pounds (despite having just eaten 1 and a half pounds of salad). Inexplicably I felt better, and that these numbers were much more accurate measures of my level of fitness.

After my workout and learning how to do several exercises properly, Hailey sat me down and talked about nutrition. Well that's not entirely accurate. I tried to talk about nutrition, and balanced meals and what I should eat. I was told that according to a computer profile where I answered questions like: When I feel low I eat meat: frequently, regularly, sometimes, that I needed APEX Systems' profile
3 and Profile 4 supplemental pills. I said, well that's great, but I'd really like to just eat more healthfully. I'd like to make the necessary changes without spending the money. I'd rather just do a better job of eating the right kind of things. What do you recommend. I was told that that's fine, then as I was leaving she said: You do realize the importance of vitamins and supplements, don't you.

"Yes," I said. She quickly answered: "Then when you're ready to pick up some Profile
3 and 4, just let me know, they're pretty cheap, really."

Here I am willing to make personal changes to improve my health and the only solution offered is a branded and patented commercial solution. It's as if we've lost the ability to imagine ourselves as the agents of control for our lives in any larger sense than to choose the necessary supplement, salve or balm from the commercially advertised options. At least for Charles Atlas and all the 98 pound
weaklings the promise was change in results from change in personal decisions and actions. Now we are promised change only through consumption in both literal forms.


It's strange that an industry that deifies the slogan "no pain no gain" would rather offer an otherwise willing convert a shortcut. Instead of stressing healthful meals, and caloric balance I'm told those are fine goals, but that what I really want is a huge bottle (and why are the bottles of supplements so fucking large) so I can
take the easy route. It's my nature to take the easy route, aren't you as a trainer to support me in my effort to do it the right way. Then I realized they're not there any longer in a supportive fashion, at least not to support me. It's to support a dominant notion of whatit means to be a fit American. It's consumption without guilt. If I buy this thing it'll make me better. Unlike buying a new shirt, this will actually change the way my body is. That's some powerful stuff.

My own visit is a cliff notes for the larger drama. It's a simple process in only 4 real steps. Set outrageous goals that only serve to reinforce some external norm. Denigrate or demean those who fail to share the goals. Produce evidence that illustrates just how far from achieving those goals I am. Then offer me a quick way out. I walked into the gym knowing all this, and still felt a tremendous pull to buy
supplements, and a rising desire to achieve 11.5 inch biceps. Last night I looked at my naked self in the mirror and felt frustration and despair. Apparently the gym works.