Friday, April 23, 2010

Locker Room Etiquette

Ouch. It's been a good long while since I've given my bloggy any love. My life has been one big mashup of frantic apartment hunting during the month of March, even more frantic and chaotic moving, getting situated, work being busy, Emily being mentally and physically drained and now... Now I'm back on the Get My Ass in Shape horse.

Follow the insane thoughts of eight ladies who are Getting The Fuck Up on our Twitter stream #GTFU (because we're a bunch of dorks). We're doing this through Weight Watchers... Yes, I'm back, but it's more guidelines and keeping myself in check than totally reneging on the protein first mindset. It also helps that I have friends here supporting me. So, anyway, the point of that introduction is that I'm cross-posting something I wrote on my WW blog (mainly to keep too much crap from this main blog) that I would love everyone's input on.
Locker Room Etiquette (?)
So, five days later and I've officially worked out three days, yeah! Monday night, Wednesday morning and Friday morning. I have full plans on doing something involving exercise this weekend as well, so I am totally excited. Yes, getting up at 5 or 6am is not fun, but I know my body will be happy in the long run.

Buuut, having been in a locker room now after years since my last time around, I wonder if there is specific locker room etiquette in adulthood. The last time I was in a gym with a locker room was in college, which was just sort of a different animal. I can't say I've seen many bigger ladies at my current gym, but they're not all supermodels either, so I don't feel totally schlepy. Anyway, on the note of being bigger, well, the towels my gym provides are, on me, like a washcloth for a smaller woman. They're larger towels than I've seen in some gyms (my university one most certainly) but I still feel awkward. Basically, the towel can cover either my crotch, butt or boobs. Depending on how I grab it, I can sometimes cover the bottom half with a thigh hanging out.

No matter what, it makes for an awkward/clumsy walk from the locker to the shower. But here's the thing, I don't really care about people seeing my body. I'm not totally in love with it but I'm not painfully shy about showing it either. But at the same time, I don't want to be "that girl" in the locker room. And, er, I'm lazy - I don't want to carry my own towel or robe daily to the gym. Nope, not happening.

For the larger ladies, what do you do in the locker room? For the smaller ladies, do you pay any attention if you see some cellulite butt (mine) hanging out in the locker room? For everyone, is there formal etiquette for this kind of carp that I normally spend absolutely no time dwelling over)?