I haven’t always been tubby. As a matter of fact, I never thought I’d be the kind of person to gain a lot of weight. I weighed 124 lbs. for years, and was at that weight when I was married at age 35.

But, as marriage will do to you, I ate and ate and ate, and 17 years later, I weighed in at 185 lbs. I didn’t even have a pregnancy or two I could blame. I resolved that I was not going through my 50’s fat, as I had done in my 40’s. And so, in 2010, when I was 52, I lost 40 lbs. in 6 months.

I worked out at the gym faithfully, and by 2014 I was probably in the best shape of my life. In that four years I’d put about 10 lbs. back on, but it was all muscle. I was proud of the way I looked, felt, ate, and worked out.

So, the other day I walked into the gym, went to the front desk to sign myself in with my little grocery-style key card. The perky little desk attendant looked at me like, “who in the hell are you?” She waited to see if my card worked. If it works, a pleasant computer voice says, “Enjoy your work out.”

I threw my shoulders back and held my head high. I marched past her proudly, “Well who in the hell are you? Hmmmph! I’ve been a member of this gym since you were in kindergarten!” I thought to myself. “So what if you haven’t seen me here in the past 18-months you’ve worked here?”

Yep! I’m well on my “weigh” to being a Tubby 2.0! I let life, job, and tremendous stress, get in my way and I put on a lot of weight. However, fortunately, I’m not back up to my lifetime high of 185.

I’ve been working out this summer and have gotten to where I can do an hour on the thread mill. I like it because I go in the very cool, dark cardio-movie theatre. It doesn’t feel like summer in Georgia in there. But I have come to realize that I’m just not burning the necessary calories.

So , I thought back to how I lost weight before, and what kind of exercise I was doing back then. I moved out of the cool movie theatre and back into the “scary” part of the gym, where everyone can see you! I climbed on the stair stepper. By 2.5 minutes I knew I was in trouble. By four minutes, I needed to throw up.

I got off the stepper and stumbled my way over to a treadmill. I remember that when I first started with the stepper years ago, I did it in two minute increments. In a few days I’ll be adding more time to my endurance. “Baby steps,” I remember a friend telling me.

When I completed 40 minutes of cardio, I headed back to the “man” part of the gym. The man part is the back fourth or so of the gym where all the free weights are. You can’t develop muscle on those puny girl exercise machines.

Now if you’re a woman over the age of 30, men will look at you like, “what in the hell are you doing in the man part of the gym?” I just march past them with my head held high and my shoulders thrown back. “Hey,” I think, “I pay as much as you do for a membership!”

Well, maybe not. I’ve been a member of the gym so long I’m still getting the rate I got in 2002. But who cares? They don’t know what I pay, and they don’t own the gym! I prance my way to the benches, claim one, and begin my weight-lifting routine. I can feel the strength flowing back into my floppy muscles.

I go back in the women’s locker room like I own the place. The confidence is restored. Now I head home and think about how I’m going to change my eating, like I did back in 2010. Just do it! Not gonna be a tubby, chubby, fat, chunky, obese, retired 60-year-old. Nope!

I’ll let you know how it goes.

dmzh