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China Elevator Stories
“I’ll Make You Gain Weight”
A trainer at a gym in Shenzhen tells me I’ll gain weight by exercising.
07/01/2014
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
“I’ll make you gain weight. 2-4 kilos in the first month, 4-6 in the second, and 6-8 in the third. Believe me, it will work.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to believe him, but I had heard this all too often, and it had never worked before.
When I came down with a debilitating illness in 2009, I lost a lot of weight. I had always been skinny, but the weight loss was alarming.
I often hear people talk about wanting to lose weight, but I rarely hear anyone discuss trying to gain it. I never thought being skinny was beautiful, as many people do, and I always wanted to gain weight to reach a normal range.
When this private trainer at the gym in Shenzhen told me his plan to help me gain weight, I was skeptical. It had never worked before. Over the years, I had tried everything—from eating more to consulting TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) practitioners. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to exercise, but for a long time, I physically couldn’t. At one point during my illness, even slow walking caused me immense pain and made my heart race.
The TCM practitioners, along with some Western doctors I consulted, assured me that my illness was nothing serious and that I’d recover within weeks. I didn’t. The antibiotics I was prescribed initially worsened my symptoms so severely that I vowed never to take them again. Over two years, I explored TCM and other alternative therapies. Ultimately, I fully recovered after being treated by a naturopath in Vienna.
In 2013, I decided to start working out at a gym. The private trainer, who charged 300 CNY per session, wasn’t cheap. But after my crippling experience, I was determined to stay healthy.
To my surprise, it didn’t take long to see results. I could hardly believe it at first, but exercising truly helped me gain weight. I put on 3 kilos in the first month and finally returned to the weight I had seven years earlier.
Have you ever tried to gain weight to stay healthy?
This is part of the series ‘Conversations with Locals in China,’ where I share conversations with Chinese people on my blog.