I don’t have a loss to report this week. Believe me, it’s driving me nuts, since I’m just a tad OCD by nature and I’m sitting at a 37.8 pound loss. I like even numbers!

There’s a Facebook post making its rounds right now; it starts with the perhaps normal (and somewhat callous) assumptions about an overweight walker who’s out walking the track, but the ending is what is getting so much attention. You can read just one of many blog entries about it here:  “To the fatty running on the track this afternoon”: Facebook user pens surprising message to overweight runner

I’ve seen the post come up again and again in recent days, and I’m glad to see it. Maybe it’s getting the word out about a commonly held notion that some people just shouldn’t bother exercising, and how wrong it is to judge.

As someone who used to religiously walk my neighborhood as well as the city park and other locations, and barge in on the free weight room of the local gym, I know that there are people that seem to hold diametrically opposed ideas about fat people. The first is that fat people should exercise because —hey — they’re FAT. The second is that fat people shouldn’t exercise where anyone else can see them.

Say… what?

As you can well imagine, the people who believe both those things simultaneously don’t suffer from an overabundance of logic — or intelligence, for that matter. It’s also usually from people who have no fear of exercise, and simply cannot put themselves in the shoes of someone who has overcome huge mental barriers to just take the first step. That doesn’t even take into account how difficult exercise is for anyone who is out of shape or may not have knowledge about how to start, and that, my friends,  has nothing to do with being overweight.

It has everything to do with human nature. None of us are fond of being judged, even if some of us are more immune to it than others.

I have been that overweight woman, out walking for exercise. At first, I walked the perimeter of my yard, which was on a state highway. When I started walking there, far out in the country, my dog and I would make one lap and go in. Over the course of months to come, I would walk a little bit more each day.

Over time, since I walked about the same time every day, I discovered I had a fan club. People driving by would wave, and some would honk and wave. Believe me, I never expected to have anonymous support from people driving by on the highway.

Then, I moved to town. I started walking my neighborhood, and the same thing happened there. And since they could, some people even stopped to tell me how proud they were of me, and to keep up the good work. These were strangers!

The same held true at the gym, and believe me, that was much tougher. I’d never been in a gym before in my life, but over time I managed to learn strength training, and one of the most intimidating things I ever had to do was walk in that all male weight room full of bubbas and claim my spot for my workouts. I dreaded going in there, but eventually, it got to a point where a few of the men respected me enough to not interrupt my workout or shoot me judgmental looks. To be a woman in an all-male weight room is tough enough; being an overweight middle-aged woman in an all-male weight room was five times as tough.

And yet, there were those who stopped and talked to me, checked in with me, and supported me.

(I haven’t been exercising recently. I hope to get back to the activities I listed here, eventually; it’s not time, yet. But that’s not my point in using myself as an example, anyway.)

What I want to say to you is this: all of us should go that extra mile to encourage anyone at any fitness level. Your simple “way to go!” or “good job!” can erase a dozen critical looks or snide comments. You can choose to be that refreshing reality check for someone who doesn’t realize there are people paying attention, and they understand how tough the challenge is.

My challenge to you, if you are someone who exercises, is not to simply think the things the person in the post mentioned (”You f**king ROCK!”) but to make the effort to let people know that you encourage and respect them, even if it means touching them on the shoulder and perhaps briefly interrupting a workout.

If you don’t currently work out, please support those who do; that jogger in your neighborhood may look fit, now, but they may have come a very long way to get there.

Believe me, your words of encouragement will be appreciated.