I Showed Up Skinny. The Gym Didn't Care. Two Years Later, Neither Do I.
A skinny software engineer walks into a gym. No punchline. Just two years of showing up and figuring it out.
My gym turned two years old last weekend.
They had a little celebration. Nico from Kenya Fitness Plug was there with a bunch of challenges lined up and honestly it turned into a full day of fun. People were laughing, competing, failing at things in good spirit, and just having a proper time. It was the kind of day you do not plan for but end up talking about for a while.
And I was there. Not as a visitor. As a regular. That still catches me off guard sometimes.
But I was there. And honestly, that means more to me than I expected it to.
Let me back up.
I write code for a living. Building things, breaking things, fixing what I broke, then shipping it and hoping for the best. It is a sit down job. A “your back will hate you at 35” kind of job. My whole day is screens, Teams messages, debugging sessions that go nowhere, and the occasional meeting that could have been a chat.
So when I first walked into the gym, I walked in the way most skinny guys do. Quietly. Near the wall. Hood up. Praying nobody looked at me while I tried to figure out which machine did what without Googling it mid floor.
I was light. Not the good kind of light either. The kind where people say “you’re so lucky you can eat anything” like that’s a compliment and not a soft way of saying you look like you skipped a few meals. I was that guy. The one who clearly had no business being near a barbell but showed up anyway because something had to change.
Here is the thing about being skinny at the gym that nobody tells you.
Nobody cares.
I spent the first few weeks waiting for someone to walk up and say something. A comment, a look, anything. But the gym has this thing. This invisible guest energy. Everyone is so locked in on their own stuff, their own sets, their own reflection, their own playlist, that you basically do not exist. And for a skinny dude who just wanted to add some weight without making a scene, that invisibility was everything.
It is actually a lot like deploying code on a Friday afternoon. You are terrified. You think everyone is watching. You think the moment you push that button the whole world will see you fail in real time. But in reality? Your colleagues are on their own laptops dealing with their own disasters. The room does not notice you. You just have to go ahead and push the button.
So I pushed the button. I kept showing up.
The first few months were humbling in ways I was not prepared for.
I would finish a chest day and wake up the next morning unable to lift my arms to wash my face. I am talking standing in the shower, just letting the water hit me and accepting my fate. My legs after a squat session felt like someone had replaced them with wet cement overnight. I would sit down on my office chair the next day and genuinely not know if I would be able to get back up. Spoiler: I always did. But it was a journey every time.
And the progress was slow. So slow. Like waiting for a database migration to finish slow. You stare at it, you check it, you walk away, you come back, and the number has barely moved. But the migration is still running. It is doing something. You just cannot see it yet.
That is gains. That is just what gains are.
Somewhere around month three something weird happened.
I started to feel off on the days I skipped.
Not sore. Not tired. Just off. Like something was missing. Like that feeling when you close your laptop and you are almost certain you forgot to commit something but you cannot figure out what. A low level unease that sits in the back of your head all day.
I did not expect that. I thought the gym would always feel like a chore. I thought I would have to drag myself every single time. But it stopped being something I had to do and started being something I just do. Like brushing my teeth. Like opening my laptop first thing in the morning. It is just part of the routine now and skipping it throws the whole day off.
My body apparently signed a contract I do not remember agreeing to.
The people at the gym are a whole story on their own.
There is always the guy who grunts on every rep like he is personally offended by the weight. There is the person who takes twenty minutes to set up for one set and then checks their phone the whole time. There is the regular who has been doing the exact same routine since 2019 and will continue doing it until the gym closes or the earth does, whichever comes first.
And then there is people like me. Just there. Figuring it out.
The gym is actually a lot like an engineering team when you think about it. You have got your seniors who make everything look effortless and slightly intimidating. Your juniors who are trying very hard and second guessing every move. Your guy who refuses to follow any standard process but somehow still gets results. And a few people who are just there for the free snacks, except in gym terms those are the people who show up, do fifteen minutes on the treadmill, and go home feeling like they earned something.
No judgment. We are all just trying to compile without errors.
Two years of this gym. Hundreds of sessions. A lot of early mornings, a few skipped leg days that I am not proud of, and more protein(eggs) than I care to count.
I am not big. Let me be clear. I am not walking around turning heads. My arms are not impressive by any standard. If you saw me on the street you would not think gym guy. You would think maybe he builds apps, maybe he games a lot, definitely watches too many movies.
But I am hitting PRs now. Actual personal records. Numbers I would have laughed at myself for even attempting two years ago. And the pull ups? I can do those now. Properly. Without looking like a distress signal. That one took a while and I celebrated it more than I will ever admit publicly.
That is the part nobody puts on their fitness journey post. The part where you just keep going. No dramatic transformation, no before and after photo that breaks the internet. Just a guy who used to be scared to walk into a gym now walking in like he belongs there. Because he does.
The gym celebrated two years. I celebrated quietly. In my head. And that felt like something.
Not everything needs a big moment. Sometimes you just finish the set, rack the weight, and show up again tomorrow.
Written by a software engineer who builds cool stuff for work and chases PRs for fun. Slowly at first. Then suddenly.
Happy Coding Gyming!