Workouts are Aw(e)ful!!

In an effort to better myself, I signed up at the local gym/club. (By the way, I hate the term "club" because it just reminds me how much those places are pick up spots)
You can look in the mirror and think, 'hey, I'm not so bad. Maybe I'm no model, but I'm not in a motorized wheelchair or worrying how long it will take the men to cut a hole in my house so they can carry my Jabba-the Hutt-sized body out when I die. No one would stop and gawk at me while walking down the street."
Sure, that's true. But I can't eat or drink everything in sight and think there won't be hell to pay. I'm not 21 anymore and haven't been for a long time. Weight seems to pack on a lot easier these days and damn it, it's taking a hell of a lot longer to come off. And what's worse is when you hear that after age 35, everything on your person starts going to hell; a woman will lose 1-1/2 pounds of muscle every year, to be replaced with fat. And of course, if the muscle mass is going, then you know bone strength and density are getting on the bus as well.
That crap scares you.
Well, maybe it doesn't hit everyone but, it scares me.
I've spent enough time around overweight family members and friends who are diabetic, overweight or worse, with heart problems, blah blah blah, you get the point. I've spent enough time in hospitals with inconsiderate, uncaring, health care professions to know that it's a bad way to go when it's your time.
I hate hospitals. I've never seen doctors and nurses who break their backs, do cute entertaining skits, hell or even just TALK to you like a human being the way I've seen it on "ER", "Scrubs", "Grey's Anatomy" and every other totally implausible hospital show. I'm sure they exist, but maybe for the rich or something. God forbid you find yourself at the county hospital. Case in point, my mother. When we knew it was near the end, she decided she wanted to die at home. The doctors told my father that she had to take these medications for conditions that were spoken in Doctortalk (you know...all those weird, half-Latin, 20-syllabled words created to make doctors feel even more superior than necessary).
"Have her take these pills two or three times a day," Dr. Jerk instructed.
At this, my temper started to boil.
"Which is it?" I asked.
The doctor, for once, stopped looking smug and actually seemed human when a look of confusion appeared his face.
"Excuse me?"
"Which is it?! Two OR three pills. We're not giving her Flintstones chewable vitamins here!" I said in a tone just below seething.
"Oh, well. Two will do."

What the hell?! This supposed savior of people from their ailments, who has attended how many years of higher education, medical school, internships at various hospitals, could only non-chalantly toss out an IDEA of how much medication my mother should take.

The best way to avoid jerks like that taking care of you is to take care of yourself first.

So here I am, taking almost as many individual pills as my mother did in her last years. But mine are preventives: multivitamins; cod liver oil tablets, spirulina pills, iron pills. And oh yeah, I gotta hit the gym 3-4 times a week. I know I will never get a body like Angelina Jolie (hell, even when I was at my fittest, at 5 '2", I was still something of the Middle Earth hobbit version of A. Jolie). But I must exercise to maintain fitness and health.
And I HATE working out. It's merely for the purpose of working out. Sports, I love. I have fun; the endgoal is sooner--must score points to win. And yeah, I get a workout too.
But I hate the health clubs. There's always someone in there to intimidate you. Sunday, I had the creepy men who pump excessive amounts of weights and their gaze alternates between their reflection in the mirror or the cutey, sorority-like babes that walk around in the tightest, most color-coordinated outfits.

Today, I had the crazed obsessive-compulsive young housewife. You know those kinds: she's under 5'5", doesn't weight but a buck o' one when fully dressed and soppin' wet. And she's on the damn elliptical/cross trainer machine pumping away for at least 40 mins, at top speed with that glazed look in her eyes. You know she's competing. Doesn't matter who: she's competing against you, slugging along next to her, or the machine itself, or herself for not figuring out that she married a bonehead.
I don't know what she's crazed about...but it makes me really uncomfortable.

I can't workout near them.

Aside from the freaks, I'm still not happy. The super nice health club assistant come by and ask me if I'm enjoying myself. I always answer, "No. Not at all." They always smile with a half-laugh that makes me think I'm the first person to answer honestly.
Workouts are aw(e)ful. Why does working out have to suck??! I've got to be wrong here because far too many people do it every single blasted day for HOURS!! I find them awful while something else is going on with everyone else. Something's making these people feel good when they come here.
I've heard of this endorphin thing--how you're suppose to feel so good after a workout and that it's to be addicting or some bullshit like that.
I don't know. I haven't found it yet. Maybe I'm defective.
All I know is after working out for 45 mins to an hour, I just want some damn barbecue flavored Pringles! And I'm not even into junk food.
Or at least I wasn't until I started working out.

Someone's gotta help me out with this. Why do I not have access to the workout high?
In the meantime, I better go wash my workout clothes so they can smell nice and fresh before I get them stinky and sweaty again.