It was, ironically, like walking into a candy store.

The stair climber. The lat pull-down. The hanging leg raise. Battle ropes. The indoor track.

So many options always readily available, always clean and glistening, always waiting for me to use.

But unlike candy in a candy store, they were never behind glass counters.

On February 21 of 2018, Liberty University’s Rec Center kicked off their semester-long “Seize the Sweaty” campaign with a “ladies-only” night after the gym had officially closed and the regulars had left. The Ladies Night offered an “intimidation-free environment” and had trainers in the free-weights area, rock wall instruction, and group exercise classes. According to their handouts, the campaign is “designed to encourage everyone to work out at the gym without any hesitation.” I talked with Bri O’Neal, the head of marketing for the campaign, at the end of the night. “Seize the Sweaty” is brand new, with the Ladies Night the first of its kind. If the night went well (and, judging by the number of attendees and the laughter echoing off the high-beamed ceiling, I assume it did), the Rec Center plans to host both men’s and women’s nights biannually.

This is monumental.

Here’s why: It took me three years at college to start going to the gym regularly (I like to say that I "found love"). I’ve been going five days a week since October of 2017, and despite having lost over 40lbs in that time, never once did I alter my routine and go over to the machines or free-weights. Not once. The treadmill was (and still is) my best friend, and inclines are my groove. I would spend anywhere from 45 minutes to over an hour power-walking at a 15% incline (thank you very much, asthma). But I would never go down to the weights.

“They,” I would tell my friend, referring to the guys in the weight room, “are like corn on the cob. Frickin’ built—shredded, you know? And you know what I am? I am a potato. The other, less attractive, starchy carb.”

I wanted to use the machines. I wanted to feel strength in my arms, to feel the burn the next day until one day those sore muscles became more of a dull ache than limp strands of spaghetti.

But I never did until “Seize the Sweaty.”

Having never been an athlete, or even “I walk the dogs on Sundays” athletic, it was hard to understand that the embarrassment of initially messing up, or having improper form, or hesitating and looking lost would eventually fade away. Eventually, I would learn. But I didn’t want to be embarrassed in the first place.

If that embarrassment, if that intimidation, stemmed from the fact that boys and men who obviously knew what they were doing practically lived in the weight room and free-weight area, or if it grew from the fact that the gym was often crowded with athletes of all sizes and sexes, I do not know.

What I do know is that “Seize the Sweaty” and their “ladies-only” night was the most fun I’ve had in a while.

I could do squats with a medicine ball without worrying that guys might be looking at my butt. I could inspect a machine, study the visual instructions, and attempt to copy it while giving it a nickname, like “hugging grandma” or “the Rudolph.” I could run on the track, just for fun, and realized that I like having cool air blown in my face as I sprint on level ground. I discovered the CrossFit area, which, as I remarked to a friend, “was like finding a secret society.”

I could go from one machine to the other, trying it out, grinning like a kid in a candy store.

“Why don’t I do this more often?” laughed someone behind me.

And I thought to myself, why can’t every day at the gym be like this? Nothing’s changed. The machines are still there. I’m still there. In fact, the only thing that’s usually different is my perspective and my awareness of who I am in contrast to other people, of where I am physically in comparison to the strength of their bodies. Was that awareness keeping me back from using all the gym had to offer—was it keeping me from having fun?

Maybe on the “ladies-only” night, I didn’t have a plan. Maybe my form was off. Maybe I looked like a fool.

But maybe I found the confidence to look like one.

And if I did, then maybe someone else did, too.