I wasn’t working out

I was programming for the internet and editing video in my spare time. I was eating a lot of junk food. I wasn’t working out.

So my first day at a gym was a chance to turn things around.

The problem with working out more in an afternoon than you had in June, May and April combined isn’t just that your muscles are incredibly ill-suited to the task. After my exhaustive first workout, my trainer explained the importance of strengthening one’s core muscles to the gaunt, sweating corpse seated across from him.

“Your body is like a sausage casing. And no matter how much you force into one end, if the other isn’t strong, whatever you put in will just come out the other.”

“Please don’t mention food.”

He stopped in the middle of his routine to notice my glassy stare. “…do you feel a little nauseated?”

I slowly inhaled through my mouth and completed half a nod. He told me to sit there while he went to get me something to drink.

And then I did something stupid.

I said to myself, “Just don’t think about throwing up.”

At that point, it was all over. It’s been so long since I vomited in public, in front of chinese girls getting in shape to be trophy wives, trainers trying to sell new signups on their premium fitness package and everybody, that I forgot what it sounded like. That stifled staccato. That gurgling, unending blaaaarrrggg. It sounds just like what people pretend it sounds like. And I was experiencing it in technicolor and sensurround.

Having successfully wrapped up my first day at the gym, I felt just awful. I was working out.