As the Treadmill Turns: The Plan

As the Treadmill Turns: The Plan

Jennifer sat quietly, hiding timidly within the depths of her winter coat while Mike banged away at the computer before him. He was laying out the plan which the two would use to forever fuse their lives together, and none of the words Mike was saying were words that Jennifer could understand. “We’ll need to be sure the anaerobic meta static remains neutral while we work on bulking up the circuit failure.” Jennifer sat bewildered and wondering what she had gotten herself into.

The plan included 12 workouts a week using weights and 8 workouts a week doing cardio. Mike continued by spouting off names of weight workouts Jennifer needed to do, but the words didn’t translate. She sat like a deer in the headlights as he rambled on about free weights and isometric isolation. She watched in awe as his huge figure rose, grabbed a 250 pound dumbbell with one hand and balance it on his pinky as if balancing a feather. She stumbled from her chair and heaved the one pound dumbbell off the shelf, struggling to keep it off of the floor. “Yeah, uh, hoist that a bit while we talk about nutrition,“ Mike grunted in Jennifer’s general direction.

In a few seconds, Mike scrawled in sloppy chicken scratches a daily diet plan that consisted of eating one stalk of celery every thirty minutes, starting at 6 am and ending at 10 pm. He forbid her from varying from the plan by one iota. “Yeah, uh, and you’ll need to drink 8 gallons of water a day. You might want to get on that,” he grumbled as he threw the menu at her. A deep resignation hit the bottom of her stomach as she realized that in teaming up with Mike, her freedom and her life as she knew it were now gone.

Stay tuned for the next episode: Bring the Pain