Bon Bons to Yoga Pants

Chapter 11-The Long Two Miles

Lexie, wake up.

The bright glow of Mira's text message shone on my face like the flashlight of a cop peering into my car. I groaned, rolled onto my stomach and squinted, mustering all my concentration into a response.

No.

Satisfied that I'd allayed the beast, I set the phone down and drifted back into the sweet, downy layers of sleep and rest. Not ten seconds later, my phone chimed with the happy chirp of a lark right in my ear. A lark I wanted to grab by the beak and throw across the room.

GET UP NOW! You know I'll come down there.

"Mira!" I growled, even though she couldn't hear me. "It's 5:30 in the morning! I don't have class on Fridays."

As if she'd heard me, another text came through.

I don't care how early it is, and I know you don't have class. Get out here. Now. I'm in your driveway waiting and I HAVEN'T HAD A PEPSI. We're going to the gym.

With a moan that would have impressed even my drama-mama sister, I shoved the covers off and fell out of bed with the plop of a baby whale dropping.

I hauled my still-asleep body off the floor and groped blindly for a pair of workout clothes. Except I didn't have "workout clothes" because I'd never worked out before yesterday in my life, so I grabbed a pair of loose sweats and another oversized shirt. After yanking my hair back into a ponytail, slipping on a pair of tennis shoes that needed replacing over a year ago, and fumbling my way through a hoodie, I tottered outside. Mira gave me a sweeter-than-sugar kind of smile when I fell into her car with less grace than a toddler learning to walk.

"See?" she asked with the menacing kind of tone that meant she was about to bite my head off. Mira without Pepsi was like a baby snake that couldn't control its venom. "Don't you already feel better?"

I shot her a blinding scowl, jerked the hoodie over my face, and sank into the seat with a phrase my mom wouldn't be proud of.

The gym was quiet except for the whir of machines and the questionable grunts coming from a guy near the weight rack. Mira hopped back onto an elliptical, bright blue leggings on and sweat band in place. Remembering my previous experience, however, I opted for the safety of the treadmill. To my supreme luck, I stood right below the TV with reruns of The Golden Girls playing. If I was going to be tortured, at least I could laugh my way through it. I set my pace at three miles per hour—which seemed pretty ambitious since I couldn't remember the last time I'd walked fifty feet when I wasn't forced—and started moving.

An episode and a half later, I glanced down in shock.

"What the crap? I just walked a mile and a half."

To say I was shocked I hadn't died is an understatement. A mile seemed so . . . long. And I'd done, not only one, but almost two. The excitement was so real I didn't know how to handle it, so I just kept walking. I looked back to the numbers, saw the maze of bright lights flashing, and figured I might as well finish off two miles.

Once The Golden Girls had finished, an old rerun on Matlock came on, so I turned my attention to people-watching again. The two girls lifting weights weren't there that morning, which disappointed me, but the Asian man running around the track had returned and puffed by every few minutes. The last half mile finished interminably slow, and I was glad to step off the machine after forty minutes of constant walking.

That had to be a record for me. One of which I felt quite proud.

Elated, I found Mira standing stock still on the elliptical again, head angled back so far that her mouth tilted open, drooling over the news anchor for the local morning news.

"Hey!" I called across the running track. "Mira! I just walked two miles!"

She startled out of her reverie and automatically began moving her legs again. After a blink or two, she processed what I'd said and gave me a thumbs up.

My gaze travelled to the rest of the gym, where various people contorted themselves in painful positions to achieve something, I couldn't tell what. Should I try a new machine? One woman kept spreading her legs open and closed like a hussy. I shook my head.

No machines for me.

I couldn't even get off an elliptical without falling on my face. I'd surely kill myself on the weight machines. Or, I shuddered to think, get stuck in one and need help getting out. I imagined myself stopping a passerby.

Uh, excuse me? Could you find a spare forklift to heave my body out of this contraption? I'm stuck.

Seeing me frozen in deliberation, Mira climbed off her elliptical—successfully, I might add—with a heavy sigh.

"I'm beat," she said, wiping nonexistent sweat off her forehead. "Let's go. I just don't have a lot of energy this morning."

I cocked an eyebrow. "No Pepsi to get going?"

"No," she snapped. "Now stop talking about it. My body doesn't know how to function without it, okay? This dieting thing is just . . ." She trailed off, letting the words linger in the air unspoken.

I knew exactly what she meant.

_____________________

Once home, I slipped into my shower to wash off remnants from the gym. When the steam cleared from my mirror, I looked like a drowned rat clutching a towel because I couldn't wrap it around my body.

"That will be awesome," I thought, daydreaming of a time when I'd be able to wrap an entire towel—and not the oversized ones my mom bought just for me at Costco—all the way around my torso. I inspected my face and poked at the pudge of my neck with a finger, wishing I could target areas of my body to lose weight from first. Zap! There goes my double chin. Pow! There go my hamster cheeks.

How long did this weight loss thing take to happen anyway? Would I start seeing it come off in a day or two, or did it take months and months of slaving at the gym?

After changing into my usual baggy black pants and an old t-shirt of my dad's, I dropped back onto my computer chair to stare at the clock. Only 7:30 in the morning, and I felt wide awake. I normally slept in until eleven o'clock or noon on Fridays. Then Rachelle and I went out to Chipotle to get burrito babies.

What on earth was I going to do all day?

Duh! I thought with an eye roll. Stalk Bradley.

Unfortunately, Bradley wasn't online, so I satisfied myself with clicking through pictures of him until my stomach growled.

"What madness is this?" I asked, pressing a hand to my stomach. "You're hungry? Well of course you are! I didn't feed you much yesterday."

Visions of sausage, cheese, and eggs sandwiches danced through my head, but Bitsy's stern face broke through them, and I sighed.

Egg whites for me, I supposed.

My eyes drifted to the calendar on my wall. I'd ended the day before exactly on target for my calories, which likely accounted for why I felt so ravenous today. I grabbed a sharpie and wrote a smiley face. It looked so nice that I wrote just beneath it:

Walked 2 miles.

With a sprightly spring in my step, I started for the stairs, wondering just how to separate the egg yolk from the white

Personally, I'm not a big fan of egg white omelettes, and I'm a girl that appreciates the goodness of a yolk (Plus, straight egg whites make me sick!) But even I can appreciate a well cooked omelette. For me, it's going to have veggies and a little cheese.

What is your favorite egg dish?

And thanks again for reading and keeping up with Lexie and all her exercise adventures! Don't forget to leave a comment or click that cute little star to vote.