So, as justification and completion of the half-torture, half-improvement that is this new exercise regimen, I've been poring over Misty's copy of Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone, and shaking my head at the amusement that inevitably follows.

If you ask me, I'll tell you that I'm not a picky eater. Really. As long as you don't try to feed me anything with cucumbers, that is.

Don't get me started on cucumbers. The smell: vile. The taste: vile. Texture? Vile. Net effect on salads? Vile. They have that nasty green skin, and ... ugh. Pickles are worse. Pickles are an abomination not to be tolerated on this planet. As someone who lives with me can attest, I may not like the smell of cucumbers, but the smell of pickles can make me flee a room.

See, I told you not to get me started on cucumbers. Nothing good comes of it!

Sure, you've been enthralled by my Tales of the Gym, but those of you who really just come around for the kitty pr0n have been feeling sorely ignored as of late. Luckily, I've had a few ... uh, gems (?) ... stashed on my camera's memory stick, and finally got around to downloading them after today's Marathon Gym Session.

Sometimes we don't slip through life quite so unnoticed as we might like to think.

For now, Wednesdays are my most difficult days at the gym. Each Wednesday, I either increase all exercises in my weight training regimen by one set, or am on the receiving end of a new weight training regimen from Laura-the-trainer.

I'm at the beginning of week three. On my first day, Laura walked with me from machine to machine, demonstrating how they were used and adjusted. (At 5'1½", I am by far one of the shortest people using these machines, and most machines have to be adjusted down to accommodate torsos, arms, and legs as short as mine.) She coached me through each machine, trying to determine how much weight I could handle on each machine.For most machines, a set is fifteen reps; machines working abdominal and back muscles get 20 reps each. On that first day, I struggled to complete one set on each machine.

You know, it'd be kinda nice to be able to do some kind of food/nutritional reading on the web without hearing about that damned Atkins Diet all the time. It would really make my reading and research a bit easier, when sometimes all I want to know is the approximate calorie/nutrient breakdowns for some foods and instead I get 46,582 versions of

"I Lost 243 Pounds In Seven Minutes With The Atkins Diet!"

God. Shut up already before I deck all of you. (I've earned these new biceps. Don't taunt them. They hit back.)

In my research, my studying, and through the occasional posterior factual extraction, I have come up with a radical new idea, which I plan to patent and sell to the world:

"Burn more calories than you eat and you'll lose weight."

Me: "I think I'm gonna need a fourth day at two sets."

Laura: "Second set giving you issues?"

Me: "Yeah, on a few exercises. I can do the first set of the bicep curls with no problem, but I usually have to stop somewhere around the sixth rep of the second set. Only way I can finish it out is to stop between each rep to take a breath. Is it going to be better to drop down in weight or to add in another day or two for me to really adjust to this weight?"

Fifteen hundred is my magic number, and the notebook on my left is giving me hints that I've got about a fifty-fifty chance of meeting it on a daily basis.

I won't lie to you; this is my own personal hell. There's a reason I've avoided this process for most of my adult life, because I was fully aware of what it would do to me. I am twenty-seven. If you count the eight years in which my eating disorder was most active, and the six years that have since passed, I have spent more than half my life learning how to evade the demon I chose to allow into my life.
I'm trying to learn how to look it in the face, because if I can look, I can learn to stare. If I can stare, I can learn to talk back. If I can learn to talk back, I can learn to swear back, and maybe, if I can stare and swear and kick, maybe I'll have a chance of finding out what it's like not to live with this on a daily basis.