Gym Rat

This is a a short inspired by a prompt I got from another place I often go to. Hopefully it reaches the people who are trying to shape themselves into who they want to be.

"I must be dreamin or...
We're on to somethin'

I must be dreamin' for...
I don't fall in-"

The palm of her hand smacked down on the snooze button of her musical alarm clock. Her auburn eyes leered at the turquoise digital numbers as they glowed "5:30 AM". Crawling out from under her plaid blue sheets she grasped around the nightstand until she felt the cool wooden handle of her fine tooth comb and dragged herself out of bed. She lurched towards the body length mirror propped on the opposite end of her cozily decorated room. As she combed her rich brown hair into its familiar feathered form, her free hand reached for the side of her abs, seeing how much of herself she could grab. She only managed to fill her fingertips, yet as she looked up from her hand, she saw the image burned into her memory when she first began this routine 2 months ago.

She slouched on the couch with her mom and brother, laughing at the sitcom they loved so dearly as she saw a severely obese man run on a treadmill. Her candy bar rolling around on her tongue, she was fixated on the way his blubber swirled around like the ocean waves. Her family laughed and laughed, but she soon noticed her own family was not in much better shape than the man on the TV, and as it soon came to be in her own mind, neither was she. At that moment she began to scrutinize what was left of her candy bar, handing it off to her brother before heading outside for a bike ride. That evening she rode all the way to the edge of town and back, all the while swearing to herself she'd do what was needed to avoid becoming such a hideous monstrosity.

She slinked into her powder blue gym sweats and butterfly emblazoned tanktop, all the while noshing on the granola bars she kept in her gym bag. With all components on hand she power walked to the door and loaded her bag and bottle in her adult tricycle's basket. Her earphones on and music pumping she began her journey anew, peddling hard all 3.5 miles to the local gym before doing her pre-exercise warm up stretches, then doing 3 sets of 25 pushups, 3 sets of 35 crunches, 2 sets of 25 chin ups(switching grips with each set)3 sets of 20 leg curls with the machine set at 140 pounds, and 3 sets of 20 bench presses at nearly twice her body weight, plus many more varied in and out of her routine everyday. Her body tired and slick with sweat, she takes a few laps in the gym swimming lanes before finally relaxing in the hot tub and showering off, dressing up and returning home to prepare for school later in the day. As she rides home she passes by a portly gentleman eating a big, juicy burger, showing her the one thing she's wanted to do since she began this: the ability to smile.