Oh, How I Hurt

This weight thing has gotten out of control. My face is fat, my feet are fat, and I’m even outgrowing some of my by-now-all-elastic-waistband wardrobe.

So I woke up Monday morning bound and determined to do something about it. My chubby little self was in the pool at the local gym by 6:15 a.m.

I love to swim. I was practically half fish when I was growing up. And besides being great fun, it’s a wonderful form of exercise – I can raise my heart rate without sweating. Instead, I sluice through the cool, refreshing water. If I’m not sweating, it doesn’t feel like exercise, which is apparently key for me.

But I digress.

I swam the first lap. It was fine. Since I hadn’t exercised in a very long time, I was taking it easy and not pushing myself. Then, about a quarter of the way through my second lap (still taking it easy and not pushing myself, mind you), my arms began to tingle and burn. Then they began to shriek at me, “What the heck are you doing?”

I kept going. I was bound and determined to keep swimming. For a whole hour, no less. And I did. Eventually, the burning sensation went away. I’m not sure if it was just that my arms went numb and I could no longer feel their protests, or that they finally just gave up and adjusted. Either way, I kept going.

When the hour was finished, I was so proud of myself. I had spent a whole hour exercising, and I felt great.

That lasted less than eight hours.

That afternoon, as I was changing out of a t-shirt, I discovered a problem. I hurt. More accurately, my upper arms, shoulders and neck were sore to the point that I almost couldn’t get the t-shirt over my head. And I had a major headache, most likely triggered by my throbbing neck muscles.

I spent most of Tuesday in bed, popping pills to try to make the headache go away.

But on the bright side, my feet look thinner.