Day Two: My Muscles Are Made of Fire.

I can't sit down. When I try, there is this explosion of pain, and my sitting becomes more of a controlled fall.

Meanwhile, I have committed to join Erin in a running program she found. Why? Because the first day involves walking for four minutes, running for a minute, and walking for another four minutes. But I now have this sinking feeling that maybe the first day is actually really easy and maybe it gets harder. Because eventually, you end up running a 5K.

What is this violin?

Meanwhile, I have discovered a complication to working out.

You still have to eat meals. So you are taking in calories. Calories that you just burned off. So you are undoing the work that you just did the second you eat your next meal.

This is terrible. No wonder so many people end up with eating disorders.

I am not a math genius, but I do know that if you take something away, then add something back, you end up right where you were before.

This is a problem.

It is also a problem that I love food. I love food more than I love most anything. Especially when I get to eat said food. Sometimes, when I am at work, I go on Pinterest and stare at pictures of food. Just because.

Yesterday, after my workout, my muscles felt like they were made of Jello Jigglers. Today, they are made of FIRE. It is like someone sculpted lava, shoved it under my skin, and said, "Go for a walk, Laura."

Then I went to work, and I discovered that I could not kneel. I needed a book on the bottom shelf, so I had to drag over a stool and use it to slowly lower myself to the ground. Then I had to use it to stand back up. It was degrading.

I insisted that it was Erin's fault, and she just kept saying, "It get's easier!" And I said, "Does the pain ever stop?" And she said, "I do it almost every day, and I'm not in pain."

I failed to ask her if she was using some kind of schedule-three narcotic for pain relief on a daily basis.

Before I knew it, she had talked me into repeating the workout from yesterday AND joining her in this running program which will begin soon, and I have decided that I maybe have a carbon monoxide leak at home or at work because that's the only thing I can think of that would make me suggestible enough to be persuaded to join in Erin's Psychotic Reign of Exercise Terror.

Meanwhile, Melynda says that when I get used to this DVD, I can move on to this other, harder DVD.

But...but...but...

HARDER?

I feel like harder would be akin to having my arms and legs removed without anesthetic. I feel like harder is what they do to people in Turkish prisons, or like those ceremonies where people puncture their skin with needles and attach weights.

HARDER???

Harder is what it would feel like if all the cells in your body spontaneously exploded. That is harder.

I really don't want to melt into a puddle of Laura-goo, especially because I'm pretty sure if I did that, the goo-me would also be on fire.

One pound weights never felt this heavy, and stairs have never been this impossible. I am not even going to tell you how hard it is for me to sit down on the toilet, because if I did, you'd be laughing so hard, you would never look at me the same way. Let's just say, all toilets should come with those hand rails they have in the handicapped stalls.

At the moment, I am somewhere between shock and weeping uncontrollably. I keep having to check to make sure my legs are still attached, because the only thing that would explain this level of pain is if my legs had been violently detached, possibly by an alligator or chainsaw. And this is after a dose of ibuprofen.

So how is your Friday going?