Skinny Boy ✔

Chapter 4: protein shakes and caloric intake

Sweaty bodies--that's what I was surrounded by. Dozens of people around me in the AC-blasted room carelessly perspiring like me. The gym was one of the only places where you could feel shameless for sweating. 

I saw quite a handful of girls there in their skin-tight yoga pants and running shorts. Some had baggy t-shirts, while others wore only sports bras on top. But it wasn't the girls that I had a hard time keeping my eyes away from, it was the buff, butch guys. 

Now, let's get one thing straight: I am. I'm as straight as can be. There isn't a gay bone in my body. 

So when I say it was hard to keep my eyes off of those guys, I don't mean I was checking them out, or even admiring them. I was looking at them with a pang of jealousy thumping in my chest along with my pounding heart. I was glancing at them with a sinking feeling in my stomach that could best be described as self-consciousness. 

Here I was, barely able to lift a fifty pound weight off the ground, and they were across the room pressing almost half of their body weight like it was nothing. No grunts, no groans, barely any struggling breaths. 

I want to do that. I want to be that. 

I wanted to be able to lift my body weight. I wanted to be able to do a hundred push ups in a row. I wanted to be able to do squats without being sore the next day. I wanted to be able to run a mile in under ten minutes. 

I will do that. I will achieve my goals. 

Snapshot.

I would have expected being surrounded by people who looked like what I wanted to to be a motivator, but it was more discouraging than anything else. Seeing so many muscles prodding out of their thin shirts, shirts that seemed shrunken when compared to the shoulders they hung from, I knew my efforts would only be vain attempts at this rate. I wouldn't reach my goals unless I took some sort of further action. 

So I left the gym early that day, and asked my mom if she could pick me up elsewhere. I didn't wait for her reply to come in before I walked out the doors and headed for the store. From there I headed straight to the specific aisle I was looking for, bouncing on my tired feet like I was on a mission. 

I knew exactly what I wanted, but as I stood before the rows of protein shakes and supplements, I realized I had no idea what it was I was looking for. 

I brushed my fingertips along the bottles, mumbling the labels to myself. Letting out a frustrated sigh, I set my bad down, pulled out my phone, and looked it up. 

Better than buying something I had no idea about. 

I clicked into the first website I saw, scrolled past the person's question, and skimmed through the comments until I saw a name that looked familiar. I scanned the bottles and grabbed the first one that someone mentioned, then headed off to checkout. 

I knew from the look on the cashier's face that she didn't care what I was buying, so long as it wasn't alcohol or cigarettes, but I had this weird feeling that she was judging me. Or maybe it was me judging myself. 

Once I was safely outside and waiting for my mom to get me, I shoved the protein shake proof of its purchase into my gym bag, zipping it away from the eyes of my mom, or anyone who would pass by me for that matter. It wasn't that I was trying to hide it from her per se, I just didn't feel like answering any potential questions. 

She pulled up in front of me with a smile on her face. "How was your workout, sweety?" she asked as we began driving away. 

"Good," I replied.