It all started with a text. From him. I’d heard about him for sure. The brutal personal trainer at my gym who kicks your butt and pinches your fat. And now here he was on my phone screen, an unknown number offering his services.

My own friends had sold me down the river saying, according to the text, that I “would be able to benefit from (his) help.” What the hell did that mean? Did they just call me fat? Ugh. But they were right. I could use some help in that department because I had kind of let myself go in the last several months. They knew it. I knew it. And now this trainer knew it.

So after firing off a “how dare you?!” text to my once beloved girlfriends, I hit Trainer back and set up a fitness evaluation for early the next week. I even introduced myself when I saw him at the gym later that night because now that the cat was out of the bag there seemed to be no sense in hiding.

Well, that was, until I heard how the other girls’ fitness evaluations went. Friend One said he called her “squishy,” and he told Friend Two something along the lines of her having the “gait of a toddler.” These are two of my tiniest friends and women I consider to be quite fit. I am nearly twice their size and had fallen far out of anything resembling a workout routine. What on earth would he say to me? Actual fear started to sink in and I became a nervous wreck as I got closer and closer to judgment day.

It was a Tuesday. Trainer and I were sitting at a desk in an office, discussing my fitness history, goals and whatnot. It was, surprisingly, a pleasant conversation and a good reminder that I’d actually been a fairly fit person in the past – I was a college soccer player, I ran half marathons, and I’d logged thousands of miles as a cyclist in my day.

Trainer: So what happened?

Me: I dunno.

But I did know. I love food. I love drinks. And as much as I love running and jumping and climbing trees, there was no way I could do enough of that to counterbalance my love of mac n cheese, tacos and craft beers. (To be fair though, most days I eat pretty healthy. It’s just that when I go off the rails, I GO OFF THE RAILS.)

So there I was. Time to face the music and step on that scale. Ho-LEE shit. Actual proof that I’d let myself go. I’m way too embarrassed to say what it said and I know that flies in the face of fitness blogging but TRUST ME. It was the highest number I’d ever seen on my end. However, before I could let that sink in, Trainer asked me if I had a sports bra under my shirt.

Huh? Yes. Why?

Because it was time to pinch the fat. Mortified, but committed to this journey, I took off my shirt and finally understood how contestants on Biggest Loser must feel at the weigh-in wearing only a sports bra and pants, with their fat rolls exposed for all the world to see. In my case it was just Trainer but STILL.

Oh, and have I mentioned that Trainer is hot? Well he is. Like, super fit and really cute. And if I’m going to take my shirt off for a hot dude, I certainly don’t want him pinching or otherwise acknowledging my fat. Miserable. So I just kind of pretended I was somewhere else while he used fat calipers to assess my body fat percentages.

When it was finally over, I put my shirt back on as he did the math on my Body Mass Index. It wasn’t pretty: 36.56% body fat. That’s borderline obese. OBESE? I’m not obese. I don’t look obese. I’m not sitting on a Hoveround in Walmart. How am I obese?

But I guess the numbers don’t lie and I have a lot of work to do. The good news is, Trainer says it’s doable and that I’ll be surprised how quickly I can turn things around and get myself back into college athlete shape. That last part is the extreme dream but he says it is possible. And I believe him. Now that we’ve been through all this ugliness together I trust him and am willing to put my fitness in his hands.

Now, if someone would just slip a ton of money into my hands so I can afford him. It ain’t cheap but I guess you can’t really put a price on health and happiness, eh?