Chapter 6 - Last Ditch Effort

“All right Jess, today is the day. No more excuses. You have workout clothes that fit and plenty of free time to make it all happen. It’s now or never. Two hours of exercise. Here we go.”

Weeks had passed since Dan had handed Jessica his number, and despite the former athletic trainer’s best attempts to reign in her new body’s primal urges and make changes to her diet and fitness regiment, the 26-year-old woman had continued to lose ground to her stomach and its insatiable and gluttonous tendencies. The months of diet and behavioral engineering that April and Dan had conducted on April’s body leading up to their transference had amplified an already powerful biological imperative for attaining obesity, and despite weeks of eating healthier foods and going for short walks, all her hard work had accomplished was slowing the rising tide of lard accumulating across her short body.

Despite Jessica’s lifestyle changes, she had managed to pack on 14 more pounds of flab by the end of her first month into the experiment, bringing the 5’3” woman’s body to a sizable 217 pounds. To the former fitness freaks disgust, her short frame was rapidly transforming into a soft and pliable meatball. She knew she was on the precipice of trading her chubby body for the classic obese woman’s shape. Admittedly, the thought of spending the next year as a flabby ball of blubber excitedly the young woman almost as much as it horrified her, and that was the most anxiety inducing reality of all. She knew the tipping point was coming, and the thought itself sent shivers down her spine in more ways than one.

And so, equipped with a brand new set of fitting workout clothes from Lululemon, the overstuffed plumper was ready to make one last push against her new body’s ruinous tendencies.

“All right Jessica here we go,” the rounded woman said as she tried to pump herself up for a workout that she would have considered a breeze just five weeks prior. “We are starting with a brisk walk to get us warmed up, followed by a two-mile jog. No excuses this time.”

The woman spread her arms in a brief stretch and tapped away at her smart watch, it’s heart rate monitor popping up in big bold letters as it began to record a workout.

“Andddd here… we… go!”

The first few steps of a jogging workout are always the clumsiest for most. As the human body moves, muscles and joints begin to move and flex, and the heart pumps faster over time to supply the body with oxygen. In her old life, few things excited Jessica more than the thrill of the start of a new workout. However, as the overweight and out of shape woman shifted into gear, her body felt as if it were shaking off more than rust as her lumbering form stumbled through the first few steps of her power walk.

“Keep your head high and just keep breathing girly,” Jessica mumbled while trying her best to ignore the perpetual grinding of her plush thunder thighs and the slight waddle her body had developed over the last month, a direct result of the increasing abdominal fat had begun to shift her center of gravity.

Jessica trudged herself through the neighborhood, passing by various onlookers who did their best to be polite and not stare at the bumbling woman. Just five minutes into the brisk walk, her heart rate had already climbed above 140 bpm, and a thick layer of sweat had begun to permeate across the woman’s expansive shape. Glancing down at her wrist, Jessica cursed to herself as lethargy swelled within her leg muscles.

“No fucking way I am already feeling tired,” she groaned between gasps of air. Yet with each minute that passed, Jessica felt her body slowing down as her muscles weakened from hauling the excess weight.

“Nope not giving in,” she lectured herself as she approached the one-mile marker. “One mile and then it’s jog time.”

The woman eyeballed her watch as the countdown to the one-mile marker ticked closer. A quick cursory glance had shown that her heart rate had already pushed into the 160s from her warm-up walk, yet even through her heavy huffing and puffing, Jessica was determined to push forward.

“Almost there, come ooonnnn. Annndd go!”

As the smart watch buzzed with the completion of her first mile, the sweat soaked plumper launched into action as best she could, quickening her pace and extending her legs further with each step as she emerged out of her warm-up into a brisk jog.

“Here we go. That’s it. One foot at a time!”

The woman’s beefy arms swung wildly and her already bumbling motion grew more unstable as her speed increased. Across each corner of her doughy physique, pockets of excess flesh jiggled erratically as her swollen feet landed heavily against the pavement beneath. Her plush ass cheeks and thunder thighs rippled with each step. The excess adipose across her face and chin quivered. Her bloated belly slipped from beneath her athletic shorts, the pale dome escaping her outfit and wobbling in plain sight for all to see. Even still, the motivated woman pushed on.

“I’m doing it, I’m actually doing it!”

A surge of excitement titillated Jessica’s brain as she found herself in a full jogging motion for the first time since being placed in her new body. However, the thrill was short lived, and a fiery sensation exploded abruptly from her left leg just as the former fitness trainer managed to hit five miles per hour.

“OH SHITTT!”

With loud yipe, the 217-pound woman felt her left calf muscle seize up mid-jog, and the tumbling woman used every ounce of coordination she had to launch her body away from the hard concrete below. So worried about avoiding the painful collision against the sidewalk, Jessica failed to notice the large mushy collection of mud sitting close by, and her chubby body crashed into the wet, rain-soaked dirt before rolling three feet across the mushy ground.

“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME,” the mud-caked woman screamed in frustration as she rolled her aching body onto her back.

Tears streamed down Jessica’s cheeks as her pudgy fingers massaged her calf muscle. She had done everything in her power to finally motivate herself and perform an actual workout, and just when she had begun to believe that getting back in shape was a possibility, her new body reminded her once again of the futility of resisting its whims.

“April and Dan were right,” the woman whimpered as she struggled to her knees. “If this isn’t proof that I’m destined to be fat then I don’t know what is.”

Standing to her feet, Jessica wiped away some of the excess mud around her watch and sighed as the screen summarized her workout.

“120 feet. That’s all I could jog before falling apart.”

The defeated woman turned and shamefully headed back to her apartment. Her stomach was already crying out in pain for sustenance, and Jessica knew full well that all her efforts to work out would soon be erased by a single can of soda sitting in her fridge at home.

“I can’t control this body,” she lamented as she pulled out her phone. “It’s time I stop pretending that I’m something I’m not.”

Searching through her contact list, the mud-soaked plumper texted the man she had kept waiting for three weeks.

“My place in an hour. Bring pizza.”

Thirty seconds later, her phone buzzed with a new message.

“See you then, piggy.”