"Are we really going to go out in matching workout gear?"
Kat turned to her husband and playfully punched him in the arm. "You said they were cute when you bought them as an us gift for Christmas."
Mike frowned. "Well, yeah. I just..."
He trailed off and looked back at them in the mirror. The couple was dressed in matching windbreaker suits, real Rocky Balboa type stuff. Matching poly-blend pants and zippered jackets with high collars. They were both navy, with neon green piping and highlights. A seven pointed star was emblazoned on the chest over the letters F A E. Them matching was really all that was remarkable about them, the pair was ultimately average looking, the kind of people you would see walking in stock footage of cities like middle American zombies.
Finally, he found the words he was looking for. "I just don't remember them being this tight when we tried them on before."
On Mike, the jacket strained across a belly that was the result of a couple years sitting at a desk while not cutting back on an athletic college diet. The elastic waistband of the pants was taut, even tucked under his tummy. In Kat's case, her outfit was less noticeably strained in any one place, but it was hard to move her limbs more than a few degrees in any one direction. For either of them, the next size up from another brand had been too long everywhere, but the goal was to lose weight, right?
"Well it has been a few months since then, hun. Which is why we need to get on it. Today."
Before Mike could protest, she pushed him both out of the downstairs bathroom and the front door of their Philadelphia brownstone. The suits had been bought as part of a resolution to get fit, one that was tested as the winter chill continued long into March. Out of no where though, this weekend was supposed to be nice, the first opportunity to wear their joint commitments.
Stepping off the stoop onto the sidewalk felt like a huge accomplishment in and of itself for Kat. Looking back, she had always settled on things, letting them wash over her. Now though, she had a stable, if boring, career as well as a loving relationship and it felt like the time to get off the back foot. She had no illusions of become some record breaking marathon runner, but did want to feel like she was in control of her life and hoped getting in some amount of shape would help with that.
For Mike, stepping onto the concrete was facing half-forgotten demons. He had buried himself in sports through his parents divorce and had grown up mostly alone. He had been a linebacker in college, even playing some games in his junior and senior years, but his lone wolf attitude meant he never got the attention he needed to go pro. He tried to break into sports journalism, but none of his leads ever panned out. Though he went to school for business, he felt that getting a desk job downtown was settling. As his middle management job demanded more and more of his time, it was easy to let the six-a-week regimen progressively slip. Now, he hardly worked out at all but had continued to eat like he was.
"So...we'll start out slow, okay?" Kat said as she stretched her arms. "Just go for a loop around the block and then reevaluate."
Mike grunted, but they started off at a brisk pace all the same.
From their door to the corner was easy, as was most of the jaunt up the cross street. By time they rounded the second corner however, both were sweating profusely despite it being a balmy sixty-two.
"I don't get it," Mike said between breaths as he continued to jog. "I feel like I'm sitting in a sauna."
"Maybe we bought winter gear as it went on clearance?"
Even so, they were only half way, they would have to keep jogging to get back home. They were approaching the third corner when Kat felt like the suit was tightening around her even as it got easier to move. She wrote it off as being sticky after the warm up.
Nearly home now, neither felt even remotely tired despite how much their bodies seemed to suggest. They came to the forth corner and hesitated.
"Hey, do you want to go another block over?" Both asked at the same time and laughed.
When the light changed, they hurried across the street in the direction of a nearby park. With each step, Mike felt better than he had in months. Kat was grinning ear to ear. Neither realized that both their bodies and tracksuits were steadily changing.
By the far corner of the next block, the windbreaker pants had morphed into tights that did not quite fit. Both had lost inches on their tummies, but it was not as if the weight was just vanishing. Kat could swear she saw Mike's arms and shoulder straining against the jacket's sleeves in a way they had not since college. On the same wavelength, Mike thought Kat's plump ass looked amazing in the tights he had bought her.
At the next corner, they had to wait for the light to change. Absently, Kat unzipped her track jacket. The plain cotton t-shirt she had been wearing was now also a spandex garment that matched the jacket and tights. She pulled the neon green v-neck up and away from her chest a few times to fan herself. Something about the garment pulled at her mind, but all she could think about what that it was the still the wrong size as it pinched her boobs.
Next to her, Mike's jacket hung open as he scratched at his broad chest through a compression shirt. The navy and green spandex was clinging to his damp skin, highlighting abdominal and pectoral muscles Kat had also not seen since college.
"That's right, we were just starting out..."
"What's that, babe?"
"I...I don't remember looking like this when we left." It felt like she was walking through a fog as she tried to find the words. It was like waking from a dream.
"Not that I mind, but the me saw in the mirror an hour ago was a lump and now... I mean, look at me!" As she pulled off the jacket, it was obvious just how much her body had changed. All over she was a little tighter. Where she was once all the same width, her waistline had narrowed several inches, highlighting her wide hips.
