Chapter 1 - the injury

Cassidy was almost finished with her daily gym routine, with only a few more reps on the leg press left to complete before the end of the three hour weight lifting session. She’d stuck to her workout schedule religiously for years, and had the diet to match- every day while she was bulking up, she consumed thousands of calories of healthy foods like protein shakes, lean meat, and vegetables, and whenever she was getting a little too much fat on her frame for her liking, she’d cut until she got her definition back. Her dedication had paid off, and she had one of the leanest, most muscular figures of any female body builder.

Today, though, Cassidy was in for a terrible misfortune. When she finished her workout and went to get up and head home, her foot got caught in the machine and, before she realized what was happening, she tripped and fell hard, severely twisting her ankle in the process. Even simply disentangling her foot from the machine and making it to her car was excruciatingly painful, her injured ankle rendered practically useless. By the time she got home, it had swollen to the point of being grotesque- a sure sign that medical attention was necessary. She called to make an appointment with her doctor, and was told to come by the next day. In the meantime, she prepared her usual post-workout 1250 calorie protein shake and reclined with her foot elevated as she drank it.

When Cassidy went to her appointment the next day, she got bad news: her ankle was badly broken, and she would need to wear a cast for at least two months. She could still go about her daily life, as long as she didn’t strain the ankle too badly, but the doctor warned her than if she tried to work out before the injury healed, it would only make it worse and lead to a longer recovery, or potentially even permanent damage. As an athlete, Cassidy couldn’t risk that, so she resigned herself to just a couple months off. She was in such good shape that it couldn’t possibly do that much damage, right? Getting back to peak condition would be easy as pie.

A week after her injury, Cassidy was already starting to adjust to her new, temporary, lazier lifestyle. It was like a vacation, she told herself, it wasn’t so bad. She’d spent so much of her time working out that she didn’t have much in the way of other hobbies, and her career was in competitive bodybuilding, too, so she was left without much to do but lie on the couch and watch TV. She was so preoccupied with her pain that it didn’t occur to her she should adjust her diet, and she continued eating like she usually did: three big meals a day plus two 1250 calorie shakes. When she was working out regularly, she was easily able to convert the bulk of these calories to muscle mass and burn the rest, but without exercising, she was consuming a couple thousand more calories per day than she could use. Her metabolism kept the pounds at bay at first, at least to some degree, but once a full week had gone past she’d already started to put on the slightest bit of fat. It wasn’t enough to be noticeable yet, not unless you were really looking closely. After all, it was just one or two little pounds, and as her muscle mass diminished ever so slowly from disuse, she wouldn’t have seen much of a change even if she’d thought to step on a scale.