Page 21 of Bewitch

“Try it for a few weeks. If you lose weight on it, great! If you’re losing too much weight because of all of the training—”

“You can lose weight too quickly?”

“Yes. There’s a healthy range of weight to lose per week.”

“And that is?”

A pound or two.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, you might lose more in the beginning from water weight, especially if you up your water intake, which is a good idea.”

“Because that makes sense,” I mumble. “Drinking more means you’ll flush more water out.”

“Basically. I’ll buy a food scale for us in case you want to start tracking everything you eat.”

I groan inwardly. This is a recipe for disaster for someone who already has issues with food, but if it might start to make me make healthier choices…

A balance, that’s what I need, and if I have Lucas heling me at the gym and Brooke here for the rest of it, maybe I can do this.

“So this is how many grams of protein you’ll need every day,” Brooke says. “According to the calculator, you need this and this for carbs and fat, but if you want to take some from fat, you can eat more carbs and vice versa.”

I wearily rub my forehead.

“Don’t worry,” Brooke says. “I’ll help you. We can do this together.”

“You’ll track your macros again?”

“Sure. I think I need to eat a bit more. I’ve been doing karate, and I might hit the gym a few times, and…”

“All of the exercise you and Declan have been doing?” I ask slyly.

She laughs. “I still can’t believe how everything shaked out.”

“Well, it sure ended well.”

Brooke nods and hugs me. “Everything will work out for you too.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I mumble.

“Oh, and with doing all of this, with the working out and the food, you might find that the scale moves down at first and then stalls or even go up. That doesn’t matter. What matters is your measurements.”

“My measurements?”

“Your waist, your hips, stuff like that. If you can measure yourself and keep track, the non-scale victories are so much more important. The scale just spits out a number, and besides, bodybuilders, their BMIs are always overweight or obese. It doesn’t take into account muscle mass.”

“But I thought muscle weighs less than fat.”

Brooke makes a face. “Kinda, but not really. It just takes up less space, which is why measurements is so much more important of a gauge of process. Ten pounds of muscle is the same as ten pounds of fat, but it takes up a lot less room in the body. Does that make sense?”

I nod.

“Good. Now, tell me more about this fitness trainer of yours that you want to screw without screwing.”

CHAPTER8

Istart to blush. “He’s a typical-looking gym rat. Muscular. Tall. Thinks he’s the shit. Acts like it too.”

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