I’m a wuss.

There. I said it.

I remember a few years ago watching an episode of The Biggest Loser. (Don’t ask me why I was watching it, I just was. Back off.) Anyway, early in the competition, during a particularly intense segment of the workout, one of the fat guys got sick and barfed from working out too hard.

I laughed.

I’m not laughing any more. I hired a personal trainer for a 12-week program. I meet with him once a week and then go to the gym on my own and follow some general guidelines he sets for me at least three other nights a week.

I had my latest session with him, and I can honestly say that for the first time, I almost got sick to my stomach from exercise. I’ve always suspected that exercise can kill you, and now I have the beginnings of definitive proof. I had to excuse myself at one point and go to the men’s room.

Fortunately, I did not have insult added to injury by passing any scantily-clad muscle men changing in the locker room as I limped along, feeling feeble. Okay, not feeble: feeling like I was on death’s door. I caught my reflection in the mirror as I headed to the great porcelain bowl (just in case), and I was ashen. So I now know what I’d look like in a black and white movie. It’s no more of a pretty sight than the color version, unfortunately.

I did not part ways with my last meal, I am happy to say, but this was accomplished by sitting very still for several minutes, during which the memory of me laughing at that fat guy who “couldn’t take the pounding” kept playing over and over. Damn photographic memory.

What happened, I think, is that I simply allowed myself to get overheated. Too intense exercise too quickly, with no water. It didn’t help matters that I was trying to look macho as I struggled to do reps with 20 and 30-pound weights (!!!) and had a heavy towel draped around the back of my neck…that particular body part felt like it was about 150° as I lay dying stood fighting the “impulse.”

For those few minutes, being fat and weak honestly didn’t seem so bad.