First Proper Training Session, and Some Good News

I met the personal trainer this morning for my first hour long session with her. As I have said, I had anticipated being weighed and having my body fat measured. The session commenced about 10 minutes late as she was finishing up with the client prior to me. I spent this time warming up on the treadmill until we got underway.

I was happy that we first went to the personal trainer room, however as it was occupied I was told that I would be weighed at the end of the session when the room should be free. After that we went into a work out that was similar to the ones I had done in the past, however this one featured some new exercises. I think that the plan is to keep the tempo of the work out quite quick so that my heart rate goes up, and most of the exercises use my body weight as the resistance. Suffice to say that it was very tough and I struggled through some parts of it. When I finished she complimented me on not throwing up or passing out like most of her clients do. I guess that is positive feedback, I did feel like spewing however!

After the main workout, we did some abdominal training and she also made me do some stretches as part of the warm down. As you may recall from my earlier posts, there were some things that I wanted to ask the Trainer, and I took this opportunity to do so. I won’t repeat all of the questions and answers, however I now have the following rules that I must follow from today on:

1. I must do cardio before I have my breakfast, every day, for 6 days a week. I have one day off. I can either get up early to do it, or get up later and have my breakfast later. The key is that it must be on an empty stomach. I will try to get up and have the workout done in time for me to be back at home to have breakfast with my partner.


2. For cardio I must start by doing 15 minutes on the cross trainer at a level between 8 and 12. I can go as fast as I like, however I am to be careful of my knees (I have never had knee trouble on the cross trainer before).


3. For cardio I must do 25 minutes on the treadmill. This week I should walk between 5 and 6 km/ph. Every three minutes I should increase the speed to 7 and walk for two minutes at that pace, before returning back to the 6 or 5 constant pace. This alternating should continue to the end of the workout.


4. I should try to eat between 5 and 6 times a day. I should not eat any fruit after 5:00p.m. I can drink coffee, and the green tea (the trainer will provide me with Chinese Tea that I have been warned is to be consumed near a toilet. An intestinal broom perhaps?!!).


5. I am not allowed to drink beer at all (due to the sugar content), and am allowed only an occasional wine. I have been given permission to go to the Hunter Valley for my birthday this Saturday.


6. I must record when I eat and what I eat and hand this to the trainer next week so she can then construct a diet for me.


7. My workouts with the trainer will be in the afternoons, the next to take place on Friday and she will advise me of the hour nearer the time.

So, there you have it folks. That is my plan for the next week (I gather that my regime will change every week to keep me on my toes and to keep me improving). A bit of a change of pace, however it isn’t too much change for me to cope with at one time I think. I am tired today after the workout, but I feel good that I made it, and I think that the work over the last few weeks has put me in good stead to take on the challenge. The trainer is purposefully changing things slowly so that my body doesn’t suddenly detect that it needs to retain calories, and start fighting me, trying to keep fat and hold on to calories. I think this is what Full Circle may have encountered in the past (see comments on previous posts), the plateau effect in weight loss when one routine is followed, and too much change is introduced at one time. We’ll see how I go.

I got the impression that some of you were wanting to know how my weight is going. I took the opportunity to weigh myself today after the workout. As I said, I was expecting to be weighed in the personal trainer room, however the scales there were not accurate enough for someone of my size, and they were not able to read my body fat percentage. Not good, and has produced the first ‘goal’ for me. Getting small enough for the scales to be able to read me (about 20 kilos off I think).

As such, my weight from the scales in the main gym area is being used as the starting point. The trainer settled on the 145 I took the other day and will start from that. I took the opportunity after a lengthy warm down on the treadmill to weigh myself and the best balance I could get on the scales was 144.5kg, so I have lost half a kilo in just under a week. I feel pretty good about that as it represents a start, and a tangible result for me that came as a result of making changes gradually. I should expect that this rate of weight loss will increase from now as my activity levels start to increase as I follow the above rules.

I’ll work on putting a table together that can go on the blog which will be updated each week with my weight. Most importantly, I am feeling good, and reckoning that I will be getting an early night tonight so I can hit the gym tomorrow morning and get the first cardio session done. Bring it on! I shall report to you again after that. Fight the Fat!