Then and Now.

I saw a personal trainer for about 2 years, then took a year 'off', and recently I reshuffled my finances and found a wee bit of money to take a few refresher sessions with him again, to refocus my training and get me back on track. (Or, as he put it so eloquently: "You couldn't stay away! Ah, they all come crawling back to Craig." - *rolls eyes*) Some of the recent tough sessions I've mentioned were with him. We have an interesting client-trainer relationship... Lots of banter, lots of swearing, he inflicts pain on me and waits for me to say thank you, while really I moan and whimper and try not to cry. Or, like today, yelp out in pain as my underused glute muscle cramps on me during a bridge exercise. And then I call him names, and he calls me names, and on we go to the next set of reps. I sulk, glare, stamp my feet, and generally act like a child, and he sighs, and adds more weight to the bar, and on we go... Although he is a cheeky wee pain in my arse (we commented recently that through all of our sessions, probably the muscles I've worked the hardest are the ones that control an eye-roll), he has been one of the handful of people I attribute my growth in confidence to, and my success. All the things I achieved last year, in the year when I wasn't his client, probably would have been a lot harder without the 2 years of groundwork we put in together.

This morning's session went along the lines of... (Probably not in the right order, as I didn't keep a note during the workout) -

1) 6 minute warm-up on cross trainer, followed by stretches.
2) I don't know the name for this, but basically a one-arm chest press of the 20kg olympic bar, while doing a wee explosive split feet swap thingy. I suck as description, but believe me I sucked at the exercise more, lol. 20 reps each side.
3) deep squats with a push press on a 15kg bar behind my head - found this tougher than I'd expected to - compound moves generally confuse me, but also I didn't much like doing shoulder press with the bar behind my head. So lots of whinging and whining during this one, i possibly came close to getting a slap. ;-) I think this was about 15 reps.
4) slow controlled full body swings with a 20kg bar on my shoulders and arms stretched all the way out (think Jesus on a crucifix, or Monty Python's Brian on a crucifix if that's better - always look on the bright side of life, huh?) - this is an awesome move which works obliques, as well as various other areas, and requires good form and tight abs, to put the brakes on a huge swinging bar, and change direction against the momentum, to swing back. Did 20 reps.
5) Sit-ups with a 5kg plate press. Tough to get 20 good reps without a couple of pauses, but I try to incorporate sit ups into my work a lot, so I can manage these.
6) an evil little core exercise which involved sitting with straight legs, leaning back slightly (or as Craig put it "...bit further. Bit further. Bit further. Right, hold it there.") and pushing the 5kg plate out to one side, back in, then out to the other side, and repeat... Ow, seriously. Did 20 reps.
7) repeat all of the above, except for 1 and 2, and using a 30kg bar in 4.
8) more stretches, then glute bridge work - get into bridge pose, lift one leg, and lift and lower the hips/bum 10 times. Ow ow ow ow ow. 10 reps each side.
9) Glute stretch on the vibrating power plate, 1 minute low vibration each side. Then repeat 8 with less yelping and screaming.

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We talked briefly about my first ever session, so here now in the canteen over a mug of tea and scrambled egg roll, I've looked up what I wrote in a very old blog back then.... It makes for somewhat interesting reading. Wanna see???? (Imagine that wobby screen effect from old TV shows when there was a flashback sequence....)

March 27th, 2010

Today was tough. This is all about my weight and fitness, and it probably doesn't make for good reading, so I'm tell you now - please scroll past, if you want. I won't hold it against you. :)

Being completely honest, I've been trying to ignore the real impact of my weight gain (i.e. my health, and fitness level) for the past couple of years. Of course the weight went out slowly but steadily; I'm talking about a gain of more than 85lbs in 4 years. Entirely down to emotional eating and emotional laziness. Absolutely. I've MUCH preferred to sit around with a huge bar of chocolate, or 6 or 7 rounds of hot buttered toast, than get any exercise. Even when I was doing a bit of walking last year, I was skiving off during the week, finding excuses wherever I could, and of course was ultimately disappointed with myself on the night of the Moonwalk. Yet instead of taking that feeling and turning it into motivation to succeed, I just gained a stone or so and stopped exercise all together. I drive to work and back every day... and work is only 1m away.

So, in January when I decided to finally take back control, I just started on the food side first. Mainly, because I know I'd give up easier if I tried to make too many changes at once, but mostly because I'm bone idle and didn't WANT to do any exercise. But I'm 1½ stone down now (21lbs) and it's time to really take a hard look at myself. I have 70-80lbs still to lose, and this isn't going to happen with healthy eating alone.

This week, someone else made the decision that I was going to sign up to a gym. Someone else made that decision, because I - as I have been for a few weeks - was earnestly saying "oh yes, I need to think about joining a gym sometime...." as I sipped from a skimmed-milk latte... Vague promise and intentions. My friend humoured me as I talked about all the different gyms in the city (i.e. ohhhh, it's taking me soooo long to decide), before asking if she could give my number to her gym. What could I say? I was backed into a corner.

But it was absolutely the corner I was meant to be in.

So, I went along and joined up. There were no more excuses, so I also took a short course of Personal Trainer sessions too... so that someone would be waiting for me to turn up, and wouldn't let me get away with the bare minimum. This morning I had my first session, and it was awful. I mean, seriously seriously awful. Even just typing this post is making me ridiculously emotional. I had a tough time holding back the tears at the gym, doing that silly breaking voice thing as I fought to keep control.

The personal trainer was lovely. He talked to me about what had got me into this situation, my back story, and we also talked about my food and nutrition, which he says he's happy to leave in my control because he says it seems I'm doing pretty well on that side. He says I seem pretty knowledgeable about everything, and I admitted I read anything I can find about weightloss, exercise, fitness, and so on. I admitted I read these things sitting on the settee, feet up, with a mug of tea and remote control within reach at all times. I explained it's never been about not knowing what to do - it's about doing it. "Leave that to me." he said. Oh God.

We went through to the gym, and he put me on the cross trainer for 5 mins to warm up. 4 years ago, I would do 30 mins on the cross trainer, before moving on to 30 mins on the treadmill, 10 mins on the rower, and 15 mins on the cycle.... but today at the end of the 5 mins I was red-faced, out of breath, and when I got off my legs went a bit wobbly and I wanted to cry. That was supposed to be a warm up, and I was feeling horrendous. He had me doing some basic stretches then we did a few different types of squats, some holding the huge gym ball and swapping it across from one side of my body to the other as I stood upright etc.... We did maybe 50 different reps in total, broken up by him showing me the next type of set he wanted me to do, and getting my alignment right, etc... and at the end of this part my hands were visibly shaking and my arms were screaming at me. I wanted to cry. We did more stretches. Then we went to the treadmill, and I walked on that for 5 mins - I was fine with that, but at the end of the 5 mins he hit the emergency stop button and I nearly fell off the machine... Not paying attention, because I was so annoyed at myself for letting myself get to this level of fitness! We went back to the mats and did some plank-like ab exercises; not exactly the plank, a bit easier, but my shoulders screamed at me. I admitted I probably hadn't engaged my abs for 4 years, which he seemed to think was the funniest thing I'd said all day. He told me to do it in the car waiting at traffic lights. ;)

Anyway, that was that - today's session over and done with. We went back outside to the cafe area for a chat, and he asked me to explain what exactly I was getting upset about. I said I was just so disappointed in myself for letting this happen. He told me to turn that into being pissed off, and use that as motivation to turn it around. We chatted for a bit, about what I should focus on and suchlike, and we made our next appointment for Monday.

I got my bag and jacket, and left quickly, to sit in the car and try not to cry again. I had a busy few hours after the gym, so I didn't get chance to properly think about it til I got home about 3.30-ish... at which point the lovely girl who'd signed me up on Thursday night phoned to see how I'd got on. And then I almost started crying again.

I hung up, and just cried and cried and cried. I think it defintely helped.

So, that's that. All I can do now is improve. I can't believe what 7 excess stones of weight has done to me, which sounds a ridiculously naive thing to say (we're talking almost 100lbs of excess fat, lots of which will be internal, wrapping itself around my organs). I can't believe I let this happen to me. And I hate it.

Positivity, though, is going to be key in keeping me motivated. I'm upset about something which I'm already trying to fix. It can only get better from here.

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......and it did. x