Week 1

This week I began my personal training sessions. And boy did I know it. I had aches in muscles I didn't even realise I had!!!

My first session was last Monday. I met up with Lee Kirk, my PT instructor, at the Sports Hall at Exeter University. I have had personal training sessions before and know the benefits of them but tended to quit too easily when asked to do hard work. I promised myself that this time I would commit to the programme fully and, to an extent, adopt the view that "if its hurting, it's working". This goes against my previous favourite quote of "No pain? GOOD!!!"

Lee eased me in gently with some bike and treadmill but had me doing interval training of steady pace followed by sprints. In between the cardio I also did squats and lunges (it hurts even typing those two words), some press ups and shoulder presses, rowing machine and dumbbell work. I was asked if the weights, speeds and levels were feeling okay and said I could handle more. Classic schoolboy error! I've obviously now increased the levels we start at so no easy beginners sessions. Lol. But Lee has been excellent and doesn't want to (in his words) "beast me" for the first few sessions whilst my muscles get used to the work.

Needless to say I was exhausted at the end of the session. Why are there always stairs to negotiate in gyms? And it doesn't matter if you are trying to go up or down them you have muscles that will be affected by either. I find going upstairs hurts whereas going downstairs hurts and is also a bit wobbly. Add to that the fact that due to building work on campus the nearest car park is closed, and I had to park a lot further away in what felt like a different postcode, then you can probably picture this sweaty overweight forty something guy shuffling along past all the young athletic students playing football and hockey on the outside courts. Not a good look.

At home again I could already feel the stiffening in my upper legs and whilst sat on the sofa I went to cross my legs and realised I couldn't. This didn't bode we'll for the next day. I had a hot Radox bath - does anybody believe Radox has any benefits? - and went to bed fully expecting to wake the next morning unable to function.

Fortunately I seemed okay but I obviously could feel some stiffness. The trickiest manoeuvre was sitting down - a legacy of the squats - and as I do this quite a lot in my daily routine I had a pretty constant reminder of the session all day.

Apart from the training I'm also eating healthily where possible and an unexpected benefit of this is saving money. I went to the cinema on Tuesday night and normally I would have Ben and Jerrys and some pick and mix but this time nothing. It probably saved me a tenner so good times.

My second session was on Wednesday and had a similar mix of cardio and interval training but with different exercises to the previous visit. Again I went for it giving 100% and again I was utterly shattered by the end.

I find the benefits of having a PT instructor are numerous. To start with they work the muscle groups much more effectively. They also keep the intensity going. They push you when you are thinking of quitting and they give encouragement which spurs you on. This in direct contrast to me visiting a gym on my own where each visit I will do the same cardio and use the same resistance weights in a random order with large rests in between, and where if I start to feel tired I'll stop well before I would with somebody pushing me.

On Thursday I had some soreness but no DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) yet which is good as in the past this has almost had me unable to walk or extend my arms fully.

Now when I agreed to do this I knew that I had 2 big weekends coming up and previously, when I've tried to lose weight, I've always gone for this "boom and bust" mentality of giving up all alcohol, junk food, crisps, chocolate etc. The problem with this is it can last for up to ten weeks or so but all the time through I'm denying myself these things so I'm also craving them. This isn't sustainable so now my decision is to enjoy the odd celebration/social function but cut out all the other stuff whilst at home. So no more bottles of wine and delivery pizzas.

This weekend just gone I had a reunion with 3 of my best childhood friends. The first time we've all been together in 3 years. Richard owns a yacht based in Gosport so Andy travelled from Manchester, David from Brussels and myself from Exeter. It was great to catch up and obviously the drink flowed but I decided to enjoy myself and not beat myself up about the calories with the promise to get back to the healthy stuff on Monday. In the end it wasn't as bad as it could have been as we ate on board the first night so no 3 course restaurant meal, and then the weather played its part.

We sailed to Lymington marina on Friday afternoon then on the Saturday continued west and dropped anchor just off Brownsea Island. We went across to Poole Quay in the inflatable and had a few beers and lunch before buying some pizzas at Tesco to heat up and eat later Saturday night. We settled down to drink, chat and reminisce and I'll be honest and say I drank a fair bit of red wine. But boy did I pay.

I have done a lot of sailing. I've raced in the Caribbean, sailed from Southampton to the Canary Islands, raced non-stop around Britain and Ireland and much more. I've only ever been seasick once on a trip across the Channel at Easter. But on Sunday we left at 8am in a forecasted Force 5-6 to motor back to Gosport. The sea state was very choppy and winds gusted up to 43 knots which is gale force 9. Now normally on a boat if you know the weather is going to be bad you wouldn't go mad the night before but Saturday had been so glorious and I didn't check the forecast so what followed was entirely my own fault.

I'd only been on deck about half an hour and I was already feeling dreadful. Quite probably a combination of seasickness and a hangover. It was so rough and the boat was moving so erratically - imagine trying to stay on a bucking bronco and you get the picture - that it wasn't safe to go to the side of the boat to throw up. ****WARNING - THOSE OF YOU WITH A WEAK STOMACH SHOULDN'T READ THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH. I ended up leaning over the cockpit edge and throwing up over the outer edge of the deck. It lasted for what seemed like minutes and kept coming. All the while I could see everything I'd eaten the day before gloriously tinged in a red wine sauce washing along the deck. Now I've thought long and hard whether to share the next snippet with you but my nephew thought it was hilarious so here goes. When I'd finished throwing up my nose was all blocked too such was the explosiveness of my vomiting so I blew my nose and a whole slice of mushroom from the pizza shot out of one nostril. Now that was unexpected!!!

I was rough all day so didn't eat anything and everything I'd eaten the day before was out of my system so unintentionally I ate less than I would have done at home. Result. I think. Lol.

To finish off the weekend I stayed with some very good friends, Rick and Ali, on the way home. Ali has read my first blog and is going to do RockSolidRace too. She is a fantastic cook and made some amazing food which was also very healthy but my appetite was still compromised by my day at sea.

All in all a good week and looking forward to next weeks sessions.

Dave.

Finally I mentioned in my last blog that I was 11 stone 2 at my 21st and here's the picture to prove it.


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Location:Yew Tree Close,Exeter,United Kingdom