Monday 21 September 2009

Weigh in, and training session no. 1

So, my little darlings - as you can see - I have survived the gym to fight another day - whooop!

First things first, since you're obviously all gagging to know: weigh in.

Loss: 1.5lbs
Emotion: bloody confused, but happy none-the-less.

I have no idea how this happened, since I weighed in yesterday morning at 13st 1lb (can you believe I just tried to type 15 stone again???? When am I going to stop trying to do that????), at around 9am. Time of weigh in makes a huge difference for me, as I'm almost always a couple of lbs lighter at that sort of time, than if I weigh in at my usual 6.30am start. I don't know why that is, because I wouldn't have eaten breakfast at either time, but I digress.

We went out for a meal last night, and it turned out to be a buffet (argh - dieters worst nightmare!!!!) - 2 medium sized plates of Thai food later (a mixture of appetisers and mains), and I was convinced there would be a gain this morning, from the salt alone if nothing else - so convinced, I stood on the scales 3 times this morning to check!

So here I am - 13 stone nothing, and tantalisingly close to the 12's.

Which leads us nicely to my other topic of discussion - the start of the gym challenge yesterday afternoon. How much do I love the gym's scales???? A LOT! If you weigh in at 13st 1 in the morning, then eat a light breakfast and lunch, and as instructed, try to take on plenty of fluids ... oh and get dressed of course! ... you expect to weigh in at around 3.30pm at maybe 13 and a half - right?

WRONG!!!!

12 stone 13 and a half pounds. I nearly dropped to the floor and kissed their fancy, schmancy scales - except that they were still busy generating other readings like lean muscle mass and my current state of hydration, so I wasn't allowed to move. 12 stone something - hoooooow nice was it to see that??? Ooooooh - very nice - I'm getting all warm and fuzzy feelings just thinking about it!

Other than that, apparently my lean muscle mass isn't bad (I can't remember the number - I'll have to ask) and I was a bit dehydrated.

Once all 8 challengers had been weighed in, and had handed in our food diaries, we headed for the studio to be introduced to each other, and shown what we'd be doing for the session. Stats on the group - 7 women, 1 man. I would say I'm quite possibly the youngest of the group, or very near it. With the exception of the guy, I would also possibly say I'm the fittest of the group, even injured, although there's one lady whose quite close in terms of that, and in fact I remember her from the jogging group a while ago.

Yesterday's session was a circuits class, with a recorded step test being the opening item. 1 minute on each station with a 30 second rest / move to the next station break. The step station was the only one where the results were recorded (and the bloody step was about 1ft high, so I had to be damn careful not to trip over it!), and they'll be compared against our closing step test.

Here were the stations:

Step
Shoulder press with 3kg or 5kg medicine ball
Stomach crunches
Squats
Press-ups
Rowing on Concept 2 machine borrowed from the main gym
Lunges
Back extensions
Standing cable row
Lateral stomach crunches

We went round twice without stopping, with a 3rd speed session for those still standing. To be honest, I didn't actually find it too hard - my press-ups are a bit shakey towards the end of the minute (and yes, I cheat and keep my knees down, but otherwise fully extended), but otherwise it was ok. I didn't do the third circuit though as my left hamstring was starting to protest and tighten up towards the end of the 2nd circuit and I thought quitting while I was ahead and having a longer stretching session might be wise. It was good to be doing stuff again though!

I'm walking a little bit easier again today, and I've switched myself off my hard-core anti-imflammatories back down to Ibuprofen and stopped the Diazepam altogether. I'm back at work today, and so far feel not too bad (well - aside from work itself of course!).

We've got a cardio session with the group tomorrow night, so not sure whether to have a night off tonight, or just do a little something. Thursday I'm going to start Body Balance classes (yuck), in an attempt to finally do something about my core muscles.

That's pretty much it from me - just nibbling on my California rolls at my desk and catching up on all your adventures!

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