15 Week Challenge - Week 5 & Induction Story

As I said in my previous blogpost I am currently in the uphill struggle of moving from fat bastard to slighly podgy bastard over 15 weeks. The term "challenge" is probably misleading as there isn't really a target involved. Well I suppose there is. The damning news at induction some 12 weeks ago was that I weighed around 205lbs and had a body fat percentage of around 25%.

So after 5 weeks of making somewhat of a concerted effort of trying to go at least two or three times a week for an hour I'm happy to report my bodyfat is reading 22% and I've lost 16lbs (down to 189lbs) which is a stone. Not bad going I guess. Ideally I'd like to lose another stone or so but there you go. The downside is that I totally cannot notice the loss. I have no idea where this fat is coming off but apparently it is.... or my scales are dodgy!

The battle continues!

I promised to record the story of my induction with the lovely Rachel. Rachel is an expat from Australia who accidentally left her personality and any form of customer care behind at the airport.

So I arrived for my induction and was greeted by Rachel expecting really just to be shown how to use the equipment (which I'm no unfamiliar with because I have been to a gym before even if my waistline doesn't say so) but oh no, I was going to get a medical as well. So after some not so difficult tests like height we got onto the more fun ones. In taking my blood pressure Rachel was kind enough to inform me that I had high blood pressure but after dropping that bombshell said that I should probably get it doublechecked at my GP because their equipment was often faulty. It gets better. She took my bodyfat reading which I knew was high but then said "Well in terms of an acceptable percentage we'd say around 18-20 but acceptable is close to not acceptable so we'd always advise something around15-16% but in terms of a target, I can't give you that because you'll never make that". I am sure she did a training course on how to set goals and deliver advice.

Then we move on to discussing my diet and I told her there was some room for improvement. She took this opportunity to remind me that 70% of weight loss is due to nutrition and that I'd have to be good because "it's not like I'm personal training you where I'd get you to complete a food diary". The session could only get better.

We moved onto the equipment and Rachel completed a workout plan. At each piece of kit she'd ask me to sample it and then put down an appropriate time, level etc for each. On the treadmill she asked if I could do 3 minutes running on the treadmill and then 2 minutes walking. Now I know about HIIT but I think this is really taking it too far. I can do more than 5 minutes on a treadmill. If you want me to do HIIT at least make me do 20 minutes of HIIT on the treadmill!

At the end of the session she told me about how they file the workout cards for each member in the filing cabinet alphabetically. Each letter had a folder. I had to help her find the folder for H. It wasn't between P and R for some reason. Funny that. She said I'd be ok because "I was the only pink sheet in the folder" but she was quick to point out that she "didn't give me pink on purpose" and that I wasn't "the kind of guy who'd like a pink sheet".

WTF.