Gym again ... naturally

After a number of false starts (Wednesday before work, Wednesday after work, Thursday before work, got no kit, got no trainers!!!) I eventually got my partner in crime (wife) into the gym for her first session.

She has always been naturally slim and in fact in her teens she was like a stick as she spent a lot of time cycling around Bedford where she used to live. When she started work with in her sister's office, when she was 23, everyone said she looked like Barbie! As the years have gone on, a lack of exercise have taken their toll and following the birth of our son in February 2005, she stopped walking our dog twice a day and her weight crept up! I won't tell you what weight she is, but she wants to lose around 12 Kg over the next 10 weeks. Her induction around the gym and the equipment was still going on when I arrived and continued for another 15 minutes afterwards, which gave me time to work up a sweat.

I started on the treadmill as before and this time I managed 5 minutes at 10Km/h which is a 66% increase on last time. I hit the brick wall again around the 3 minute mark but I pushed on this time and worked my cardio vascular system very hard. Next I was on to the cross trainer and this time I worked at level 11 (of 25) and managed the full 10 minutes. On three occasions however my heart hit my exercise maximum and I was forced to slow down for a period of 20 seconds on each occasion. Consequently my overall exertion level was lower despite a 10% increase in exercise level on my first session.

By this time my wife had joined me and she started on the exercise cycle. I fiddled about with the one next to hers and then started working at level 5 on the exercise cycle for 10 minutes. Again I hit my maximum heart rate on three occasions and the machine forced me to slow down until it lowered to below 150 bpm. I had forgotten to note the level on my first session but checking the machine it seems that I'd been at level 4, so another increase, this time 25%. My wife cycled for 5 minutes then messed about on the cross trainer for a few minutes.

Then we were on to the rowing machines and I managed 406m in 1 minute 30 seconds and then stopped. My wife rowed 544m but this took her nearly 4 minutes. We decided to finish off on another treadmill session where I ran for 1m 33s at 12.6km/h. This was 20% longer and 0.1km/h faster than my first session, while my wife walked. On checking out my workout I had worked off 430Kcal which was an increase of 11% on the total I managed last time out. My effort level was down from 14 to 12 ???

Next session could be tomorrow morning but it's more likely to be Sunday. It can't come around soon enough - I got weighed and found I was 112Kg!!! This increases my target weight loss to 22Kg. I have 9 weeks to my holidays and 29 weeks to Christmas which are my two checkpoints. So it looks like 1Kg a week for the next 6 months - eek!!!