A few weeks after our initial training sessions Cindy and I departed for our respective homes in the US and UK. It was to be 8 months before we were both on the same (sub)continent again. Each time I arrived in India, Cindy would have recently left - hmmm avoidance tactics maybe?
I continued with the gym programme, adding an open water swim training plan and slowly began to make progress. I could see some slight muscle definition in my arms, the granny wings were shrinking! The main physical difference however, was in my legs. I now had shapely, toned calf muscles and less wobble in the thighs. I should take this opportunity to apologise to my friends and family for making them all have a squeeze of my calves - shameful behaviour! When I finally met up with Cindy again she congratulated me on my progress and let me spend a good hour telling her how great I felt it was all going. I proudly informed her that I was no longer alternating swim and gym days but had started doing both on the same day! Six days a week no less! She said she was looking forward to me showing her how well I was doing and we arranged to have a training session that Friday. I was excited to show off that Friday morning; arriving early at the gym so I could do my warmup before Cindy arrived. We went through my routine and she corrected by technique, added some new exercises and told me that she would look at my programme during the next week and let me know what she wanted to change. I left feeling rather smug.....I should have seen the signs! Our next session a smiling Cindy (sign no. 1) told me we were going to "shake things up a little" (sign no. 2). From now on I would concentrate on upper body exercises and a distance swim one day, then lower body and sprint swimming the next (yep, sign no 3). Not only were we doing more demanding free weight exercises; we were running on the spot for 30 seconds between each set to get my heart rate up (now even I could see the signs!!!) This new workout is fantastic. It stretches me to my limits and makes me feel alive! I love it. My world was going along great at the beginning of this week. I had reached a weightloss milestone of being 1/3 of the way to my ideal weight. The new, more intense programme, is melting away the fat. Even more importantly, my mental health has benefitted enormously and I was feeling very confident and positive. Until Wednesday when I was in the hotel gym, half way through a workout, and a woman brings a young child in to play on the equipment! I ignored them; I carried on focusing on my techniques; I was doing great until the rest of her family turned up! They weren't there to workout, they were there to stare at the sweaty, fat girl. They stood around me in a circle while I was laying over the gym ball and stared and laughed!! Who does that? However I continued my workout and tried to ignore them and eventually they left. I spent the rest of the day angry at myself for not saying something to them and ranted all night at my poor husband! My week was to get worse. On Friday I leapt out of bed, looking forward to my session with Cindy - and experienced horrendous pain in the left side of my chest every time I moved or took a breath. I decided that if I ignored it it would go away on the hour long journey to Cindy's. I texted Cindy and said I had a bit of muscle pain in my chest and would just use the elliptical trainer and bike until she got to the gym, leaving the weights until she arrived. Ha, nice try! After a forthright phone conversation I was told to get to the doctors, have it checked out and no training until I had. I was not happy with this but I knew she was right. So I go the local hospital (we don't have GP's as such in India) and I tell him where the pain is and what exercise I have been doing. After examining me he assures me that it is a muscle strain and a couple of days rest will sort it out. I am crushed - a couple of DAYS!! With NO TRAINING!! "How will I manage 2 days with no training? Maybe just a little swim...." My thoughts are interrupted by the doctor. He is advising me that at my age(!) and weight(!!) I should not be doing anything more strenuous than yoga. I politely tell him that I don't think I would get the results I need with yoga alone; that I am training for a swiming race and that I am being guided by a fully qualified personal trainer. I am hanging on to my temper at this point; but it seems I am not the only person who cannot read signs. He is telling me that Bangalore has some world class bariatric hospitals and he is happy to give me a recommendation to his cousin's clinic...... It takes me a moment to realise that he is suggesting I have gastric band/gastric bypass surgery. I let go of the tenuous grasp I have on my temper and leave him in no doubt as to what I think of his suggestion. It took me 25 minutes, walking in 34 degree heat, to get to the hospital - I made it back to the hotel in 15!!! I am desperately hoping that next week has a few more highs than this one.........
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Gym Phobia..........
Eight months ago my fab friend Cindy Nuckols, a personal trainer, agreed to train me for the swim - I'm not sure either of us realised what we were taking on! The night before our first gym session I lay awake desperately searching for an escape - there was no way I could enter a gym! I had spent years studiously avoiding anything that could even vaguely come under the heading "exercise". Of course the result of this was that I was fat - not plump; not curvy; not big boned - but undeniably fat! And in case I ever forgot that fact, I live in India where it is seemingly sociably acceptable to stare, point, laugh and tell me I am fat (because I might not have I noticed?!). So I had spent 6 months hiding in the hotel for fear of causing a riot and now Cindy wanted me to appear in public, in a gym and I was suspicious that she may even ask me to take part in some exercise. The morning of our first training session my normally supportive husband point blank refused to write me a "Gill can't play in the gym today because...." note. He bundled me into the car and gave our driver instructions not to stop the car en route in case I bolted. He seemed to think I was going to enjoy it - pfft!! Cindy greeted me at the gym with a huge smile and a steely glint in her eye. There was no going back so I entered a world of scarey looking machines, jump ropes, enormous weights and the biggest beach ball I had ever seen. The first thing Cindy taught me was to stand tall and proud, head up, shoulders back, abs engaged and to tell myself that I belonged in the gym. This was where I was supposed to be - this is where I would make my body strong and fit; ready to take on the Loch Ness Monster. Cindy explained that I needed to build muscle strength in order to have the stamina necessary for the swim but first she had to determine my current fitness level. Hmmm, do they have a negative scale? So I was put through my paces and introduced to the delights of free weights. We did a lot of work on technique - Cindy's philosophy being that I had to make every lift count and work each muscle effectively so that I gained maximum results from every gym session. I agree entirely with this philosophy because if I am going to get hot, sweaty and red in the face I want results. At the end of the session I had an initial training plan to follow that involved using the elliptical trainer, doing upper and lower body free weights exercises, using the exercise bike and stretches. But, most importantly, I had started to have self- belief and had felt the first tiny stirrings of what was to become a passion for exercise! |
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