Saturday, September 17, 2005

Let's get serious!

I started going to the gym this week and I've been once every weekday.

IT all began on Monday with my fitness assessment (I weigh 103kg!) and the designing of my personal program. A bunch of light weight stuff on the machines, mostly done for toning I think. Low reps (15) with slow movements. Still, toning's what I asked for. The guy also wants me to do 120minutes of cardio stuff a week too. This week I managed... carry the two... divide by the number of spanners in a Sidchrome toolkit... 130. It would've been 140, but more on that later.

On tuesday I had my first full go on the program (also supervised) and we tweaked it a bit. I gotta say that the vibe at the gym (Southern Cross Health & Fitness Centre, for those that wanna know) is great. Friendly staff and attendents, with the 'roid-munching, condoms-full-of-walnuts guys evidently steering clear. Yay.

Then it was just back each day to either do my program or sit on one of the bikes for 45 minutes while I read my book and keep the RPM above 70.

I also found out that the cross-trainer kicks my arse. My plan is to do my program monday, wednesday and friday, followed by around 30 minutes of cardio, and do 45 minutes of cardio tuesday and thursday. This week it was program tuesday and thursday, but I'm digressing... on thursday (after program), I figured I'd give the cross-trainer a go. For those not in the know, the cross-trainer is like a stair-climber thing (in that yer feet go up and down) but it also has ski-pole-like sticks to grab onto and move yer arms too. I looked at this thing and figured I could go for 20 minutes and I was so very, very wrong. I barely managed 10 without collapsing like a beached fish. I think it's cause I'm standing and supporting my own (not insignificant) weight that makes the cross-trainer so hard for me. Still, I'll work at it and hopefully get up to 20 minutes. :)

Another thing is that going to the gym has been waking up my metabolism. This is a good thing as far as having energy and being up-vibe and bouncy all day goes, but not so good from a "now I'm hungry and have to try not to gorge on crap and waste all my effort" point of view. We'll be getting more fruit and nuts into the Gouger household, let me tell you. :)

Oh, and for those of you out there thinking "I give it a week" (I'm mainly looking at Graham and Sam here :) ), I really hope I don't pike out on this, 'cause I really am loving it.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

103kg?!? That's footballer range!

And I was worried when, having been stuck on ~72kg for 10 years, I recently shot up to ~78kg. I blame beer. What's your excuse?

8:47 AM  
Blogger Euan said...

Well, I do have a big frame, but it is quite pudgy around the middle. Not fat, exactly, but chunky. I guess I'd blame not doing anything resembling organised excercise for more than a year.

I've been working at the theatre, which is quite a physical job, but it doesnae give ye the extended periods of elevated heart-rate and movement ye need to burn fat.

1:41 PM  

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