Pete

I’ve been going to the gym on and off for 3 years now, but really just maintaining my weight and fitness rather than improving. I don’t like the gym and its generally a chore, especially when you are not getting the results you want.

Even having programs set up by personal trainers in the past, never really worked in the long run without the push and fine tuning of having a personal trainer. At $50-$80 a session (on top of gym fees), having a personal trainer for every workout wasn’t that feasible.

Then along came Crazy Paul (he had to be distinguished from Thai Paul). An old acquaintence, having thrown in his white collar job for a sea change became a personal trainer with an idea that I haven’t really seen much before at the gym.

This idea is to have 3 people sharing a single session with the personal trainer, and circuit training for an hour at a third of the cost ($20 per session). Realistically, I don’t think many people need one-on-one time with their personal trainer every session, so I feel like I’m getting a great workout with enough guidance and push from Paul even when I share.

Now I have 3 sessions a week with a personal trainer. I work out with my mates which makes it something of a social activity and less of a boring workout. We pay $60 in advance for the week’s program. Each session we skip will cost us $20, so it keeps us motivated to go.

Paul keeps track of our fitness and adjusts the program regularly to push us till we vomit (almost), and inject some variety.

I’ve only been doing this for two months, and already I have seen great results. I’ve been eating a lot of junkfood lately due to the nature of my job, instead of the healthier diet I used to adopt, but still I’m seeing a reduction in my waist, growing bigger muscles and improving core fitness generally. I’ve never been so healthy in my adult life before.

I’m beginning to enjoy going to the gym now that I see the results I want, and bonding more with my friends who are feeling the same. At worst, I’m only reluctant to go, but rarely enough to skip a session.

Sure, I’m still spending $60 a week extra, but at least now I’m feeling like I’m getting value for my gym fees.

My personal trainer put me through a strength test last night. I’m now benchpressing triple what I could have done when I started (85kg), I can almost do my chin-ups unassisted (thats 92kg), and I never reached the limit of my ability when it came to doing squats. Even the trainer was blown away by the results. I was the last member to join the team (and at the time a good deal less fit than the others), and already the strongest.

Cant wait to see what the next two months brings. A new high score I hope.

I used to have the goal of losing weight, but my recent training success has made this seem a little inaccurate. Back when I was 110kg it was a wholly appropriate term, but after losing and keeping off 25kg I have had trouble cutting through the 85kg barrier.

I still have a bit of a gut etc to lose, but recent heavy training has shown that I’m not going to get much further without building more muscle. Larger muscles burn more calories and so its a good way to reduce that last layer of blubber and keep it off.

Muscle weighs more than fat though, so in two months of heavy training I have actually put on 6kg, even though I can see my waistline decreasing and my musculature increasing.

So I have a new goal.

I just enrolled me and my partner in a 1 session real estate for dummies course. Neither of us know anything about buying a place, so I at least want to be informed about what I’m doing. Im amazed at the number of people who know nothing about getting a mortgage or property investment before investing 100s of 1000s of dollars in a place.

Its on the 31st of January.