OK, the gym has been going well. The eating part, not so much. I haven't been terrible, just not as good as I could have been. I'm going to make sure (come Hell or high water) that I'm good from this week onward. In addition to the reason I stated before, I have chosen a couple of costumes for a charity fundraising event that happens annually and both would look much better if I was in good shape. In fact, one won't happen unless I'm completely comfortable and I have reached my goals. The first of the costume choices is this. It's expensive but looks awesome. I'm always a bit dubious about by cheap costumes because they usually end up looking cheap. 

The second choice would be Dante from the computer game Devil May Cry. The coat he wears in the 3rd game is made by a company in Canada that make absolutely awesome replicas. I got a coat from them about 8 years ago and it's amazing. People still complement me when I wear it and it was well worth the price. The picture below is said character and you can see why I'd be a bit apprehensive. I'm a long way off from being able to pull that off, and even though I have about 10 months till the event, I'm not sure that there's enough time. I'm going to go for it, though, and see how close I can get. If nothing else I have the determination.   

   

Well I had the fitness exercise programme today and it was good. I had a fitness test first which was similar to the bleep test except it was stepping on and off a box. My heart rate reached the 80% limit before I couldn't carry on anymore which I think is good as I can now get it fitter with some cardio.

We then moved on to the cross trainer and did 5 mins making sure to keep the pace up above (I think) 128. That was followed by some resistance training and then 5 mins on the treadmill. This consisted of 5 mins at a fast pace on an incline of 3. I then did some more resistance training and finished on the rowing machine. The aim was to row 500m to warm up and try to beat the warm-up time after I had rested.

I've been instructed to do 2 or 3 reps for each of the resistance training and to also increase either the rate or incline for the cardio to get my heart rate up to 80% of its maximum (about 180 bpm). I only did one rep for each of the resistance training exercises so feel OK today but I think Monday will be a different story!

I'll blog again then.   

Well I had my consultation at the gym yesterday. It was really good. The guy knows what he's talking about and we discussed my goals. He said in terms of the numbers (weight, body fat percentage etc.) I'm don't need to be too concerned. I agreed and said I'm not so bothered about losing more weight (although I'd like to reach my target of 12 stone), I'm more interested in losing fat. He said that he gets results with people going two or three times a week and that, for good or bad, I won't be in the gym for very long as the workout regime will be fairly intense. This suits me as I think I'll be more likely to stick at it if I go three times a week and don't have to be in there for hours at a time.

Tomorrow he's going to do a fitness test and go through the exercise programme with me so I'll blog again after to that with how I got on.