Vivid Your Health archive:
>>EMPLOYEES:
ANY COMPANY'S MOST VALUABLE ASSET
November 2005
>>WELCOME
BACK TO REALITY
October 2005
>>WHAT
I DID THIS SUMMER
September 2005
>>GETTING
IN SHAPE: GRADUAL AND SYSTEMATIC
June/July 2005
>>GETTING
IN SHAPE, ONCE AND FOR ALL
May 2005
>>HAPPY
TO BE IN BUCHAREST, NOT BUDAPEST
April 2005
>>WE
ARE FIRST AGAIN!
March 2005
>>OPERATION
GET FIT:
THE RESULTS
February 2005
>>OPERATION
GET FIT:
THE FIRST MONTH
November 2004
>>OPERATION
GET FIT
October 2004
>>DIFFERENT
STYLES IN YOGA
September 2004
>>FOOD
FASHION: WHAT'S IN
AND WHAT'S OUT
June 2004
>>LOSE
FAT AND GET MORE FIT
May 2004
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|---|
Regular readers will know that I recently completed the second of a three-month fitness programme that has been organised, devised and supervised by World Class. I don't want to confound readers with figures, but they do rather speak for themselves, so I'll just run a few by you:
27th Sep |
28th Oct |
30th Nov |
|
|---|---|---|---|
Weight (kg) |
86.2 |
83.7 |
83.5 |
Body fat (%) |
26.2 |
23.3 |
23.0 |
Chest (cm) |
104 |
101 |
105 |
Waist (cm) |
99 |
96 |
93 |
Hips (cm) |
99 |
97 |
97 |
Thighs (cm) |
94 |
92 |
90 |
Calves (cm) |
39.5/40 |
40/40.5 |
40.5/40.5 |
Arm (cm) |
30.5 |
32.5 |
33.5 |
What has been so interesting about these results, says Gabriel, the World Class fitness professional who has overseen my programme, is the fact that my physique has expanded and contracted with Pavlov's Dog-like predictability, depending on the type of exercise routine prescribed. A combination of spin classes, cardiovascular exercises and weights has effectively produced the two-month results; for the third month I'll be focusing on getting the body fat figure below 20 per cent and reducing my weight further.
To do this I'll emphasise cardiovascular exercises over the next month ñ exercises that get the heart and blood pumping, such as spin classes ñ two a week at least ñ running, swimming, cross-training and squash. I'll diet too ñ admittedly that is something that fell by the wayside after the first couple of weeks. The World Class advice ñ to eat six small meals a day, rather than three square ones ñ will be more strictly observed, regardless of the fact that it is probably the most difficult time of year to be strict about dieting. But when I look back and remember the excess of previous years, compared to what I'll be doing this Christmas, this period of discipline couldn't have come at a better time.
I have a definite target in my sights, so I'm really looking forward to the next month. In fact there hasn't been one session that I've attended reluctantly over the entire last two months. I think I may have reached that level where specialists say you really long for more exercise, at which a feeling of staleness creeps in if you go without exercise for two or three days. On average I've attended four times a week, mostly mornings, though this has increased to every weekday in recent weeks, and may well increase more than that during the runup to Christmas.
Perhaps the most enjoyable exercise, and the one that has done the most good, has been the spin classes. The first time I did a spin class I was pleased just to get through it; in the second, I though I was going to die, and imagined myself riding a real bicycle and coming in fifteen kilometers behind the rest of the pack, or the class that seemed to keep up with the instructor really well. But then something happened: I adapted. In subsequent classes my legs no longer felt like they were on fire. It never ceases to amaze me how much you sweat during a spin session; as I attended more classes I would still sweat heavily but was growing more used to the bike, and each time I tried harder. I even adapted to the music played during the classes. I think it helped that there was a dozen or so other people around me, that I wasn't in there alone. The spin classes more than anything account for the six centimetres I've lost off my waistline, and the four centimetres I've taken off my hips over the last two months.