High time for a change
I'm fat. And I’ve gained 20 pounds in the past four years. I went from a svelte, active, healthy and athletic 157 pounds to a fat and balding 177.
I have three suits in my closet that I no longer can wear and I’m weak - physically and mentally. I have no willpower when it comes to eating (as I’m sure Rob Akimow, my competitor, is telling you about me now in his Fitness Challenge column).
Chips, beer, chocolate, turkey dinner and anything free is my vice. And did I mention I’m starting to go bald?
It’s time for a change!
So, when I was approached with this opportunity to get fit in a competitive contest against Rob, my manager at the News, I jumped at it. And as hard as it’s been I’ve loved every minute.
Enter Gabriela Payne and the City Centre Community Centre’s fitness facility. Gabriella is exactly what I need. She is a hard-charging, positive force who is leading me in this journey to lose 10 pounds, get some muscular definition in my arms and abs, and beat Rob!
Gabriela is a high-level track competitor and professional personal trainer who knows how to get fit and possesses a great blend of positive motivation and competitive drive to push me to do so.
Easier said than done.
Gabriella has me on a program of cardio exercises seven days a week. Plus, on four days I’m in the gym for one hour. That’s me sweating 11 times a week.
Her workouts are intense and I’ve been limping around afterwards for two weeks. She has me starting many of my workouts with interval sprints or burpees. They get my heart rate up and help burn my fat.
The program she has me on is not your typical one, pumping iron and targeting specific muscles groups. Rather, her methods are more all-body and unique. She has me picking up medicine balls and slamming them down. I’m also doing single arm medicine ball push ups. I use TRX ropes – stretchy bands that employ my own body weight in suspension training – for pull ups. And I counter gravity by performing box squat jumps.
While working out is hard, I’ve also taken up the challenge of eating healthy and dieting to help lose the weight. That has, without a doubt, been the hardest part of this experience.
Tale of the Tape for Collin:
Starting Weight: 177 lbs.
Current Weight: 170 lbs.
Starting Body Fat: 26.5%
Current Body Fat: 25%
Mongoose in a groove
Before this competition started If you had asked me what I thought working out for 10 weeks with a personal trainer would be like I would have told you something to the effect of, “Ahhh, it will be a breeze, I got this, Team Mongoose will rock.” And then I more than likely would have taken a swipe at my challenger Collin “Apres Ski” Neal, saying he is weak and has a belly like the Pillsbury doughboy.
Now, three weeks into the 10-week fitness challenge, let’s just say it’s been interesting. Yes, there have been pizza’s ordered, beers and cake placed on desks, you know, all the usual pranks when you are competing against someone who works in your office. But of course, the real work is done at the community centre.
Truth of the matter is after three weeks of this I have a new-found respect and admiration for people who look after themselves and workout. Sure, I play hockey once or twice a week, and I like to go for long moonlit walks on the beach (this is starting to sound more like a Plenty of Fish ad. Scratch that then, I like to play hockey, full stop).
After my first week I was wondering how I was ever going to get through this.
At my first session my trainer, A.J., told me we would be doing heavy compound movements, i.e. lifting heavy weights. Day one, was learning, day two my muscles ached and I was ready to strangle everyone in a two km radius, including A.J. (sorry what I said about your shorts A.J. I really didn’t mean it). But then something strange happened.
Session three went well and by week two I honestly found myself excited to go to the City Centre Commuity Centre and lift some weights.
Things were going just swimmingly, my competitor, Collin, was doing silly things such as eating three, square meals of bean sprouts and turkey sausage a day, then falling off treadmills during his workouts. I on the other hand was feeling the groove, loving life and showing my wife, Richelle, my new, mostly invisible biceps.
But then it happened, and by it I mean something called circuit training (high intensity aerobics). Just when I was starting to feel great and in my groove, my trainer tells me I need to raise my game, and not let Collin get the “upper hand.”
Sure he’s lost seven pounds and I have lost 0.2, but come on, I was just starting to get into the groove, and this circuit training stuff hits me. This should be something forced upon people who do really bad things, like not tipping wait staff, or people who don’t like Bruce Springsteen. Not me, the “Mongoose.”
Tale of the Tape for Rob:
