Knees up, tummy tight, punch that water, harder, faster, go go go, dear God can I take any more abuse? I wonder if Vanessa has any holidays coming up? Only joking Vanessa you know I love you and the dog’s abuse, God knows I need it and the summer drawing closer.
You might be wondering what I’m ranting about. Well I’m about to embark on my third course of Operation Alteration at Castle Leisure Club and the good folk up there have asked me to log my experience.
By that I mean I’ll be bringing you a weekly diary of the trials and tribulations that goes with this six-week, highly inspirational and fun course.
And no I’m not being sarcastic, for once. I’ve already completed two courses and enjoyed some success (by that I mean I’ve lost a few inches and made a few friends and had a blast in the mean time ). Life is good.
But with the sun beginning to tease us out of the cosy confines of our winter woolies it’s time to get serious.
Operation Alteration is basically a six-week course where you participate in three one-hour exercise classes a week and fill out a food diary every day for one of Castle Leisure Club’s fitness instructors to scrutinise. And when I say scrutinise, I mean scrutinise. They want to know what time you ate, did you eat something every two hours, how much, how many grams of fat, how many calories, where was all the water you were supposed to drink? The list goes on. But, my dear friends, the time to stop codding ourselves has come. You can exercise yourself till you are blue in the face but history has shown me that if you don’t pull back from the table and reassess your eating habits, the weight won’t budge.
The beauty of Operation Alteration is that everyone is in the same boat so if you are going through a bad patch there is always someone there with an encouraging word.
The classes are fun, there is a great variety, and the always smiling staff of Castle Leisure Club make you feel right at home from the minute you climb the stairs. Now don’t be worried if on the first evening you feel a little short of breath after getting up to reception — that’s normal. After week six you’ll be taking the steps two at a time.
So far my attendance at classes has been fairly good, but what really adds to this course is the fact that you have full use of the gym and pool facilities during the six weeks and the CLC staff will even devise a gym programme for you. So if your social life gets a bit hectic don’t worry you can pop into the gym or pool on the weekend or day off and keep up with your exercise regime.
But I think I’ve got the exercise down to a T, what I’ll be spending this six weeks focusing on is the food diary and I’ll keep you posted on my journey.
From sore bums to tight tummies to early morning text alerts, the non-stop action will feature in my new weekly column. Hope you enjoy it.
Toni Bourke
Editor
