The First Month at the Gym

It took me a couple of days to get over the gym blues - that is, just to accept my unfit body to myself. 

On the first day, Dec 7th 2008, I felt a bit shy, and a bit nervous too. I went to the locker room, changed and went in.

Phillip, my personal trainer, told me that we would start off with a 20 min session on the treadmill, followed by 15 minutes on the elliptical, and 10 minutes on the bike. 

I was dreading the treadmill, and as it became apparent to me, that was for good reason. Phillip told me to alternate between a 2 minute walk and a 1 minute run for 20 minutes. Well - I could run for exactly 1 minute. And that was that. The run completely drained me - and left me panting. I walked for the remaining 19 minutes. And was quite exhausted. The elliptical and the bike were relatively easier - nevertheless, I was quite drained out at the end of 45 minutes.

This was pretty much the trend over the whole of December. I used to alternate between cardio and weights. The whole thing was quite painful- the cardio days especially. I just dreaded the treadmill. In fact, I used to curse the machine - since the effort expended seemed that much more than the elliptical, and the returns, in terms of calories burnt, that much lesser (atleast as per the measurement devices on the machines; the elliptical always showed  more returns per minute than the treadmill). I persisted through - and ensured that I was hitting the gym atleast 5 days a week. 

By the end of December, I could run for 5 minutes continuously at 9 Km/hour - which was no great shakes, honestly. But, I was weighing 2 kgs lesser - the kind of weight loss which you, feel internally, but is not apparent to the outside world.