Marching Orders!

After some tweaking and changing I've got my food down to a tee, I've finally learned not to over do it on my 'cheat days', I know how to plan ahead when travelling and I'm totally familiar with my weights routine.

It's coming up to two months now since I began my body sculpting journey and I guess you can say I am getting into the rhythm of things.

After some tweaking and changing I've got my food down to a tee, I've finally learned not to over do it on my 'cheat days', I know how to plan ahead when travelling and I'm totally familiar with my weights routine.

In fact I'm finally seeing changes in my body that I'm really really pleased about. Hoorah!

And just as I'm getting into the swing of things, CLANG! My trainer wants me to change my exercise routine.

Grrr.....just when I started to look like a pro in the weights room.

So Tony the trainer says I can't let my body get stuck in a rut because that's when it stops working for me and it won't be as effective in burning fat.

So it's time to mix things up.

It's good to do this so that the body doesn't guess what is coming next. He also suggested I throw some cardio in at least once a week for good fat burning measure.

So while he conjured up a new fat busting weights programme for me this weekend, I took myself out of the gym to attend one of those British Military Fitness in my local park.

So unlike most people having a lie in on Saturday, I was wrestling in mud before 9 in the morning.

Now I feel the cold more than the average person and often resemble like the Michelin Man from September through until April, so you can imagine how happy I was at the concept of attending such a class on a cold and frosty October morning.

Anyway, through gritted teeth I managed to drag myself to the park and introduced myself to trainers Steve and Tom who were taking the hourly class in Reading.

They must have seen the terrified look in my face because Steve was quick to put me at ease.

"Don't worry, we're not the kind of trainers that will shout at you unlike the name implies," he said.

"We do want to push you and achieve those results but we don't bark at you." 'Thank God for that' I thought in my head. What with facing the cold and getting shouted out would be a bad combo for any time of day!

The good thing is you get put into teams depending on your ability and a bib would identify which one you are in.

There is a beginners, intermediate and advanced. I was put in the intermediate team (red bib) because of my already fairly active lifestyle.

So our warm up began with the usual jogging on the spot, high knees, stretching that seem to be a distant memory since I abandoned cardio in favour of weights.

Unfortunately that left me breathless before the actual workout. But Tom told me to put my hands flat on my head with my elbows pointing out to the sideways to open up my chest and breathe. It helped.

We then proceeded onto a series of workouts around the park. We did short sprints, did exercises like squats on the spot, crunches, burpees and even lying on the grass face down.

You'd think lying on the grass was welcomed but not when we only had a second or two there before being told to get up and sprint.

Oh and the mud didn't help either. By the end of the hour my hair and clothes were covered in the stuff.

Still what amazed me was that I felt myself automatically competing with those with the same coloured bib as me.

Given I wasn't that fast because they have been going along to these sessions longer than me, but it did make me want to push myself harder.

And that's where the trainers helped. Yes they gave orders but I felt in the right tone.

Both Steve and Tom did sound like military men but we also had some laughs on the way.

There was definitely some friendly teasing going on with some of the guys which was great to take your mind off the difficult exercise in hand.

At the end of the hour I was shattered but buzzing at the same time. I had survived!

I could totally see why people would favour a workout like this than going to a gym.

It gives you the sense of team work and pushes you that much harder. And it must be working because some of these guys I worked out with have been religiously going to the BMF for years.

Personally I didn't realise how much it worked until I was in pain from my workout two days later. My body got the shock that it needed.

If you're interested in joining, you can sign up for your free British Military Fitness class here: https://www.britmilfit.com/try-bmf-for-free/

Close