'My confidence is growing & I feel much fitter'
Wednesday 20 June 2012
Working mum-of-two from Northumberland
Height: 5ft 8
Start weight: 14st 7lbs
Current weight: 12st 11.5lbs
Weight loss this week: 4lbs
This week I’ve lost 4lbs, which sees me back in the realm of the 12 stones (12st 11.5lbs to be precise!), and that is a great feeling!
The sunshine has most definitely helped me stay on track, and as the lovely weather continued we had out first family BBQ. There is nothing quite like the taste of barbecued food. I steered clear of the sausages, creamy pastas and dressings instead enjoying seasoned turkey steaks with salad and a barbecued sweet potato. I also quite confidently went out in a vest top (and although I looked far from perfect!) my confidence is certainly growing again.
Saturday morning saw a very early start when I left the house at 4.20am for the train to London! Closerdiets.com offered me and my fellow dieters the amazing opportunity to attend a ‘Prestige Bootcamp’ in Hyde Park. I was unsure about the trip for several reasons – leaving the children, the journey alone, meeting the other girls and of course the prospect of two solid days of exercise. How wrong I was!!!
I arrived late at Hyde Park but got straight into the day and we began with boxing exercises, which I absolutely loved! It was great to try something new and really enjoy it! As the day continued, we did some circuit training and
‘fartlek’ which is interval running. What I appreciated about the day was the way every exercise could be adapted to your own ability, this couldn’t be truer than the Fartlek. This is interval training where you ‘move’ at 3 different speeds over a period of approx 300 metres. You start relatively slowly (this can be running or walking), at the next stage you increase your speed and in the third stage you move as quickly as you can. You then return to the original start speed increasing again and again over specific periods of time. Our trainer explained the benefits of training like this and told us that it would have a greater effect on your body to do this for a period of 15 minutes than running at the same speed over the same time.
Lunch was a lovely chance to relax and get to know the other girls, and of course wonderful Kelby from Closer, who has co-ordinated our diets and trip. It was clear we all had lots in common in terms of our struggles, achievements and goals. As a northerner it was an amazing experience to spend this time within Hyde Park particularly on such a glorious day!
The afternoon involved lots of circuit training and finished with some really fun team games (everybody got slightly competitive in a good way), which took me back to my Girls’ Brigade days as a child!
At the end of day 1 we all left the park and travelled to our hotel. We met up later for our evening meal and again 2 hours flew by while Stacey, Kammy and I discussed our experiences. I was asleep by 9pm, which meant we were up and ready for day 2!
I think the pain from the previous day had set in as we made our way across London on Sunday morning and we were all slightly demoralised, but as soon as we got started we found our enthusiasm and had another really enjoyable day. This involved more boxing and some brilliant quick and straight-forward exercises that can easily be done for free at home. This was a great reminder that we could all find the time to exercise! These included crunches, squat jumps, press ups, star jumps, running on the spot and sit-ups The session involved exercising for 20 seconds at a time and resting for 10 seconds. Again, the relatively short period of time you exercised (20 seconds) made it easier to push yourself as hard as possible physically. All of these could be done in any room in the house and require no equipment or costs – we all learned there is really no reason not to!
The trainers from Prestige Bootcamp were amazing. We were welcomed, encouraged and motivated but never made to feel incapable or incompetent! We were also educated and advised on how to continue to improve when we returned home. I can’t thank them enough for their approach to the camp and me.
I am amazed that I returned home truly saying how much I had enjoyed the whole weekend! I would be lying if I said there were not some points when I struggled or ‘hurt’ but I dug deep and got on with it.
Finally, I did manage a very quick trip to Harrods to pick up a couple of souvenirs for my kids before returning home! (well it would have been rude not to manage one shop on a trip to London!!)
My aim for next week is to find a local boxercise class that I can attend – it has astounded me how much I enjoyed those sessions and I’d really like to continue with it. I am also going to set some time aside at home to do similar exercises to those we did at camp. I want to build exercise into my life!! Wish me luck!!
Prestige Boot Camp is Europe’s No1 and most successful and established provider of luxury fitness and weight loss boot camps. If you fancy booking yourself in, head over to www.prestigebootcamp.com! Prestige Boot Camp run residential boot camps the UK and Spain starting from £950 and weekends in London from £60 per day. For further information please visit www.prestigebootcamp.com or call 0117 973 12 13.
If you fancy joining Rebecca on her weight loss journey, then why not head over to Closer Diets where you can join in on their exact ten week plan for just £25! Drop a stone and a half in time for summer and be bikini-confident this year! Go to www.closerdiets.com now to find out more!
READ WEEK EIGHT HERE!
FOLLOW KAMALA HERE!
FOLLOW STACEY HERE!