Lauren's makeover - week 1

Makeover at the Marine • Published 16 Sep 2009 16:48

My first week on the Marine Makeover has been full of surprises!

It started out with an induction where I learned how to work every machine in the gym. At the end of that I booked an appointment with a member of staff to get a programme organised for me.

When I went along to that I was asked where I wanted to lose weight and what my three favourite machines in the gym were. I was honest and said I liked them all but hate the rowing machine!

A programme absolutely tailor made for me was then put into place. The member of staff came round every machine with me testing my fitness and making sure I wasn't doing too much or too little!

After the cardio came the toning exercises. After a few months in the gym doing leg weights and the like I found out this is actually bad for women, unless you want to have muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger that is! I thought I was the Queen Bee being able to do the leg machines on a heavy weight but this is actually not the way to go - this was surprise number one. It was explained to me that I want to tone, not end up like a bodybuilder. I agreed with that!

So now I've got all sorts of weird and wonderful exercises involving mats and a medicine ball and even dumbbells for resistance.

These are fantastic though and I've even got a special exercise to tone my calf muscles!

After my programme was organised I signed up for my first pilates class. Pilates is something I've never tried or even seen being done so I foolishly thought it was some sort of stretching affair which would naturally be quite easy.

I could not have been more wrong - cue surprise number two!

Pilates is, infact, more of a muscle toning exercise. I would even go as far as to say extreme muscle toning!

The good news is, especially for a first-timer like me, the lady taking the class shows different levels of difficulty when doing a particular exercise. This means you don't get thrown into the deep end but can work your way up to the harder ones.

Legs, arms, abs, back, wherever else you might find a muscle - the pilates exercises will work it!

This of course resulted in extreme pain the next morning. I attended the class with my three colleagues and we spent the next day shouting 'don't make me laugh it hurts'. Then I sneezed - ouch!

The good thing about that though is that I know it's working. So much so I'm booked in again next Monday! I must be mad.

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