Fat Woman gets her gun

Fat Woman is doing the Olympic Gold Challenge and has to get coaching in five new sports. Fat Woman chose the sports so she didn't spend hundreds of pounds to raise hundreds of pounds. The one sport Fat Woman had wanted to try for a while so was prepared to pay for was clay pigeon shooting.

Personal Trainer is apparently a crack shot and was very encouraging, even suggesting that he would go shooting with Fat Woman. Fat Woman can't vouch for Personal Trainer's clays but the pheasants he shot for her were excellently done. Swimming Coach also shoots and joined the gun club after Fat Woman took him there for a visit. Fat Woman had to sit down for ten minutes after being presented with the idea of Swimming Coach and Personal Trainer being competitive together with guns in their hands. 


Fat Woman now has two certificates from the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association showing that she has been taught general safety and "shotgun skills". There was a lot of time spent on safety and law and background, but Fat Woman also got to shoot some clays. Fat Woman likes shooting clays. Fat Woman is no natural but wasn't bad at the learning process. By the time Fat Woman had shot fifty cartridges she was able to hit both birds of a pair. One pair were both left to right and one pair was a left to right followed by a teal (flies straight up from the ground).

Fat Woman had an embarrassing moment when she shot at a broken clay. The rabbit (rolls along close to the ground) had broken when it bounced but Fat Woman hadn't noticed. It was a beautiful shot, but the senior coach was very gruff about it. It is super-against the rules, but noticing the state of a clay is still a bit beyond Fat Woman.

Fat Woman also has a nifty sew-on badge but she isn't quite sure where to put it. Out of context it would look a bit odd but at the gun club it would be a bit like a child's 50m swimming badge.

Fat Woman has a big bruise on her shoulder from her first shot when she wasn't holding the gun correctly and a tender patch from where the gun butt sat when she was holding the gun properly.

Fat Woman now falls into the gap between a total novice and a gun owner. Fat Woman has either to pay for supervised coaching so she gets the loan of a gun or persuade someone who owns a gun to come with her. Fat Woman needs to shoot a bit more before she buys and installs a gun safe, applies for a gun license and buys a gun.

Fat Woman thinks her keenness will depend on the social aspects. If Fat Woman can find people who want to shoot with her then she is more likely to carry on.

Fat Woman is also tempted by the secure feeling of owning a gun. Fat Woman loves John Wyndham books and has always wondered what would happen were Society to collapse and she had no access to a gun.

Fat Woman gets a holiday

Fat Woman gets a holiday - from Personal Trainer. Personal Trainer is going on holiday with Buddy for a week. Fat Woman was channelling her dear departed grandmother and gave Personal Trainer a 20 Euro note and told him to buy Buddy an ice-cream. Personal Trainer said he thought this was very sweet. Fat Woman feels guilty because what she really wants is a break from Personal Trainer, or rather the awkwardness which now sits between her and Personal Trainer. Both Fat Woman and Personal Trainer are being so damn careful with each other. Fat Woman enquired if there was anything Personal Trainer did or didn't want her to do in his absence, or anything he wanted her to consider when training with Swimming Coach. Personal Trainer swore up and down that anything Fat Woman wanted to do was absolutely fine with him. It was all a bit of a turn around from the previous week.

Fat Woman is hoping that a week away will do them both good and provide a reset. Fat Woman misses the easy intimacy they used to have. Fat Woman is fairly sure that it is she who is holding back. Fat Woman thinks that perhaps her availability and listening ear during workouts made it too easy for Personal Trainer. Fat Woman would be happy to give Personal Trainer any time he wants, but long in-depth personal conversations shouldn't happen during Fat Woman's workout. They used to, and Fat Woman enjoyed them and valued them, but Fat Woman wants to work harder now. This is lucky because on both Monday and today Personal Trainer made Fat Woman work really, really hard. 

Fat Woman doesn't know where the boundary should go when it comes to being close personal friends with your personal trainer. Fat Woman has always guarded against any suggestion of impropriety with Personal Trainer because right from the word go people would ask her if her trainer was good looking. Fat Woman would say: "He's very pretty,-" which was true, but allowed her to signal that Personal Trainer wasn't someone she could find attractive. When chatting with the young of the two female personal trainers Fat Woman was asked if she didn't find Personal Trainer attractive. Fat Woman snorted and said that she didn't, and that she wasn't sure who was the most grateful about that, herself or Personal Trainer!


Fat Woman just doesn't know how to be "friends" with someone nearly fifteen years younger who has almost nothing in common with her. Fat Woman adores Personal Trainer and enjoyed (enjoys?) their friendship, but cannot, will not, make any kind of sacrifice of her health to support a relationship. Fat Woman also feels that if you value someone as a personal friend then eventually you make an effort to move the relationship out of the workplace. If you don't then you have a "work friend" with whom you will probably stop associating with once you no longer share a workplace. Fat Woman isn't sure that Personal Trainer sees it quite like this.


Fat Woman would give anything to be able to undo what has been done. Anything except her progress in her health that is. 

Fat Woman gets stress-DOMS

When Fat Woman trained on Monday she was extremely stressed. Fat Woman felt no pain or strain, probably because of the cortisol flooding her system. Fat Woman was doing lat pull downs.

Personal Trainer: "Does it ache yet?"
Fat Woman: "No."
Personal trainer increases weights.
Personal Trainer: "What about now?"
Fat Woman: "No."

Personal trainer increases weights.
Personal Trainer: "What about now?"
Fat Woman: "No."

Personal trainer increases weights.
Personal Trainer: "What about now?"

Eventually Fat Woman stopped because her palms felt very sore from the bar. The entire session was just the same. Fat Woman was a machine.


Fat Woman is now waiting for DOMS to kick in and hurt her badly. Fat Woman suspects it's going to be a hard night.

Fat Woman - born to serve

Fat Woman had purchased a GroupOn voucher for tennis lessons. Fat Woman had bought a tennis racket and arrived promptly and properly prepared at the tennis courts. Fat Woman wasn't greeted, despite being expected, but eventually made herself known to the owner. Fat Woman was immediately sent "over there" to where a young man and a middle aged woman were playing tennis. The young man was the Tennis Coach and the middle aged woman had been playing for three years. Fat Woman felt quite bad that she was such a beginner when paired with someone more experienced. 

Tennis Coach was a little unprepared for how little Fat Woman knew. Tennis Coach appeared rather taken aback when Fat Woman pointed out that before they "just hit some balls" he might like to tell her how to hold the racket. 

In fact, it was a very good job that Fat Woman did actually remember playing tennis at school. Instead of the  basic here's-a-racquet, here's-a-ball training Fat Woman was expecting she was pitched into rallying straight away. Tennis Coach did give Fat Woman some good direction so she can now forehand rally and serve. Tennis Coach also said useful things such as "Take a break, get some water" which was very important as it was 28 degrees Celsius. Fat Woman is not used to exercising anywhere but in the cool air conditioned environment of the gym. Fat Woman was glad she brought two water bottles along. Fat Woman also found that she wasn't a big melting lump of lard. At no point in time was Fat Woman out of breath. Tennis Coach sent balls fairly neatly her way, but Fat Woman didn't mind running for them a little. 

Fat Woman's irritation is with the business owner. All GroupOns come with conditions and Fat Woman had written saying she was prepared to be flexible about times, so long as they were in the day. Fat Woman had asked the owner to confirm the course was going ahead before she went out and bought her tennis racket. The owner spent quite some time explaining to Fat Woman that if there aren't five people in the class then it costs him more and you're getting individual coaching which is much more expensive. Fat Woman is disinclined to hear this. It really isn't Fat Woman's problem. If Fat Woman had received individual coaching she may well have taken up the offer of more individual coaching. Fat Woman was promised eight hours of tennis coaching for the price of four (£24 instead of £48). Fat Woman isn't inclined to pay £12 for a group lesson for a sport in which she has no experience or for a class run by a company that can't even handle a GroupOn offer.

Fat Woman and the stressful morning

Recap: Fat Woman and Personal Trainer had a falling out. A big misunderstanding where both Personal Trainer and Fat Woman were convinced they were right and the other one was wrong. This culminated in a high drama conversation on Friday night.

Nominally, Personal Trainer and Fat Woman were okay. Certainly Personal Trainer turned up to train Fat Woman, which was a bonus. Fat Woman is not usually a nervous Nelly about training but was extremely stressed that morning. At three minutes to training Fat Woman was starting to stress about how stressed she was. Fat Woman's heart rate - usually a resting 60bpm - had hit 120bpm.

Fat Woman realised that if you have been on the rowing machine for fifteen minutes then of course your heart rate would go up.

Personal Trainer was pretty much his usual friendly self and put Fat Woman at ease fairly quickly. However, Fat Woman won't mind Personal Trainer's holiday next week in the slightest.

Fat Woman and Personal Trainer fall out

Fat Woman and Personal Trainer have had a falling out. At 10pm on Tuesday everything seemed fine. By 8pm on Friday the reactor had gone into meltdown.

There wasn't any shouting or swearing. Fat Woman doesn't do shouting or swearing. Fat Woman doesn't do drama either, but Personal Trainer is young and earnest and wasn't feeling able to hold on to the issues until Monday so a very intense conversation was held in the gym café with half a dozen people knowing that Something Was Going On.

Fat Woman won't divulge exactly what happened, but it was based on a fundamental misunderstanding. Fat Woman thought she was doing what Personal Trainer wanted. Personal Trainer felt he was being taken advantage of in quite a serious way. Fat Woman pointed out that this was unfair when she had offered option A and Personal Trainer had refused. Option B was what Personal Trainer wanted. Personal Trainer explained that he didn't think that was how Option B was working. Fat Woman was left thinking that you had to be a little clueless to think Option B worked like that, and it wasn't like she hadn't explained it three times. Fat Woman accepts that both she and Personal Trainer were saying things and the other one wasn't understanding what was being said.

Personal Trainer has a habit of conducting difficult conversation by perching on a chair to talk down to Fat Woman. Fat Woman is not sure whether to find it annoying or endearing that Personal Trainer feels he needs that advantage.

Fat Woman was not pleased to find that Personal Trainer had taken umbrage that Fat Woman had trained with Swimming Coach on Wednesday morning. Personal Trainer had been unable to do Fat Woman's session, which Fat Woman was fine with, but that was the only time she could train that day, or even in the next three days. Fat Woman feels slightly itchy at the idea that she has an obligation to tell Personal Trainer if she has professional relationships with other people. Fat Woman doesn't mind telling if Personal Trainer had requested at the beginning that would happen as a courtesy, but there is something that doesn't sit right with Fat Woman. Personal Trainer doesn't require Fat Woman to tell him when she is going to tennis, archery, shooting, hockey or tai chi coaching. Fat Woman pointed out to Personal Trainer that no one messes with his training, and that applies to her as well.

On Monday Personal Trainer said he felt that Swimming Coach set Fat Woman back when she trained with him. On Friday Personal Trainer told Fat Woman he had discussed referring he to Swimming Coach for when Personal Trainer changes gyms in the Autumn. Fat Woman felt her eyebrows wedge themselves in her hairline at that point. Fat Woman has known for a while that Personal Trainer is changing gyms. Fat Woman has been very supportive, even promising to come and train with Personal Trainer in his new gym. This would mean a 20 mile drive for Fat Woman rather than her current 4 mile drive. Fat Woman thinks that Personal Trainer is worth it.

Fat Woman has no idea where her relationship with Personal Trainer is going now. During the conversation Personal Trainer said he "thought we were friends". Fat Woman is happy to consider Personal Trainer a friend, and they have had some very intimate conversations, but Fat Woman has had experience of workplace friendships before. Fat Woman has found that if you are friends with someone solely within your workplace and you don't see them outside of work or call them socially then the friendship is not necessarily solid. Fat Woman has been burned before, particularly by men who are happy to have a friendship when it is supported by a framework such as mutual workplace but who won't put any effort in outside. Fat Woman is not saying that Personal Trainer is like that, but she had no expectations. 

Fat Woman is continuing to train with Personal Trainer. Fat Woman had never thought of discontinuing and was rather taken aback when Personal Trainer raised the possibility. It was then that Fat Woman realised how upset Personal Trainer was. Fat Woman pointed out that the two of them having a very public break up would not do Personal Trainer's business any good, and that she didn't feel that was necessary anyway. Fat Woman asked Personal Trainer if it was the case that he didn't want her to train with him at his next gym. Personal Trainer seemed reassured by Fat Woman's commitment to training with him and said that wasn't the case, and also that he had worried about the aftermath of the conversation.

Fat Woman feels that she is taking emotional responsibility for this interaction. Fat Woman is not sharing how some of the things said made her feel. Fat Woman actually feels misunderstood and that her fingers have been a little burned, although she is glad to hear that Personal Trainer does value - or possibly has valued - her friendship. It certainly comes across that Personal Trainer doesn't place much value on the work Fat Woman was doing for him.

Personal Trainer ended the conversation by hugging Fat Woman. Fat Woman was shocked. Fat Woman and Personal Trainer do not usually touch, let alone hug in front of a room full of people. However, such an unusual step gave Fat Woman hope that perhaps Personal Trainer would get over the events enough for them to resume a friendly training relationship. Personal Trainer is away for a week after training Fat Woman on Monday. Fat Woman could use a break right now.

Fat Woman and the embarrassing underwear

Fat Woman went to the osteopath. Fat Woman has some knee issues which require work.

Once at the osteopath's Fat Woman realised she had made a huge mistake. Instead of her harvest festival pants (all is safely gathered in) Fat Woman was wearing a thong.

There was no time for Fat Woman to go home and change, or even buy new panties. Fat Woman had to lie on the couch with dented modesty. Of course, this was the day the osteopath had a medical student in.

Fat Woman imagines the medical student telling the story of the hugely fat woman who wore a thong. Fat Woman feels bad for herself that there is any question of it being appropriate to wear a thong. Fat Woman likes pretty underwear as much as the next person. Fat Woman just likes to be more modest when displaying her underwear to others. Fat Woman feels that wearing a thong to the osteopath is a bit like saying "Hey! I have a good enough opinion of myself that I think I look attractive in these and I don't mind letting you see me." Fat Woman does not enjoy exhibitionism.

Fat Woman goes for Olympic Gold

Fat Woman has never been a fan of the word "Olympic". "Olympic" joins "gigantic", "huge", "titanic" and "mountainous" as words that a part of Fat Woman always expects someone to turn around and say to her: "That's you, that is*" No one has actually played that particular trick on Fat Woman for at least fifteen years now, but Fat Woman is still slightly wary about synonyms for "large". "Jumbo" is Fat Woman's least favourite because of the cross-referencing to elephants.

Combining a synonym for "large" with sport makes Fat Woman doubly nervous. Fat Woman has not had good experiences with sport. Fat Woman  has been excluded from several sports on account of her weight. Fat Woman wanted to ride but the local stables have never had shire horses. Fat Woman wanted to try open water swimming but could not find a wetsuit in her size. More pertinently, Fat Woman suffered extreme pain trying to keep up with fitter people. Fat Woman was invariably left gasping for breath with agonising pain shooting through her side (a "stitch") within a few minutes whilst friends were obviously annoyed at her pathetic inability to meet normal expectations and her need for rests.

Fat Woman's attention was caught by a newspaper article on something called the "Olympic Gold Challenge". The principle of the Olympic Gold Challenge is that you raise money for one of a selection of charities by trying a new sport. Fat Woman was inspired by the article and the claim that you could do just one sport. Fat Woman considered that she could cope with trying one new sport for the requisite three hours. Fat Woman signed herself up and arranged with Personal Trainer that she would attend his boxing class.

On finding more information about the challenge Fat Woman found that she would have to try not just one but five new sports. To just try one sport would require you to be on a team with four other people. Fat Woman had a moment of panic. Where could Fat Woman find four other people each willing to try a new sport on their own? Fat Woman finds it hard enough to coordinate four people who want to have dinner. Fat Woman was not comfortable asking other people to ask yet more people for money. Fat Woman takes a dim view of people who use charity sponsorship to fund their sporting activities, especially marathon runners.

After that initial  moment Fat Woman realised that there was nothing stopping her trying four more new sports. For the first time in her life Fat Woman felt able to take up a sporting challenge.

Fat Woman is now undertaking her own Olympic Gold Challenge. Fat Woman has chosen the following Olympic Sports - boxing, weight lifting, hockey, 50m freestyle and clay shooting. Fat Woman has chosen to do this in support of Cancer Research. Fat Woman chose a cancer research charity because she lost her mother to cancer a couple of years ago. Fat Woman's mother used to say "I'm so proud of you" whatever Fat Woman did. Fat Woman hopes her mother is still proud of her.

If you would like to support Fat Woman in her once-in-a-lifetime efforts you can donate on her Just Giving page at www.justgiving.com/ElizabethCook-1. You can also see what Fat Woman really looks like. Fat Woman rather likes being anonymous and writing as a character, but thinks that perhaps this is a little bit more important than that.

*Interested readers can view the source of this phrase here: http://youtu.be/aEQcsuXnnnc.

Fat Woman is anti-obesity

Fat Woman is not a very good "morbidly obese" person. Fat Woman does not feel shame or find herself disgusting. Even worse, Fat Woman does not believe that her fat will bring about her certain death. Fat Woman agrees that her eventually death is a given, but if fat was an actual cause of death she would have been dead before she was ten years old. Certainly Fat Woman wouldn't have made it past 30 years if fat was an actual cause of dying.

Fat Woman also takes issue with the word "obese". Fat Woman considers its definition "excessively fat or fleshy"  to be judgemental. What amount of flesh is excessive, and who decided that anyway? The root of the word "obese" is from the Latin "obesus". This means "to eat intensively" (ob- is "intensive", and "edere" is "to eat"). Fat Woman has done a fair amount of eating over the years but does not remember eating intensively for more than the occasional meal, or even for one extremely large meal that left her obese. Fat Woman ate  until she was full. On calculating her rate of weight gain over 25 years Fat Woman ate an excess of just 134 calories per day. Fat Woman does not consider an extra 135 calories each day to be  "eating intensively". 135 calories is a low fat Starbucks cappuccino.

Fat Woman has checked out the  BMI (Body Mass Index) tables. Fat Woman is 5 feet 4 and a half inches tall, although she will claim 5'5" for the purposes of using the BMI tables. The highest "healthy" BMI is 24. To have a BMI of 24 Fat Woman would need to weigh 145lb (10 stone 5lb)  or 65.9kg.

According to measurements of weight and  body fat composition the lean mass of Fat Woman's body is 70kg. If Fat Woman has a body fat percentage of 30%, the highest healthy percentage for a woman her age, her weight would be be 220lb. Fat Woman's BMI would be 36 and she would still be classed as "obese". 


Fat Woman thinks it is time to (1) stop pushing BMI as a measurement of body health and start pushing body fat composition instead and (2) find a better word than "obesity". 

The most important half a pound

Fat Woman has lost the most important half a pound. This half a pound is possibly even more important than the first half-pound Fat Woman lost on the way back down from her greatest weight. Losing this half a pound gave Fat Woman a thrill and a sense of achievement that no other loss has this year. This half-pound was special because it was half a pound less than Fat Woman's lowest weight as an adult, back in 2007.

Fat Woman is no longer trying to lose weight she has regained. Instead, Fat Woman is now losing this weight for the first time since putting it on at the age of 20. Fat Woman is feeling very encouraged and has a real sense that she is making good progress. 


Heck, Fat Woman is doing the happy dance and doesn't care who knows it.

Fat Woman and the pigeon

Fat Woman is a foodie. A low-calorie foodie who is concious of carbs but still a foodie. Personal Trainer shoots. Early on their relationship Personal Trainer brought Fat Woman a brace of pheasants. The pheasants were beautifully prepared by Personal Trainer, skinned and gutted with all the shot removed. Personal Trainer even triple-bagged the birds, meaning that Fat Woman only got a little pool of blood at the bottom of her gym locker. Fat Woman was extremely impressed with the quality of the birds. They made a fabulous casserole. In fact, they were the best pheasant Fat Woman can remember eating.

The pheasant season is over, but Personal Trainer promised Fat Woman some pigeon. Personal Trainer did actually go as far as shooting and preparing two pigeon breasts, but they got eaten before he could take them to Fat Woman.

Today Fat Woman was working very hard, so she had little breath to talk. However Fat Woman did manage to say in an enquiring tone: "Where's my pigeon?"

Personal Trainer replied: "In the tree at home, keeping fresh."

Fat Woman and the important lesson

Fat Woman is learning many interesting things through working with Personal Trainer, and not just things about exercise and fitness. For a start, Personal Trainer keeps Fat Woman up to date with slang, dropping in words such as "reme" , as in "I'm reme" meaning "I am supreme". Fat Woman is a fan of language and appreciates the updates. Personal Trainer has also shared the secret of his all-year tan, although Fat Woman suspects that when he confessed to using "tinted moisturiser" he meant a moisturiser with a tanning effect, not the tinted moisturiser that women use in lieu of foundation.

The most valuable lesson Fat Woman has learned is that if you cannot find your sports bra you should not chose to wear an old bra instead. It would be better to wear a less comfortable but more supportive garment than to have your right breast flop out when you are pounding the heavy bag with all your might. Should such a calamity happen to you, you will have to stop your workout, take off your boxing gloves, turn to the wall and adjust your clothing.

Of course, this is what happened to Fat Woman. By the time Fat Woman had replaced her boxing gloves and was ready to continue the workout Personal Trainer had of course noticed that something was amiss and wanted to know what it was. Personal Trainer likes to know absolutely everything going on in his sessions. Fat Woman's refusal to specify what exactly she was up to inflamed Personal Trainers curiosity. Personal Trainer was puzzled at the mystery and went into terrier mode, refusing to let go. In the end Fat Woman cried out in exasparation: "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW? BECAUSE I'LL TELL YOU IF YOU REALLY WANT!" Fat Woman must have been quite ferocious because Personal Trainer decided that perhaps he didn't need to know after all.

Fat Woman still has no idea if Personal Trainer knows exactly what was going on but would die rather than invite conversation about her breasts.

Why Fat Woman's gym is like High School

Reasons why Fat Woman's gym is like High School

1. Fat Woman goes every day Monday to Friday.
2. Even thought Fat Woman goes every week day there is always something to do at the weekend.
3. If Fat Woman applies herself throughout the week she gets Sundays off.
4. The same people are there, day in and day out.
5. Fat Woman has a locker.
6. There are lots of classes, although Fat Woman's timetable is full of P.E. (Physical Education)
7. If you don't work consistently you'll find you can't catch up in a rush.
8. One bathroom stall is invariably out of order.
9. Everyone seems to be way ahead of you in everything all the time.
10. Everyone knows who everyone else is, even if not exactly by name.
11. The admin staff hold more power than you think.
12. There are friendship groups based around commonalities in interest and shared classes.
13. There are crushes and flirting and even romance.
14. The cafeteria food is terrible.
15. There is DRAMA.

Fat Woman and the cold

Fat Woman has caught a cold and feels terrible. Fat Woman doesn't like being ill so has a lot of methods for coping with the symptoms. Currently Fat Woman has a sore throat so the coping methods include a throat spray, lozenges and hot lemon paracetamol drinks. Fat Woman then eats things such as scrambled eggs on toast in order to offset the digestive side effects of the over-the-counter remedies.

At least, Fat Woman used to.

Now Personal Trainer says "no bread". Fat Woman spent the morning putting off the need to eat carbs. Eventually Fat Woman twigged on to the idea of baked potatoes. Formerly baked potatoes were evil. Now they are her only hope as pasta is also disallowed.

Fat Woman is miserable and grumpy and when Personal Trainer texted that she couldn't have bread with her eggs she texted back that she hated him*. Fat Woman knows Personal Trainer doesn't care so long as she doesn't eat the bread.

*Fat Woman did put (transference) after that comment and she did take it back later but she TOTALLY meant it at the time.

Fat Woman and the "worth it" moment.

Last night Fat Woman went to BoxFit. It was a tough night, especially as TinyFriend was absent and FatWoman had no natural partner. There was lots of mat work and Fat Woman had to take lots of accommodations. Fat Woman can't do burpees yet, and she can't do mountain climbers, and she certainly isn't going to wipe out all her energy by attempting jump squats. Even on the sit ups, which Fat Woman has been practising she managed two sets of ten whilst everyone else did three sets of 20. Fat Woman was holding on to the fact this is a vast improvement, and that whilst she might be performing two thirds below everyone else, this is actually a huge improvement on two months ago when she managed five sit ups and two days later wondered if she'd given birth without noticing.

Initially Personal Trainer didn't know about Fat Woman's mat work. Fat Woman had printed off this guide, which turned out to be provided by the British Army, and was spending 45 minutes every Tuesday afternoon working her way through the possibilities. Personal Trainer found this out when his schedule changed and he was treated to the sight of Fat Woman doing planks and bridges and sit-ups. Fat Woman told Personal Trainer that she was practising because she would like, just for once, not to be the worst in the class at everything in mat work. Personal Trainer assured Fat Woman that she was a better boxer than lots of them. Fat Woman thanked him for the point but pointed out that she was probably a better clarinet player than most of them as well. Personal Trainer checked her times the next week (1:15) and set her the challenge of improving her plank to 1:45, which Fat Woman did the same week.

In class the last thing Personal Trainer made the class do was plank for a minute. Fat Woman made it all the way through the minute. Not everyone did.

Fat Woman is savouring the moment when she wasn't the worst in the class. It tastes so very, very sweet.

Fat Woman challenges Personal Trainer

Fat Woman and Personal Trainer are back to normal. Fat Woman has a last minute trip to Devon this weekend so Personal Trainer fitted her training session in this Friday morning. Fat Woman could have done with slightly more (i.e. any) appreciation of that fact she was changing times and missing aquarobics not just cancelling Monday's slot, but, whatever. Fat Woman knows Personal Trainer is grateful at this, even if not to her.

It turns out that Personal Trainer likes air hockey. Fat Woman likes air hockey.

Fat Woman and the hardest thing

Fat Woman has worked out what is the hardest part of being on a weight loss journey.

It isn't that you end up being on a "weight loss journey"
It isn't counting calories, planning food, shopping, weighing, cooking or even turning food down.
It isn't going to the gym, working out, the constant showers and laundry, the prioritisation, planning and organisation to get there.
It isn't injuring yourself doing something that seems perfectly safe for everyone else, the pain, the painkillers or the treatment.
It isn't the constant negotiating with the doctor to stay on top of your blood tests and prescriptions.
It isn't all the little things such as not having anything nice to wear because you've shrunk out of all your lovely clothing.
It isn't even the huge amount of money you spend on gym membership, personal training, sports classes and coaching, osteopaths, gym clothes and sports equipment.

The hardest part of being on weight loss journey is being the person responsible for everything. If you drop the ball, then the ball stays dropped.

Fat Woman is defrosting

Fat Woman and Personal Trainer have been having a froideur. Fat Woman is not entirely sure that it was solely her fault, but would guess that Personal Trainer would think it was. Fat Woman is prepared to acknowledge that she has been poleaxed by the following:

(1) Boxing injury. Fat Woman could feel the muscles in her arms were tight and not right. A trip to the osteopath about her knees ended in a return trip the same day to fix her arms. Osteopath said that in all his career he had never seen a bicep that tight "without being torn". Fat Woman allows that the muscles were awfully tight but thinks that someone who was probably at school with Personal Trainer can't have had that long a career. Osteopath did some manipulation of her arms that was uncomfortable, but it was the work he did on her deltoids and the pectoralis minor which made Fat Woman actually yell. A return trip a week later and Fat Woman is still feeling myofascial pinching. Given that Fat Woman dedicated herself to her super healthy lifestyle in order to keep her arms in use and to recover from an incredibly severe case of computer based RSI it was an incredible shock to find herself back at square one. This isn't Personal Trainer's fault, but Fat Woman would appreciate a bit more concern. Personal Trainer is meant to be looking after Fat Woman.

(2) The food issue (see last post). Fat Woman thought she had been getting on awfully well. After Personal Trainer persuaded her to have a diet review Fat Woman agreed to adjust the balance of her diet, swapping carbohydrates for fat. Fat Woman has been eating a low GI diet for five years. Her "good" food has been carbs. Hungry? Eat a piece of toast. Need lunch when out? Grab a sandwich. Taking bread out her diet leaves a hole which Fat Woman has not been totally able to fill. Scrambled eggs on toast work. Scrambled eggs on Ryvita don't work. Of course, Fat Woman could eat bread if she wanted to, but she's going with the plan for a bit. The constant thinking about food is wearing Fat Woman down when she had been so free before.

(3) The food monitoring issue. Fat Woman's one big food issue is that she hates it when people monitor what she eats with a view to controlling it. This stems from the attitude of people who thought that Fat Girl didn't need to eat because she was fat. When Fat Woman was talking about people withholding food when she was hungry to Swimming Coach he exclaimed: "But that's torture!" Fat Woman adores that man sometimes; he gets it.  Fat Woman hates, hates, hates it when people make uninformed judgements about what she is putting into her mouth. Despite Fat Woman having two days of fraught correspondence culminating in a face to face serious talk with Personal Trainer about the fact she had issues with people allowing (or not allowing) her to eat, Personal Trainer jumped into this bear pit with both feet. Ironically, he did so when Fat Woman was waiting for him to discuss her diet plan.

Personal Trainer had chosen 11am as the time to meet. He was more than an hour late, so Fat Woman was late for lunch. Fat Woman's diet is like quantum cryptography: the very act of looking at the data causes changes. Fat Woman had not eaten as much as she could have for breakfast and was in desperate need of food. When Personal Trainer came to find her at nearly 1 o'clock Fat Woman had just taken the lid off her Marks and Spencer's prawn salad. For international readers, Marks and Spencer have a premium grocery store famed for excellent convenience food. The prawn salad had been on special offer at just £2. Fat Woman would have been happy with any of the following reactions from Personal Trainer:

• "I'm sorry I'm so late." 
• "I'm sorry that I am so late and I also can't talk straight away because I have another client."
• "A salad? Well done. Those prawn salads are low in carbs and calories and high in protein."
• "I'm really sorry that my lateness is messing with your eating."
• "Don't eat that! I'll buy you something better to keep you going until we can talk."
• "Do bring the nutrition label of your lunch to our talk so we can discuss it along with your meal plan."

Fat Woman would have actually preferred Personal Trainer to say nothing. Fat Woman agrees with Mr Ronan Keating, that when it comes to nutrition Personal Trainer says it best when he says nothing at all.

What Personal Trainer actually said when he got Fat Woman's attention after appearing behind her as she sat on the steps outside the gym was: "I don't like those."

Since giving up Diet Coke Fat Woman no longer suffers quite so badly from low blood sugar. This is lucky because Fat Woman's car couldn't take many more dents. However, whilst Fat Woman is able to be hungry for a while there comes a point when she takes on a demeanour not dissimilar to the Hell Hound in this video:



Like the poor maligned beast in this video Fat Woman is a cute and cuddly being most of the time. That time ends when Fat Woman goes past hungry and very hungry into FEED ME NOW! Yes, just like Audrey 2.



Fat Woman tries not to become a snarling, slavering beast but honestly, she had just peeled back the shiny cellophane and hadn't even had a chance to dig her fork into the lovely fresh, crunchy salad and then this whippersnapper starts making oblique comments such as: "I don't like those."

Instead of yelling: "Who the hell cares?" and scooping out a handful of prawns covered in marie rose sauce to shovel into her mouth, Fat Woman hung on to her civility. It was only just, but Fat Woman is quite fond of Personal Trainer and didn't want to slaughter him on the spot, if only because she needs him to turn up at 11.30am on Monday. The civil response Fat Woman came up with was: "You mean you don't like prawns? Or do you mean you don't like me eating prawns?" Fat Woman didn't intend to put a savage emphasis on the last sentence, but quite honestly what can anyone expect when they stop a fat woman from eating a lunch, the very lunch from which they have been keeping her? That Personal Trainer went on to divulge that he disliked such salads because they had mayonnaise in them was a testament to the young man's blinkered certainty that he was (a) right and (b) other people should know this.

Fat Woman saved Personal Trainer from certain death by telling him that she would catch him on the other side of his training session when she wasn't so low in blood sugar that a doctor would make her eat glucose. Fat Woman ate her salad, which had been quite spoilt, and met with Personal Trainer an hour later, when he told her that he wanted her to reduce her carbs from 220g daily to 100g and to replace the calories with fat.

Unfortunately, the damage was done. Personal Trainer had effectively plastered a DANGER - MINES sign over himself. Fat Woman was constantly waiting for him to ask her what she had for breakfast and tell her how she had failed in some way. It made Fat Woman quiet in training sessions, almost to the point of hostility. Fat Woman couldn't help it; she no longer felt safe. This made Fat Woman feel very sad as Personal Trainer had been her rock for nearly six months. Personal Trainer is a sensitive little puppy and picked up on Fat Woman's change in mood, and Fat Woman knew this, but there Fat Woman simply didn't have a handle on her feelings yet. Withdrawn and compliant and not too sarcastic was the best she could manage.

(4) The thyroid issue. Fat Woman is concerned about the impact of eating low carb on her thyroid hormone levels. Fat Woman has read that a low carb diet can increase reverse T3. The end result of this is that she would feel like death but the blood tests available to her wouldn't show any change. Fat Woman isn't going to discuss this with Personal Trainer because she doesn't think he knows about this. Nor is Fat Woman keen to discuss it with her GP as they are such generalists they are unlikely to know about anything other than the eat less move more edicts.

Fat Woman has done a lot of thinking and has decided that Personal Trainer is not allowed to talk about nutrition unless she brings it up or it is at monthly review. Fat Woman now feels a lot better about this and found she has defrosted no end. Taking responsibility for the situation (which she feels is a very adult thing to do, especially when she would much rather someone said ohh! poor baby) Fat Woman texted Personal Trainer the night after training:


I am not really grumpy moody client. I'm just poleaxed because I started training to keep use of my arms, and now I'm sitting back at square one. I'm just scared. I'll get past it by next Monday. Sorry. 

Fat Woman lied in this text. Hurt arms is not the only reason she is upset. It might not be even the major reason, but she didn't want to lose the friendly, positive relationship she had with Personal Trainer. Fat Woman does feel that Personal Trainer is responsible for some of her predicament - he certainly never said "Don't hit anyone too hard, you could damage yourself" - but he obviously does the best he can with what he has. Fat Woman is trying not to project too hard and doesn't need him to acknowledge any culpability.

Personal Trainer didn't mention the text but he did make an effort to seek out Fat Woman, even making time to do in the gym rather than waiting until they crossed paths in the café. Fat Woman knows Personal Trainer well enough to take this as an expression of concern. Fat Woman was more her usual cheerful self after this.

Fat Woman is still on her guard though.

Fat Woman and the wardrobe edit

Fat Woman has always been well dressed. Not necessarily well dressed in a US media designer clothes Sex And The City kind of way, but stylishly, appropriately and sometimes even fashionably. Fat Woman has developed her own style and has appeared well groomed and confident at every occasion. Fat Woman liked the French elegance of the bourgeois with its quality and simplicity. Thus Fat Woman's wardrobe has held twin sets in several colours, cashmere jumpers, classic plain slacks in flattering cuts, cotton long sleeved shirts and jeans for informal occasions. Fat Woman has a separate hot weather wardrobe with lined trousers and light tops and shirts.

Fat Woman now weighs less than 300lb. This is essentially a good thing. Thanks to all the work with Personal Trainer Fat Woman has also dropped at least four dress sizes. This change has presented Fat Woman with a new challenge. Fat Woman had a vague idea that she could continue to wear her current wardrobe until she was stabilised at her target weight. After all, if you are too fat you can't fit into something but if the clothes are too big you can get into them.

Fat Woman was enjoying getting slimmer. Jeans that were previously tight around the thigh now fit perfectly. Unfortunately this meant that the previously fitting waistline became gaping. At the point where she was belting her jeans almost directly under her breasts Fat Woman realised she was starting to look ridiculous and went and bought some jeans that fitted her.

Fat Woman obviously had no idea of just how small her body would get, or what the actual effects of this would be. Being a smaller size means that necklines don't sit in place but instead fall sideways to show bra straps or forwards to show breasts and bra. Trousers with a bunched in waist tied up high have a habit of slipping down. Fat Woman is not averse to showing off flesh, but there is a time and a place and in front of Personal Trainer is definitely not one of them. A rising of t-shirt to show a gap above the waistband might be forgiven in the gym but the flashing of stretch-marked breast in the coffee bar would be simply inappropriate. Fat Woman doesn't want to traumatise the poor boy. Whilst all men have to realise that women age and are generally flawed as a result it is a realisation which should dawn on them slowly, not be thrust upon them during their tender years.

On Saturday Fat Woman edited the contents of her wardrobe. Actually, it was the contents of both her wardrobe, the drawer under the bed and the large pine chest where she kept causal tops and jumpers. The mental jump was that Fat Woman is now a UK 24/26 and all the 30/32 clothes looked ridiculous. As Fat Woman was consistently a size 30/32 for the last 15 years this meant her formerly well-stocked wardrobe was decimated. Fat Woman had been relying on the clothes left over from her five stone weight loss period in 2007. Having located those which had not been thrown out Fat Woman was nonplussed when she found most of these clothes were also too big.

Fat Woman obviously has no idea of the scale of her body at different weights, or how that relates to clothes.

Fat Woman is left with the following:

Trousers
Two pairs of well-fitting jeans, one black, one blue - bought new recently.
Two pairs of not so well fitting jeans.
One pair of black trousers, bought recently.

Tops
One top which fits, bought recently.
One cotton Indian style top left over from the last weight loss.
Two t-shirts, one new, one formerly too small.
Two blouses which were formerly too tight in the arms but which now fit much better.
Four long sleeved and eight short sleeved tops in the 3X size from Lands End. They don't fit but they won't cause flashing either. The short sleeved tops are part of twin sets, but the cardigans are a bit flappy to wear.

Other
One black suit with two tops to go with it.
The skirt suit Fat Woman wore to her graduation.
One ball dress, rescued from the parental home. This was Fat Woman's first ball dress and is still a gorgeous classic cut in red velvet.
One short, light coat from last weight loss period.
One macintosh.
One utterly fabulous black suede jacket

Fat Woman can cope with a limited wardrobe. The big problem is gym clothes. Fat Woman's formerly comfortable, flattering and secure black workout trousers are now belted under her breasts. Whilst Fat Woman thinks this is actually a reasonable measure to ensure there are no gaps twixt waistband and t-shirt, the trousers don't like to stay where she ties them. Fat Woman wears and washes at least one, if not two, sets of gym clothes every day. Fat Woman simply doesn't have enough capacity to be able to edit out her gym clothes. And of course the shops are empty of gym clothes for fat ladies now it it past the January resolution time.

Whilst Fat Woman is keen to stay modest in front of Personal Trainer recent events have shown that Personal Trainer has absolutely no consideration for how Fat Woman looks. On the one hand, it is nice that Personal Trainer and Fat Woman have the kind of relationship where it doesn't matter what Fat Woman looks like. Fat Woman appreciates that Personal Trainer sees her as a person and that her value to him doesn't rest on her appearance. In fact her value rests on the £35 Fat Woman hands over every Monday, but that is as it should be. Personal Trainer did once say Fat Woman was beautiful, but it was in the context of Fat Woman pointing out to him that "We've already established you're the pretty one in this relationship." Personal Trainer said "You're beautiful!" in a very convincing manner, recovering from apparent shock that Fat Woman would say that. Fat Woman gave him one of her looks and replied in her most definite fashion: "I have personality." Fat Woman doesn't need people to tell her she is beautiful, which is lucky because most of her beauty comes from within. Personal Trainer is young and is used to being thought good looking and attractive and much more of his self image rests on how he is perceived, so far as Fat Woman can tell. Fat Woman sometimes asks Personal Trainer if "Polly wants a cracker?" because he is looking at himself in the mirror or saying something which essentially means he is asking "Who's a pretty boy then?"

Even so, on the one day that Fat Woman took time after training to primp extensively and appeared in the café wearing well-fitting clothes, carefully styled hair, flattering make up and even jewellery, it might have been expected that Personal Trainer could bring himself to say "you look nice." After all, the boy serving in the café told Fat Woman she looked nice with such enthusiasm Fat Woman forgave the  unflattering surprise. And the fat personal trainer said the same thing when she arrived two minutes later. Fat Woman had even thought she looked pretty good herself. Personal Trainer did not comment, although Fat Woman saw him noticing that she looked different. As mentioned before, Personal Trainer notices everything. It became apparent that Personal Trainer was not going to throw Fat Woman a bone by making a compliment - "Not going to stoop" was what was actually said. Therefore Fat Woman feels completely justified in going to training sessions looking streelish.

Fat Woman knows that Personal Trainer likes her best all hot and sweaty.

Fat Woman is bullied

Fat Woman had never let Personal Trainer into her nutrition. This was because Fat Woman had been burned too many times by people she had trusted as health professionals (and personal trainers) who had tried to put Fat Woman on a starvation diet. Fat Woman has control of her weight loss (70lb so far) by counting calories and following a balanced, low GI diet with a healthy amount of protein and fat. Fat Woman believes that calorie consumption vs burn is the key to weight loss, once your hormones are in balance. Fat Woman also knows that most people over estimate the amount of calories they burn and under estimate the number of calories they have consumed. Fat Woman is very careful not to do that, and weighs and measures her food, reads labels and makes sure she eats mostly whole food, and works to a calorie allowance that would give her 1lb loss each week if she were sedentary. Fat Woman thought Personal Trainer had accepted that Fat Woman was knowledgeable and in control of her diet.

Fat Woman and Personal Trainer were training when the subject of green tea as a weight loss tool came up. Fat Woman actually brought it up, and kicked herself for ten straight minutes afterwards.  Fat Woman told Personal Trainer that after he mentioned it she had looked into the subject of green tea and had not found any study proving that either the tea or green tea extract helped weight loss. Fat Woman had in fact found several studies proving that green tea wasn't any good for weight loss. Personal Trainer wasn't keen on believing this and cited that all the body builders he knew or read about used green tea. Fat Woman pointed out this was like saying that all fat ladies eat ice-cream, therefore ice-cream is responsible for making ladies fat. Correlation is not the same as causation. Personal Trainer seemed to understand Fat Woman's point. Personal Trainer came up with several other reasons why green tea was good. Fat Woman has noticed that Personal Trainer does this regarding food. Personal Trainer said soya lecithin was a fat burner but after Fat Woman pointed out it wasn't, it was just an emulsifier, he claimed he never said that.

The talk moved on to nutrition, starting with how Buddy thought that the beans on toast Fat Woman ordered the previous day had too many carbs. Personal Trainer was supportive of beans on toast. Then somehow the talk moved on via other trainers noticing how much progress Fat Woman has been making to how Fat Woman doesn't let Personal Trainer in to her nutrition.  Personal Trainer talked about how it was great Fat Woman had dropped all these jeans sizes but he wanted to get "the weight off as well". Fat Woman was a little caught on the hop as she had been showing a consistent fall in weight over the months. Admittedly she hadn't lost much this month but she hadn't followed her eating plan for two of those weeks. Fat Woman had already confessed this.

When Personal Trainer he thought Fat Woman didn't trust him on the subject of nutrition Fat Woman turned to look him in the eye and said she didn't trust him. Personal Trainer doesn't subscribe to the "calories are the baseline" view that Fat Woman does, and he does believe in other things such as low carbing. Fat Woman was kind enough to add that it was about her not a reflection on Personal Trainer himself. This seemed to fire up Personal Trainer, who may well have taken Fat Woman's refusal personally despite all that was said. Fat Woman isn't exactly sure how it happened but she ended up feeling quite beaten down, and was resting her head against the wall in a "please, no more" pose. Given that Personal Trainer is usually very good at body language Fat Woman thinks he was not concentrating on her at this poin t. For the first time ever with Personal Trainer Fat Woman felt bullied. It was as though Personal Trainer had something to prove. The irony was that not an hour earlier Personal Trainer had been telling how good at manipulating women he was. Fat Woman feels that Personal Trainer saying "I care about you" was particularly manipulative, especially as later on that day he refused to tell her that she looked nice when everyone else did, so he obviously didn't care that much about her feelings. For the record, the difference in Fat Woman's appearance was momentous. Fat Woman never usually straightens her hair or wears make up around the gym.

Fat Woman ended up agreeing  to produce a food diary of the next three days for Personal Trainer. Fat Woman went out to lunch with Tiny Friend and because she was worried about what Personal Trainer would think chose such a small meal that she was hungry afterwards. Fat Woman felt unable to eat what she needed to. Fat Woman then felt angry with both herself for giving in and Personal Trainer for pushing at her boundaries.

Fat Woman sat down and wrote to Personal Trainer. Fat Woman cried a bit when writing it but mostly accessed her inner core of steel.

I know it’s hard for you to read long emails, but you’re going to have to work with me on this. I do everything you ask me to, and if you care as much as you say you do then I really need you to understand that this is not about you, as a person or a PT. It’s about me. My life, my health, my boundaries. 


Humans need food to live. Food is a human right. I was denied enough food because people were either ignorant or prejudiced about how much food I realistically needed. In their eyes I was less than human. I learned that the only person who was going to fight for my human rights was me. I will not be ashamed of needing to eat. I will not be ashamed that I need to eat differently from other people, and I will not hand over control of what I eat. I don’t want this to be a power struggle between us, because the power stays with me. It’s what being empowered means.


I said I don’t trust you on this subject, and that is true. I don’t trust that you aren’t going to make the same mistakes or exercise the same prejudices that other people have. I don’t trust that you have the knowledge to produce a diet plan suitable for someone living with Hashimoto’s syndrome (thyroid auto immune disorder) and the complications it brings. I don’t trust that you accept things that are the bedrock of nutritional science. I’d like to be able to trust you, but that won’t happen if you have an agenda and it certainly won’t happen if you aren’t secure in working with someone who has spent a long time learning about her own health.


The biggest mistake that people have made is assigning a daily calorie value that is way too low. Already you’ve started saying: “That sounds like a lot of calories”. It might well sound like a lot of calories to you, but I am the weight I am. It takes me more energy (calories) just to exist. When you dismiss calories it takes away my justification for my right to eat. The methods for calculating how many calories a person needs i.e. their basal metabolic rate are accepted and proven. One pound of fat is 3500 calories. If you don’t accept this and the science behind them then we return to you assigning me an arbitrary value based on your prejudices. 


Say you’ve got this far and you are willing to go with this idea. You can use the calculator at http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ to find how much energy it takes someone to maintain their weight. At my current age and weight I need 2118 calories just to exist. To be out of bed and walking around I need 2542 calories. Doing the 8+ hours of exercise I currently do I’d need 3654 calories to maintain my weight. To lose a pound of weight a week I need a calorie deficit of 500 calories each day. If I was completely sedentary that would be 2042 calories a day. I currently eat 1800 calories – half of what I could eat on my exercise plan and maintain my weight. That’s the rough equivalent of you on less than a thousand calories. There’s not a lot of room left so forgive me if I get a little defensive of my right not to starve. 
The calorie amount I get is recalculated every week when I weigh in. The recommended guidelines are below; sometimes there might be more protein and less fat, depending on what I choose to cook.
Calories 1800
Protein 60g
Carbs 265g
Fat 60g


I feel that I took two weeks off my diet plan (when I didn’t gain, just didn’t lose) and you’re jumping on this as a chance to press your advantage. Of the 20 weeks we’ve been working together I’ve lost 30lb, and three of those weeks I wasn’t dieting. If I didn’t lose for two weeks it’s most likely because I wasn’t controlling my food intake closely enough. If I do a perfect week and still don’t lose weight then it’s probably a hormone issue, not necessarily thyroid. Two perfect weeks and no loss and I’m back to the doctor.


Fat Woman then added the following two paragraphs to move the situation on towards a win-win resolution.


I would welcome your help with making my diet become more supportive of the amount of exercise I am doing. I really need you to accept that I need to eat more calories than you might initially think, and that I need a diet that is high in fibre. I eat low GI carbohydrates because I stay fuller for longer, plus they are high in fibre which also helps will satiety. 


I don’t want this to become a huge sticking point between us. If you can tell me what you want me to do and why I’ll certainly do you the courtesy of listening. I’m open to the idea that you have knowledge that would benefit me. I need you to understand me, and I need you not to see this as a challenge.

Fat Woman read the email back and decided it was too personal, too emotional to send. Instead she sent the following message:


Dear Personal Trainer,


Would you like to (1) agree that the basal metabolic rate calculator (http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/) and the accompanying Harris-Benedict equation is accurate and applicable and that we will work with it? Or would you rather (2) read my long but persuasive email with explanations, reasoned arguments and feelings? It's 850 words, but after writing it I realise that I just want item 1. Give me item 1 and I will feel safe. If you want to discuss it some more, you can have the email.


Fat Woman hasn't yet heard back from Personal Trainer. Fat Woman has descended into an icy cool where she has all the arguments and rejoinders she needs. Fat Woman hates fights, but will fight when she feels trapped. Fat Woman feels righteously angry, and that is when she is most powerful. Fat Woman is trying to bear in mind that Personal Trainer is only young, and that she needs to avoid doing anything to make him lose face amongst his colleagues. Fat Woman is wondering if that is what this is about. Fat Woman did say that "Personal Trainer and I don't talk about nutrition" and this may well have got back to Personal Trainer. Fat Woman doesn't think it is solely about what is best for Fat Woman.

Fat Woman feels a little sad that Personal Trainer is not acting totally in a client-centred way. Fat Woman has made a mental note to introduce Personal Trainer to the concept of being "client centred".

Fat Woman gets chemically buzzed

Fat Woman and Personal Trainer were sitting in the gym café matching diaries. Personal Trainer's colleague and workout buddy joined Fat Woman and Personal Trainer to chat before Buddy and Personal Trainer went to work out. Buddy was drinking a new pre-workout supplement with the scary name of SOUL RIPPER.

Buddy claimed that his potion was effective, giving you a nice tingly feeling, but that it tasted disgusting. Personal Trainer drank some and agreed. Fat Woman smelled it and said it seemed okay. Buddy suggest that Fat Woman taste the mix. Fat Woman took a swig. Fat Woman treated the mix as medicine: she swallowed first and then breathed. Fat Woman told Buddy that it was okay, "a bit like squash".

Buddy offered Fat Woman a month of free PT if she could drink two scoops of SOUL RIPPER. Fat Woman said that for a month of free personal training she would be more than willing. Buddy backed down at high speed, saying that he didn't want to give Fat Woman a heart attack. Fat Woman wasn't unsurprised at the backing down. Fat Woman had thought that the stakes of such an easy bet were too high.

Fat Woman was surprised at how SOUL RIPPER made her feel. Within fifteen minutes Fat Woman had a delicious tingling all over her skin. Fat Woman also had the most tremendous buzz. Fat Woman couldn't understand how one little swig could have such a dramatic physical effect on her.

As Fat Woman consumes no alcohol, nicotine, and hardly any caffeine, sugar or artificial sweeteners a buzz wasn't actually that surprising.

Fat Woman texted Personal Trainer to tell Buddy that she liked his supplement.

An hour after  Fat Woman got home from the gym she was starting to come down. Fat Woman wanted another fix. Fat Woman had never had such an extreme physical reaction to anything and was rather scared by how much she was craving another slug of SOUL RIPPER. Fat Woman did look up SOUL RIPPER on the Internet, but having seen the list of ingredients (caffeine, guarano extract, ginseng as some of the more recognisable names) decided that she had better go cold turkey at once.

Personal Trainer recommended Fat Woman drink green tea for weightloss. Fat Woman said if Personal Trainer could produce a peer reviewed study she would drink as much green tea as he recommended, but that she didn't think it would deliver such a buzz, even if she was coming down. Personal Trainer agreed that come-downs were a bitch. Fat Woman was gobsmacked that Personal Trainer expected a come down and treated it as normal.

Personal Trainer said he was glad Fat Woman hadn't drunk two scoops of SOUL RIPPER. Fat Woman replied that she was choosing to believe that had both Fat Woman and Buddy been quite that stupid, Personal Trainer would have intervened. Fat Woman isn't entirely sure Personal Trainer would have stopped her.

Fat Woman is unimpressed with (a) herself (b) Buddy (c) the health and fitness market. Fat Woman wants to go to be to sleep it all off and will never, ever, ever drink another supplement again.

Fat Woman is thrown on the mat

Fat Woman has been enjoying her boxercise class. This is despite the fact Personal Trainer says his classes are not "Boxercise"(TM) but boxing fitness, or BoxFit for short. Fat Woman thinks it would have to be a pretty damn big box for her to fit in, but she will call it whatever Personal Trainer likes. Fat Woman is now on cheerful first name terms with everyone and is holding her own with the superfit people. Personal Trainer has listened and acted upon every piece of feedback that Fat Woman and Tiny Friend have given him. Tiny Friend is still rather shy of Personal Trainer and like to send her feedback via Fat Woman, but she did actually speak directly to Personal Trainer after the last class.

Fat Woman has always said that she can box but has awful problems with the Fit part of BoxFit. The very first time Fat Woman went to Personal Trainer's BoxFit class she tried to jog on the spot along with everyone else and instantly gave herself a stitch. This was nothing to the pain Fat Woman felt in her knees when she had to get up and down off the mat for each exercise. Personal Trainer noticed that Fat Woman was struggling and gave her an accommodation. Fat Woman's knees are much improved after visits to the osteopath and she doesn't find herself yelling in pain all the time now. This fortunate fact does not change the reality that when it comes to BoxFit mat work Fat Woman is the least fit person there. Fat Woman found that she could not plank, do press ups, sit ups or crunches, let alone mountain climbers. Fat Woman hadn't had a problem with this because she had no idea that planks or mountain climbers existed.

Personal Trainer changed the format of class so that mat work is now all in one lump at the end. Fat Woman is full of heartfelt and pathetic gratitude for this. It is much easier for Fat Woman to get down on a mat and stay there than it is to do sit ups, get up and box, then get down again. Fat Woman feels that because the mat work has changed to accommodate her that she would like to tackle it, as opposed to simply ignoring it and hoping it would go away. Usually Fat Woman  gets an alternative from Personal Trainer. Fat Woman would like to be able to do at least some of the exercises.

Fat Woman has been pushing herself to actually do some mat work. When visiting the osteopath about her dodgy knees issue (patella tendon and some squashed cartilage), Fat Woman enquired about the pain in her lower spine when she lies on the mat. Previously Fat Woman had hurt the part between the sacrum and the lumbar spine by doing lots of breaststroke and was worried that perhaps it was inflamed. The osteopath diagnosed a ham string issue and told Fat Woman to do ham string stretches. This advice left Fat Woman blinking. Fat Woman is not entirely sure how stretching out your foot can cure back pain. However, the osteopath seemed to be right on the money. Lots of ham string stretches later and Fat Woman's back pain is minimal to non-existent.

Fat Woman is still a 300lb+ woman though, and lying on her back causes her some considerable discomfort.   Fat Woman imagined she could feel her spine actually pressing on the mat, which is ridiculous because there is lots of fat between the mat and the spine, not to mention the skin. When Fat Woman added something soft under herself she found she was magically able to do sit-ups! There were only five sit-ups, and two days later Fat Woman's abs felt like she had given birth, but they were definitely sit-ups.

Encouraged by the new-found sit-up ability Fat Woman hit the mat during one of her gym sessions. It just so happened that Personal Trainer was working out at the same time. Unusually, Personal Trainer was not in the Big Boy's corner lifting 140kg and squatting 170kg (or possibly the other way around) but was hanging around at the other end of the gym making use of the TRX. Fat Woman was hiding behind the barbell rack, but the TRX is at 90 degrees to the mat area and Fat Woman had NOWHERE TO HIDE. Fat Woman cut her mat work short and went and did some stationary cycling instead, but she was fairly sure that Personal  Trainer had spotted her. Fat Woman had this confirmed the following day when Personal Trainer introduced bridge holds into her training. Fat Woman is very good at bridge holds, having done them for more than a year in order to help with her back injury. Personal Trainer enquired about Fat Woman's mat work and Fat Woman had to admit that she could plank for a grand total of 10 seconds, and that she could do five sit-ups.

Personal Trainer repaid Fat Woman's candour by introducing her to table tops and crunches. Fat Woman was not at all grateful.

Fat Woman can do table tops if she has a cushion under her coccyx. The same goes for crunches. Fat Woman has to actually bring a cushion into the gym, but Fat Woman is a 300lb woman and needs some accommodation, dammit. Fat Woman has also found that using two mats instead of one is beneficial.

Fat Woman found some excellent online resources and went back to the mats armed with a set of exercises to do. The list comprised:
Superman
Sit-ups
Crunches
Dorsal Raises
Ham string curls
Lunges
Bridge holds
Planks - front and side
Press ups
Mountain climbers.

Fat Woman did all the exercises with the exception of the mountain climbers. In her little blue exercise notebook Fat Woman actually wrote "fuck this!" under the mountain climber heading. Fat Woman even annotated it with the date.

Doing all this mat work left Fat Woman vaguely aching the following day. Much encouraged Fat Woman went cheerfully off to BoxFit, where Personal Trainer gave the class a set which started with a mountain climbers, went on to a table top hold, moved through rotating legs in the air and then turned into crunches.

Fat Woman considers her enthusiasm for mat work to be well and truly squashed.

Fat Woman meets the fat personal trainer

Fat Woman was chatting with Personal Trainer during a session. Actually, Personal Trainer was chatting and Fat Woman was grunting out responses between sets. Personal Trainer told Fat Woman that there was a new personal trainer starting at the gym today. Personal Trainer is never entirely happy when someone arrives or leaves because he isn't fond of change. Fat Woman looked for the blonde woman Personal Trainer was pointing out but couldn't actually see whom he meant from her prone position on a bench with a 5kg weight blocking her view. Fat Woman did tease Personal Trainer about how blondes were his kryptonite, but he shook his head very firmly and stated that the new lady wasn't his type.

When Fat Woman saw the new personal trainer she understood exactly what Personal Trainer meant. Personal Trainer goes out with tiny, slim women. Fat Woman doesn't think Personal Trainer has a Napoleon complex but understands that as he is slightly below average height for a man he has more success with shorter women. Personal Trainer is very pretty and seems to be attractive enough to young women that he has the luxury of pick and choosing on superficial grounds. Fat Woman thinks Personal Trainer is smart enough to understand that superficial qualities do not make for a great long term relationship, but she isn't entirely confident that he won't fall hard for yet another game-playing future Real Housewife. Personal Trainer was very cut up when he broke it off with his first "proper" i.e. official girlfriend. Fat Woman had been waiting for it to happen since he called his girlfriend "high maintenance". Personal Trainer likes a challenge but also finds the quality of the challenge important.

Fat Woman is old and happily married and enjoys the vicarious excitement of the love lives of others. Fat Woman would like to stress that she is not like certain other clients of Personal Trainer who are slightly too interested in his life and give the impression that they are more than a little bit in love with him. Fat Woman is simply nosy.

The new personal trainer was definitely not tiny and slim. As well as being at least 5'6" the new personal trainer was carrying what looked like a lot of excess weight. Fat Woman has considered naming the new personal trainer Safe From Personal Trainer Personal Trainer, but that would be a little recursive. Fat Woman estimates that the new personal trainer is carrying at least 20 excess pounds. The new personal trainer looked fat. Fat Woman doesn't normally use the word "fat" to describe someone as it is a term used as an absolute when actually a relative term. In this situation Fat Woman is going to fall back on the term to describe someone with a slim frame who has fat sitting on top, wobbling in the way of the worst fat person cliché. Fat Woman's fat is very much a part of her - after all, she has had it all her life - and Fat Woman has it well tamed with suitable clothes and flattering styles. The new personal trainer did not give the impression she was comfortable with or even used to her fat. Fat Woman understood why Personal Trainer had muttered that "you are your own advert".

Fat Woman thought there was something rather intolerant in Personal Trainer's attitude. Fat Woman believes in Health At Every Size. Fat Woman doesn't think that a fat personal trainer is necessarily a bad personal trainer. Fat Woman suspects that Personal Trainer thinks there should be some kind of weight or BMI assessment before anyone is allowed to be a personal trainer. Fat Woman thinks that Personal Trainer would realise how ridiculous this thought is if he would look at the individual assessment criteria. After all, anyone who is super fit and muscley will have a weight or a BMI considered unhealthy by UK Government guidelines. Fat Woman thinks that Personal Trainer has a wee bit of prejudice about these things and his assessment would be a quick views as to "you look fat/you don't look fat". Fat Woman admits to carrying some of her own clichéd expectations as to what a personal trainer should look like, but hopes that now these have been exposed they will change. In short, Fat Woman was gobsmacked that there would be such a fat personal trainer, and now feels terrible that she was guilty of fat prejudice. Internalised fat prejudice is a problem that Fat Woman thought other people had, but Fat Woman has to face up to the facts that she is as vulnerable as anyone.

Fat Woman introduced herself to the new personal trainer that same day. Fat Woman found out that the new personal trainer was a professional dancer who suffered a knee injury and then put on lots of weight. Fat Woman is slightly smug because she told Personal Trainer that this is probably what happened, and would therefore like to claim points as being the more generous and tolerant of the two of them. The new personal trainer is newly qualified, which makes Fat Woman wonder if the new personal trainer has taken up a career in personal training as a dieting tactic.

Fat Woman thinks there is no harm in being friendly to the new personal trainer. Fat Woman liked friends at the gym. Fat Woman thinks the atmosphere amongst the personal trainers is rather like a High School movie. Currently all the good looking popular kids are slightly revolted by the overweight new girl. Fat Woman hopes the new girl will emerge as a heroine and put two fingers up to all the prejudices.

Fat Woman wonders if the new personal trainer would like a training buddy. Fat Woman trains quite hard, but would like a friend to meet up with and do things such as padwork. Fat Woman is chary of suggesting it though in case the new personal trainer is also a bit fat prejudiced and wouldn't want to work with a fat woman.

Fat Woman is teacher's pet

Fat Woman is now training with Personal Trainer twice a week. On Friday Personal Trainer announced that he was going to teach Fat Woman a boxing combination and that she would demonstrate it to the rest of the boxercise class that evening. Fat Woman is slightly clueless at times so didn't think much about this. The only thing that occurred to Fat Woman was that Personal Trainer was being very nice to her by giving her a chance to practice the combo. Fat Woman doesn't like words like "combo" and "crimbo" but due to repeated use by Personal Trainer the word "combo" has crept into her lingo. Fat Woman also remembers "combinations" being some kind of underwear in Victorian times so doesn't like to make too much of a stand on this.

It was a counter-intuitive combination that took Fat Woman a couple of minutes to get. It went:

• Two left jabs
• Block the tap by Pad Man on the left arm
• A single right jab
• Block the tap by Pad Man on the right arm
• Right-left-right jabs
• Duck the Pad man's blow to the head
• Single right jab

Fat Woman encourages you to try this combination. Combinations are much easier if they are in even numbers or can be split into equal timings e.g. 1-2, 1-2, 1-2 or 1-2-3, 1-2-3. This is 1-2, 1, 1, 1, 1-2-3, 1, 1 and not even on a left then right split.

Fat Woman trotted blithely along to Boxercise that night feeling cheerful and confident that she would not disgrace herself or Personal Trainer if she was called upon to take part in a demonstration. Fat Woman knows Personal Trainer well enough now to be quite fast at pad work. If Fat Woman doesn't hit too hard she can go fast enough to be impressive. Fat Woman was confident she had the combination down so when  Personal Trainer called upon Fat Woman, saying:  "Fattie, get up here" halfway through Boxercise class Fat Woman was clueless and cheerful enough to respond with a cheerful "Woof!" as though she was a dog responding to a whistle.

Fat Woman did not expect what was reported to her by Tiny Friend as a "definite ripple" from the other class attendees, who were mentioned in http://fatwomanfit.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/fat-woman-meets-fit-kids.html. Fat Woman liked hearing about this after the fact and enjoyed imagining the surprise of the Fit People who were wondering "Why her? Why not me?"

Fat Woman stood with Personal Trainer, went through the combo slowly, then punched it out twice more in quick succession. Personal Trainer told everyone to work in pairs, then he and Fat Woman demonstrated the combination half a dozen more times. Nearly everyone else was having trouble with getting the combination.

After last Boxercise Fat Woman had admitted to Personal Trainer that she had come across a little bit of fat prejudice. Fat Woman had said that usually such people revise their initial opinion of her as lazy and stupid in under two minutes i.e. once they hear her speak but there was no way for her to show that in a gym environment. Fat Woman had shrugged this off after the initial annoyance and a lengthy blog post. Personal Trainer obviously hadn't forgotten it. After showing off the combination and a short rest Personal Trainer set Fat Woman to work with the young lady whom had made the erroneous assumptions about Fat Woman in the previous session. The difference in the body language and the demeanour of the young lady was incredible. Instead of being cocky and assuming she was in charge the young lady was instead the textbook illustration of "submissive". Fat Woman was very gracious when the young lady volunteered that she wasn't as fast as Personal Trainer and did not hit overly fast or hard.

Fat Woman is so very impressed with the cleverness of Personal Trainer. Fat Woman thinks Personal Trainer is a political genius and has made him both chocolate covered vanilla protein fudge and choc-mint-strawberry protein cake in celebration of this.

Fat Woman goes to Stitch 'n' Bitch

Fat Woman does actually have real world friends. Fat Woman may spend all her time talking about Personal Trainer and Swimming Coach but Fat Woman actually knows some other people. Fat Woman does enjoy spending time with people she doesn't pay by the hour.

Fat Woman got together with Tiny Friend and Keen Friend to do some garden training. By that Fat Woman means training in the garden, not training of the garden. Fat Woman would like a well trained garden where the plants know their place but actually has a garden that is beaten into submission once every two weeks. Fat Woman has not really exercised with friends before, but thought it would be fun to do something with the girls. When Keen Friend wanted to join in with Fat Woman and Tiny Friend's boxing workout Fat Woman didn't think to say "no". Fat Woman is part of a "Stitch 'n' Bitch" group with Keen Friend and Tiny Friend. A stitch 'n' bitch group is when you get together to do handicrafts and talk.

Fat Woman came up with an ingenious solution to the problem of three people wanting to box. A would do a set of exercises whilst B boxed and C did the pads. Then A would Box, B would pad and C would exercise. Then C would box, A would pad and B would exercise. The agreement was 15 reps of the following exercises:

Squats
Kettlebell swings
Press ups or tricep dips
Vertical row
KB deadlift
Step ups

Fat Woman did not break a sweat. Tiny Friend and Keen Friend begged to stop after twenty five minutes. Fat Woman was up for continuing for at least twice as long.

Fat Woman is very glad that for once she is not the unfit person giving up first. Fat Woman likes the powerful feeling that no quitting gives her. Fat Woman likes being top of the pile, queen of the castle, the best, the strongest.

Fat Woman would like to keep this feeling up for a little longer so she has refused the invitation to a morning run.