Viserys to Drogo in Seven Months

            So one of my friends has actually taken me up on the offer of being an amateur PT. We were talking about May Comicon (because we're massive geeks) and he said he wanted to go as Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones. I commented that he'd have to hit the gym a bit first as be looks more like Viserys Targaryen. Affronted, my friend asked what was wrong with Viserys. Anyone who is familiar with the series will know there's a whole list of things wrong with Viserys, but I put it to him like this;

           "Either you can be Khal Drogo who was feared and respected across the Dothraki nation, or you can be Viserys Targaryen who played with his sister's nipples."

            He came to the gym today. He's also agreed to attend regularly. I feel my powers of persuasion were faultless. Drogo has his flaws but no one wants to be Viserys. He now has seven months to achieve his goal.

           

            Session one went well for him and I had a lighter session - today not being a normal gym day, so I mainly focused on weights and muscle work after a twenty minute warm up with cardio. He pushed himself too far to begin with - my constant haranguing and drill-sergeant style motivation technique probably not helping - but he found a happy medium. We also had a bit of a chat about our work out plans and philosophies while he, another friend who came along and I had a stretch out session which demonstrated how amazingly inflexible my body is. It felt good to hear his concerns about starting to visit a gym regularly as I had them when I began, and I still have some now - some may never go. Like my constant desire to look as good as the CG enhanced super heroes in films now. However, I think the chat reassured him.

            I also did five whole pull ups. This probably demonstrates how poor my fitness was/still is to some extent. To those of you who exercise regularly and have done for years I appreciate five pull ups sounds like nothing. Considering I weighed 18.5 stone eight months ago and have only been visiting the gym for the last three months, I think this is a huge success. I haven't been able to do any pull ups in years and it felt great. GREAT. I'm going to be aiming to do a set of fifteen in sessions by Christmas.

            I've noticed that I can do a lot more now than I used to - both cardio and weights - the session I did today would have been a push three months ago but was comfortably manageable today. I'm also flat when I lie down on my back rather than having a small hill that would require contour lines on a map where my stomach was. I haven't quite lost the belly but it's nearly there - Gregory is nearly dead. My brother is both impressed and distraught at this news. I am, as of today, 14st 3lbs - 199lbs! Under two hundred and only seventeen left to go! The goal having been shifting to 13st or 182lbs has not made me less optimistic; if anything I am more so. I have even started thinking (dangerously) that the goal may not in fact be enough and I could go lower. According to wikianswers (professional sourcing right there) the average weight for a man my height and age is 158-172lbs, which is 11-12st. However, the answer made it clear that this was going to be 'inaccurate or unrepresentative of personal workout regimes'. So should my goal in fact be 172lbs? I will have to think on this. For now, I'm keeping it at 182.

            Last week when I tried to do pull ups I could only manage one - this week I have quintupled that. Three months ago I could barely row a kilometer in eight minutes - I'm now doing 2k in ten minutes. My improvement on the treadmill and crosstrainer is such that I wouldn't have believed I could manage it. I have to again thank everyone who has been encouraging and supportive of my weight loss drive but I cannot ignore the fact that I had to find this motivation from within. You won't lose weight if you don't want to - just like you don't achieve things if you don't really want them. We make time, put in effort and find money for things we really want; this is a key life philosophy of mine. Another my friends are familiar with is Don't Ask, Don't Get - if you don't ask for something, you won't get it. I've been asking ymself "Can I lose this weight?", "Can I do one more set?" and "Can I do this faster?" for eight months and I have got all of those things by demanding them of myself constantly. However, it wasn't until today when I was trying to convince my friend to come to the gym that I really summed out my workout philosophy: "Everyday you're not Drogo, you're Viserys."