Friday 31 January 2014

Personal Trainers: A Lesson For The Gullible!

Happy Friday beautiful people!

So as I mentioned in my last post, one of my New Years Resolutions is to keep up going to the gym three times a week, alongside a healthier diet (standard). So far I have kept up the gym, but not done so well on the latter resolution…it’s a work in progress!

I recently swapped gyms to one nearer my work, and I won’t mention which one it is, but my experience there yesterday left me with a strong urge to voice my opinion on a very popular fitness issue; personal training, more specifically, personal trainers.

I left work yesterday evening, feeling fairly tired but optimistic about my complementary personal training session to come. Little did I know that an hour later, I’d be leaving the gym in floods of tears and £140 less off!

It began with a quick introduction with Mr Personal Trainer. His charm (and muscles) were endearing and we discussed trivial matters; when / why I joined, what exercise I do, my previous gym. However, the session took a turn for the worst when I was told to stand on what looked like a high tech set of scales. The seemingly harmless little machine was incredibly deceiving. It’d certainly give Aladdin’s magic carpet a run for its money I’m telling ya, as just from standing on it and entering my height, it calculated my weight and supposed body fat percentage.

Body . Fat . Percentage . 

These words will now haunt me for life. I was told my BFP (or more fitting, Big Fucking Pain) fell in the 'overweight' bracket. Now I'm no Einstein, but I have a mirror, and I'm pretty sure I'm no Gemma Collins. Despite this, an overwhelming sense of panic took over and a whirlwind of questions span around my head.

Am I fat? What if I keep getting bigger? Obesity? Health problems?

I NEED HELP!!!?!?

This fear was heightened when I was then talked through a variety of exercise positions...and I failed half of them. What??? I always thought I could squat! I've been doing squat exercises at home in the mirror for a year?!! I didn't know you needed a personal trainer to teach you how to squat...

Far from an encouraging, positive and motivational meeting, the poor guy was left with one emotional wreck staring him in the face hoping for some words of reassurance. I say poor, but he had won me over in his attempt to sell himself as a trainer. I handed over £140 there and then, cash in hand, in return for five half an hour sessions where he promised to "teach me how to do these positions properly" so that I'd be able to do them myself.

After speaking to my friends and family, I've realised that I shouldn't be so gullible. I did some research and it turns out that  the 'healthy' range of Body Fat Percentage for 20-40 year old women is 21-33%, of which mine falls into. For women of the same age bracket, those who fall in the region of 33-39% are considered 'overweight', and those who carry over 39% fat are in the 'obese' category. As far as I can tell, this is the most authoritative, as it is based on World Health Organization and National Institutes of Health recommendations, and takes age into account. Still not convinced, I also did an online test which calculated my BFP from my height, weight and waistline in inches, and it was considerably lower than the result the magic machine at the gym had given.

As my dad rightly pointed out, if Mr Personal Trainer had sat there telling me that my fitness routine was perfect, that my body was really healthy, and that there was nothing that needed changing...then he wouldn't be doing his job, and more importantly, he wouldn't have a job. No customers = no money = out of business. Being surrounded by sales people at work 24/7, I should really have picked up on this whilst I sat there with tears dripping down my face...but hey ho.

Thankfully, there's no real harm done. I called up Mr Personal Trainer and got my money back today. However, it does leave me worrying that other, more impressionable young women are being fed false facts, shit sales chat and are left feeling insecure and helpless. Please don't get me wrong...I don't mean to generalise about all personal trainers, as I know some are lovely, truthful and far from pushy (my friend Jayne is a personal trainer). I also must say that I don't entirely blame Mr PT...after all, a man's gotta pay the bills somehow! 

Upon reflection, I've realised my spontaneous and reckless tendencies don't always work in my favour! Also, having had time to think about it, I believe it's true that some 'overweight' people who exercise can be healthier than their leaner non-exercising counterparts. It's all about a combination of how you feel , what the mirror tells you and whether you lead a healthy / active lifestyle....not what some silly digits on a machine say. So on that note, I will be having that Domino's come Sunday when I'm hanging like a motherfucking sloth. 

Lesson of the Day:

Don't always believe everything you hear! (especially if the lesson comes from a bald man from Stoke-Upon-Trent).

Be healthy, be happy, have fun.

xoxo

Thursday 23 January 2014

New Video: My New Years Resolutions 2014

Hey hey hey!

It’s that time of the month again…and no I’m not talking about the one which causes an emotional roller coaster more turbulent than Thorpe Park’s Stealth (I still don’t understand why us women are put through it just as much as I don’t understand people’s enjoyment of upside down roller coasters).

After several requests from my lovely bunch of friends, I thought it was about time I filmed another video…whether they want to laugh at me or with me, I haven’t quite figured out yet, but either way, it would be rude to ignore demands such as “Please do more…you’re actually insane” (thanks Gabster) and “I love it so much…I can watch them on repeat and not get bored” (thanks Katy).

The way I see it, January is renowned for two things:

1) January blues; the depressive, melancholy state we often find ourselves in after the Christmas holidays are over.  Phrases such as “I’ve got so fat over Christmas I resemble a pregnant Rhino” and “I’d rather eat my own toe than go back to work” are commonplace.

2) New Years Resolutions; The New Year is often a time for self reflection, and the whole new year, fresh start palaver leads many to try and reinvent themselves for the better.

…and this is exactly what my video entails.

New Years Resolutions often revolve around the following; health, money, social life / hobbies, relationships, work, friends / family, physical environment and personal growth. I didn’t want to over-do it and risk failing every single one, so I picked 6 and rambled about them in a video.

So in my attempt to recreate a Super-Nish, here are my New Years Resolutions for 2014…







xoxo 

Saturday 18 January 2014

A Review of Tinder: Is Romance Dead?

Helloooooo people!

So here we are. 2014. 

I have officially eaten enough food to feed the five thousand, drank enough booze to make George Best look teetotal, and am one step closer to a heart attack since my last post! Thanks a lot Christmas (although it was totally worth it). 

One of my New Years Resolutions was to blog once a week. Well that failed as we've already hit the third week of January and this is my first post of 2014...oh time fliiies. But now I'm back baby!

2014 has, as I'm sure it has many of you, led me to question things in my life / look at things in a new light. Job, living situation, appearance, friends...relationships. 

Particularly the dreaded r-word. 

In 2013, one by one my friends slowly started getting boyfriends. Now I've been single for approaching two and a half years now, and I've actually been really happy. Don't get me wrong, relationships are great too (I do not say this from personal experience...my ex and I created our very own World War III in the three and a half years we were together...oh young love). But as more and more of my friends began their very own love story, I began questioning... 

Why is it I'm being left behind when some friends have had more boyfriends than Taylor Swift?
How many frogs do I have to kiss before finding my Prince? 
Where and when will "the one" appear?

And I feel almost more guilty for not having a boyfriend with the emergence of apps like tinder. I remember a day when internet dating was solely associated with desperate, socially recluse weirdos searching for a chance of happiness with some other poor, equally strange / desperate being. It was also associated with the older generation. Young people and internet dating were rarely used in the same sentence. And here we are, in 2014, with this new dating app which has become so popular it makes Facebook look pedestrian.

 So how have we got here? What happened to the good old fashioned world of dating where a man wooed a woman face to face...where people actually met first and exchanged numbers after?

I felt even worse about my current relationship status when I heard stories of friends of friends and their experiences on Tinder. One described having the "best date of [her] life" while another has been wined and dined simultaneously by three guys she got talking to on it. So I thought I'd give the app a go...

...139 matches and two months later, I had some pretty odd proposals...

"I'll be Burger King and you be McDonalds, I'll be having it my way and you'll be loving it" 
"Ahhh so annoying, really wanna blowey. I'm so fed up with my five finger shuffle"
"My mate who I'm sitting next to told me to like you on his behalf"
"Sit on my face and I'll eat my way to your heart"

Charming! 

I also learnt that people aren't always who they say they are...(as much as I did love this one)! 


...and I made a few discoveries...

1) I only used it when I was bored as a form of entertainment,
2) I found myself thinking 'When the hell did I like you...I must've been either half asleep or drunk?!' over and over again,
3) I could never be bothered to actually talk to any 'matches', even if they were Ryan Gosling lookalikes. 

The fact of the matter is...I had no clue who these people were. And no desire to get to know them. 

The pure existence of the app itself also made me realise that life isn't a fairytale, but if it was, I certainly wouldn't be meeting my Prince Charming on Tinder....nor would I want to.

It's superficial. A persons appearance is the one and only definitive factor which determines the users choice of whether they swipe left or right. Surely there's more to a person than their looks...after all, Belle certainly didn't choose to be with The Beast for his dashing smile and muscular physique!

So after pondering all of this, I have decided that I am still happy as larry being single, and my search for the one has officially come to a halt this year. I have also decided that when he does eventually turn up at my door with his witty charm, Irish accent and a bunch of roses, it'll all be down to fate, not a million dollar dating app which, in my opinion, is more of a social platform for casual sex than anything else. 

Next week I'll be uploading another YouTube video on New Years Resolutions so stay tuned :) 

xoxo