For those of you that don’t know, Brawny and I met on the set of an independent film that he had written, starred in and directed, nearly seven years ago. The film was called Norwich and Saggers.
We were visiting our friends Chris and Laura (our Usher and Bridesmaid, respectively) last weekend and somehow we got to talking about Norwich and Saggers. The DVD was found and we began to watch. Small talk ensued:
“You were barely in the film,” said Brawny to me.
Chris and Laura looked at me. “You were in this film?!”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was the Receptionist.”
And sure enough, about twenty minutes in a girl who looked like she might have once been me appeared on screen. “You look really different!” said Chris.
As we tried to figure out if I’d ever been roofied and had my face stolen a la Face/Off, a full-body shot of my past self came on the screen. “That’s it!” I cried. “The reason I look different there is because I’m now about four stone heavier!”
No sooner had I said it, my heart sank. But it was true: seven years ago I’d been a student who had been visiting the College gym weekly as well as practicing Karate. On screen I was the thinnest and fittest I had ever been: in front of the screen, I was the biggest.
Since we’re not only leading up to my wedding but also to my best friend Liz’s wedding, I decided enough was enough: I was going to slim down. I've had enough of looking back at my photos and going "Er. Wow. Ouch."
I’m a fairly sensible eater: I don’t eat takeaway every week (we can’t afford it for a start), I don’t eat chocolate and cake every day and there are no such thing as microwave meals in our house. My only problem is quantity. A short while back, I tried Weight Watchers and found it worked well for me, and so I decided to give it another go.
But eating well isn’t the only way to get trim. I need to do a bit of exercise daily to keep my weight loss on the boost.
Brawny and I sat down to discuss our action plan. Although we live near a lot of beaches and parks, our primary method of transport is a motorbike and it’s a little difficult to keep good humour when you have to lug around 12lbs of leather jacket and a 5lb bike helmet each. Going shopping in bike gear is bad enough. So we decided that we’d try and do a walk once a week, and supplement it with other exercise.
The other day I was tidying the lounge and went to put a DVD away. As I slotted it into place I noticed a DVD with a bright pink spine bearing the phrase “PUMP IT UP!!!!!” It could only be an exercise DVD. Maybe I aught to give these another try.
So I hit the ‘net to find a few good exercise videos, and shortly found out that typing “I want to lose weight by sitting on my ass for six months” into Google is not going to get you any results (or at least any coherent ones). My three rules were as follows:
1. No Davina McCall I'm sorry, I hate her
2. Read the reviews first
3. Nothing too advanced
After ruling out several, I found ten workouts that I thought I might try out. And because I’m so nice (and willing to humiliate myself for ol’ Uncle Internet), I’ll be reviewing them just for you.
I'll start my reviews in a fresh post, so to finish up now I’d like to share with you a few things I found while I was looking for a fitness vid, which fall under the subtitle ‘Is This Really a Thing?’ So go ahead and enjoy, and remember kiddies: laughing burns calories!
- This is a parody. I hope. Oh God, the bulging...
- “The Lion”. I think this is more ‘Exorcise’ than ‘Exercise’. In fact, here she is again. Please don’t try this at home. You'll hyperventilate and die, or unleash Cthulu.
- A lovely Japanese girl gets an attack of the squits in a British park. How does she remember what to tell the pleasant, concerned stranger? Through aerobics of course! There’s also how to placate a mugger, how enjoy the lovely golfing weather, and describing how touched you were by a film.
- And of course, there's Mock the Week.
^ YouTube.com user: kenny706, accessed 20/1/12
^ YouTube.com user: EmmyLuvsU08, accessed 20/1/12
^ YouTube.com user: tigertje67, accessed 20/1/12
^ YouTube.com user: mathilda2046, accessed 20/1/12
^ YouTube.com user: memeregime, accessed 20/1/12
^ YouTube.com user: satisfyinglife, (2vids) accessed 20/1/12
^ YouTube.com user: BBC, accessed 20/1/12
^ YouTube.com user: BBC, accessed 20/1/12
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