Week 8 Weight: 13st 10.5lbs (87.3kg) Total weight loss: 21lbs

WHEN personal trainer Ronny Terry said he wanted me to try out pilates, I must admit I wasn’t enamoured.

I know pilates is really good for you and helps work your core and other muscle groups, but my grandmother does pilates. And yes she loves it, and it’s helped her to get really fit, but she’s still my grandmother.

And then I went to Espirit Pilates in Old Town and my eyes were opened. Apparently, you can work your entire body to the point that climbing into a car is difficult – without breaking much of a sweat.

Fiona Woodruffe, who owns Espirit, allowed me to drop in on one of her hour-long classes on the reformer. A reformer is a machine featuring a platform on a runner which uses a number of adjustable springs to provide resistance and comes complete with a foot bar to push away from and straps to pull on.

It’s a tool which helps to strengthen the muscles of the feet, arms and legs, back and torso, and helps improve overall strength and posture.

We started off on our backs, working many of the muscle groups on our legs down to my Achilles tendons.

Then was the arms, using the straps to work shoulders, biceps, triceps, and that’s before we got onto the complicated stuff, legs in the air, stretchy, straddled legs kind of stuff. It was when we went to the standing up bit that I really began to learn the meaning of balance.

By the time the hour was up, I knew I was going to be hurting the next day.

 

  • For more on Liz’s weight loss journey, follow her blog atwww.podge2 plunge.wordpress.com. For more information about Ronny, visit his website at www.switchfituk.co.uk.