A friend of mine is a qualified and practising pilates teacher, she is strong and beautiful, however when I saw her a couple of months ago she was looking toned and glowing. I asked her what she’d been up to and she explained that she had started training with a fitness coach, Luke Evans.
She said that training was really hard and there had been occasions when she’d rang Luke and said that she couldn’t do it anymore. Luke’s response was “That’s ok but tell me what the alternative is. If you don’t do this what are you going to do?”
My friend said that Luke’s response jolted her to her senses.
Driving home that night I thought about what she’d said. I knew that I had reached a point where I had to do something about my weight and for me the alternative to getting fit and “losing body fat” was to stay the same and probably get fatter. The dreaded 50 was 2 years away and I really, really didn’t want to be fat and 50.
I did some research about Luke. I wanted to know what made him different from the waves of “personal trainers” who lurk in the corners of gyms looking for people on whom to inflict a standardised exercise programme.
After completing a BSc in Sport Science at Cardiff University (and I can say with some confidence that the very best people were undergrads at Cardiff) Luke became a sports therapist with a professional football team. A passion for bio-mechanics lead him to work with golfers and from there he became a personal trainer. He had been a personal trainer for 10 years’ and I unearthed a couple of newspaper articles about people he has helped. One lady lost 13 stone and there was a photo of Luke running with her as she completed a 10k.
I was encouraged that he had a background in sports therapy and bio-mechanics. It gave me some hope that he would understand that I have dodgy bits – my hip pain and grumbly shoulder not to mention the self-inflicted housemaid’s knee (from the most recent fitness app I embarked upon). The last thing I needed was a muscle bound, inexperienced youth who was going to push me too hard and then tell me I wasn’t getting the results because of my age, hormones and menopausal tendencies.
I met Luke at his studio on a grey Monday evening. From the second we met I knew that he was someone that I would enjoy working with. He had a gentle smile, an infectious laugh and we shared a love of trainers. It was impossible not to like him.
It was clear that he was a very experienced professional fitness coach and about as far from being a typical PT as anyone could be. He listened to my goals and gained my trust and confidence. We managed three studio sessions before lockdown put a stop to it.
During those three weeks I was slowly phasing myself in, I was sore after each session and I hadn’t started to really focus on the end goal.
The first week of lockdown was a nightmare of endless business planning and long hours. I had a call with Luke to discuss how we were going to proceed. We came up with a plan for training a couple of times a week via facetime. We agreed that I would cobble together the various bits of gym equipment that were lurking in the garage and send him a photo of it, and that I would email him a food diary every day.
I also gave Luke my word that I would do everything he told me to do to the best of my ability and that I would put 100% effort into training.
Putting together a home gym was a bit of a nightmare but I found some dumbbells from the 1990s, a weights bench and I dusted off the exercise bike that had been moonlighting as a washing airer in the spare room. I also commandeered my daughter’s barbell with a compelling speech along the lines of “ask not what your mother can do for you, but what you can do for your mother”.
I was determined that I was going to emerge from lockdown like a little butterfly emerging from a chrysalis.
And, on Saturday 28th March, I started in earnest.