Boot camp is finally over. The final loss was 22 pounds (less than half of what I was hoping for, but at least it's over). The name of the place (just so no one is ever foolish enough to go waste their money there) is Camp Technique, and the idiot owner goes by the name of Eric Viskovicz. I am told that he's also planning to market the food nationwide. Unless you think pet food is tasty, don't bother. You've been warned.
Oh, and my last boot camp story. One of the gross new campers whipped it out and asked one of the masseuses for a "happy ending" on Monday. I would consider that immediate grounds for kicking him out of the program, but considering the company is too cheap to give refunds, I guess sexually harassing the masseuses is A-OK.
Good news: I finished my fellowship application this morning (I was terrified that I'd leave before I got it done). Now all that's left is packing and some last minute shopping. My next update will be coming from Addis Ababa!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
One More Day of Boot Camp
No more whining about sore joints and crazy people. In less than a week, I will be all about my travels. Okay, maybe there will be a little complaining about the whole camping thing, but I'll mostly be in awe of all the amazing places I'll be going and things I'll be seeing.
Saturday morning beach boot camp was mostly okay, with the exception of the army crawling (on your stomach, pushing yourself with your elbows and knees, incredibly unfun). Saturday circuit was nice: mellow, kind of hard, but not too bad. Sunday circuit was a total joke: no one came except me, and the circuit the new trainer prepared was so lame that I just had to do my own. I'm glad I went, though, because now I feel virtuous and can judge my fellow campers. Just kidding. Maybe.
Saturday morning beach boot camp was mostly okay, with the exception of the army crawling (on your stomach, pushing yourself with your elbows and knees, incredibly unfun). Saturday circuit was nice: mellow, kind of hard, but not too bad. Sunday circuit was a total joke: no one came except me, and the circuit the new trainer prepared was so lame that I just had to do my own. I'm glad I went, though, because now I feel virtuous and can judge my fellow campers. Just kidding. Maybe.
Friday, December 12, 2008
BC 37-40: In Which I Become Increasingly Annoyed with Boot Camp
Let me just say once again for the record that after this week's weigh-in, I am completely over boot camp and incredibly happy that I have only 3 days left here.
Fitness: biggest accomplishment of the week was finally doing the hike, and kicking the asses of the two younger girls (21 and 23) who I was hiking with. From what I hear, the incline is significantly steeper than the mountain trekking I'll be doing in Ethiopia, so I'm feeling like I'm all set. Unfortunately, I twisted my ankle and was stuck limping around and doing the recumbent bike most of the day after the hike.
More news: we changed from the Santa Monica pool to a pool in Culver City, which isn't heated. Unheated pools are no fun in December, even in LA. The other down side: much deeper pool with longer lanes (and far fewer), meaning crowding and fear of death by drowning. Fortunately, Thursday was my last day at the pool.
Interesting development on the trainer lay-offs: I had no idea why they fired a good trainer the same week they hired a new (not so good) one, but recently, all has become clear. Apparently, the genius-y owner of my boot camp is in the process of expanding his fitness empire and was looking for an attractive woman willing to appear in fitness videos. The female trainers on staff were not willing to appear in his videos, so he found someone who would, despite the fact that her skills as a trainer are not on par with the trainer he let go. Just another example of his willingness to put the clients last and his own interest first. (Speaking of which, he has forced the chef to cut his budget to the point that he's using ingredients that many people wouldn't feed their pets, solely in order to increase his profit margin. It seems he needs a new Maserati.)
My fellow campers: the greedy Obama-basher is gone, but only for three weeks. She is addicted to boot camp and can't exist for more than a few weeks without it.
The lazy girl with the potty mouth has been rubbing me (and everyone else) the wrong way: today found her whining about having gained two pounds this week, despite the fact that she's had alcohol, McDonald's, Wendy's, M&M's and Twizzlers, and has skipped half of her scheduled workouts (or shown up and just sat around). The best part: one of the trainers called her mother (who is paying) to rat her out, both for gaining weight and for cheating.
The slow, racist camper who dropped out a couple of weeks ago? Never had a grant. She duped the idiot owner into thinking that if he let her come and filmed her, they could both get grants from the NIH. Naturally, neither one of them got a grant, but I'm thinking that racist camper may have been a little less of a moron than I thought, since she managed to con him into giving her three free weeks of boot camp (a $12,000 value).
The crazy bird sound lady has been up to some pretty wacky tricks, too. When she's not busy dancing, she's reacting to upsetting odors. One new camper made the mistake of wearing aftershave, which caused her to swoon. Now, aftershave is verboten. Another troubling scent: cleaning supplies. These give her such a headache that the only way to remedy it is to make the trainers and masseuses come to her apartment for private sessions (even though the cleaning supplies have been used in said apartment). The woman is a crazy hypochondriac, but she's smart enough to get worked out without having the leave the comfort of her own bed.
That's about it. Tomorrow is my last beach boot camp (yay!), my last visit to the crappy diner, and my last Saturday circuit. A week from now, I'll be writing about the journey to Addis Ababa!
Fitness: biggest accomplishment of the week was finally doing the hike, and kicking the asses of the two younger girls (21 and 23) who I was hiking with. From what I hear, the incline is significantly steeper than the mountain trekking I'll be doing in Ethiopia, so I'm feeling like I'm all set. Unfortunately, I twisted my ankle and was stuck limping around and doing the recumbent bike most of the day after the hike.
More news: we changed from the Santa Monica pool to a pool in Culver City, which isn't heated. Unheated pools are no fun in December, even in LA. The other down side: much deeper pool with longer lanes (and far fewer), meaning crowding and fear of death by drowning. Fortunately, Thursday was my last day at the pool.
Interesting development on the trainer lay-offs: I had no idea why they fired a good trainer the same week they hired a new (not so good) one, but recently, all has become clear. Apparently, the genius-y owner of my boot camp is in the process of expanding his fitness empire and was looking for an attractive woman willing to appear in fitness videos. The female trainers on staff were not willing to appear in his videos, so he found someone who would, despite the fact that her skills as a trainer are not on par with the trainer he let go. Just another example of his willingness to put the clients last and his own interest first. (Speaking of which, he has forced the chef to cut his budget to the point that he's using ingredients that many people wouldn't feed their pets, solely in order to increase his profit margin. It seems he needs a new Maserati.)
My fellow campers: the greedy Obama-basher is gone, but only for three weeks. She is addicted to boot camp and can't exist for more than a few weeks without it.
The lazy girl with the potty mouth has been rubbing me (and everyone else) the wrong way: today found her whining about having gained two pounds this week, despite the fact that she's had alcohol, McDonald's, Wendy's, M&M's and Twizzlers, and has skipped half of her scheduled workouts (or shown up and just sat around). The best part: one of the trainers called her mother (who is paying) to rat her out, both for gaining weight and for cheating.
The slow, racist camper who dropped out a couple of weeks ago? Never had a grant. She duped the idiot owner into thinking that if he let her come and filmed her, they could both get grants from the NIH. Naturally, neither one of them got a grant, but I'm thinking that racist camper may have been a little less of a moron than I thought, since she managed to con him into giving her three free weeks of boot camp (a $12,000 value).
The crazy bird sound lady has been up to some pretty wacky tricks, too. When she's not busy dancing, she's reacting to upsetting odors. One new camper made the mistake of wearing aftershave, which caused her to swoon. Now, aftershave is verboten. Another troubling scent: cleaning supplies. These give her such a headache that the only way to remedy it is to make the trainers and masseuses come to her apartment for private sessions (even though the cleaning supplies have been used in said apartment). The woman is a crazy hypochondriac, but she's smart enough to get worked out without having the leave the comfort of her own bed.
That's about it. Tomorrow is my last beach boot camp (yay!), my last visit to the crappy diner, and my last Saturday circuit. A week from now, I'll be writing about the journey to Addis Ababa!
Monday, December 8, 2008
BC 34-36: Drama and Another Depressing Weigh-In
So, after yet another week of pushing myself beyond my limits, it was time to weigh in. The results: I only lost 2 1/2 pounds. I keep on asking myself what I'm doing wrong, and I don't have any answers.
On to the drama: on Friday, the owner of the boot camp let go two trainers. One of them had already given notice and had his departure date moved up. The other was a complete shock to the campers and the trainer herself. It was all VERY unprofessional: one moment the trainer was walking toward me for our 3 pm session, and the next she was being whisked away to the office, only to leave in tears a few minutes later. Just the latest in a series of bad decisions that the owner of the boot camp has made, but one that has disrupted the lives of many campers. Even worse, a very good trainer has been canned only a week after a new trainer was hired.
More drama: the mean, scary, Obama-hating lady continues to harass the 20 year old. I think most people agree that she's being incredibly immature, but more than that, we're just all tired of her talking about her money and the square footage of her house and how much she spends on shopping. Nouveau riche never looked so tacky (or orange, after her crazy spray-on tan).
On to the workouts: Saturday morning's beach boot camp was tough but not terrible. More beach running than I normally do. Afternoon cardio circuit was canceled because of the lay off, so I spent the time walking around a park while the younger, more limber campers played football. Disappointing workout, but I had a very nice talk with one of my fellow campers (previously accused of being lazy). While I still think she's not the most motivated camper ever, she's working at it. Plus, we have a shared dislike of the mean lady.
Sunday's circuit was pretty standard, although the added number of reps made it a better workout than some previous Sundays...
Which brings us to today. My knees still aren't bending and my ankles are beyond stiff, so the day was pretty trying. I spent most of it in the gym: an hour of training, 3 hours of cardio (all on the treadmill at a crazy high incline), 30 minutes of joint alignment (didn't help much), and evening beach boot camp. If there's one thing worse than dealing with joint pain on level ground, it's dealing with joint pain on the sand. So it was hell. But I did do a little (very little) sand running.
Finally, one of my favorite young campers left today. My buddies are disappearing left and right, providing yet another reason for me to be thrilled that I only have a week left.
On to the drama: on Friday, the owner of the boot camp let go two trainers. One of them had already given notice and had his departure date moved up. The other was a complete shock to the campers and the trainer herself. It was all VERY unprofessional: one moment the trainer was walking toward me for our 3 pm session, and the next she was being whisked away to the office, only to leave in tears a few minutes later. Just the latest in a series of bad decisions that the owner of the boot camp has made, but one that has disrupted the lives of many campers. Even worse, a very good trainer has been canned only a week after a new trainer was hired.
More drama: the mean, scary, Obama-hating lady continues to harass the 20 year old. I think most people agree that she's being incredibly immature, but more than that, we're just all tired of her talking about her money and the square footage of her house and how much she spends on shopping. Nouveau riche never looked so tacky (or orange, after her crazy spray-on tan).
On to the workouts: Saturday morning's beach boot camp was tough but not terrible. More beach running than I normally do. Afternoon cardio circuit was canceled because of the lay off, so I spent the time walking around a park while the younger, more limber campers played football. Disappointing workout, but I had a very nice talk with one of my fellow campers (previously accused of being lazy). While I still think she's not the most motivated camper ever, she's working at it. Plus, we have a shared dislike of the mean lady.
Sunday's circuit was pretty standard, although the added number of reps made it a better workout than some previous Sundays...
Which brings us to today. My knees still aren't bending and my ankles are beyond stiff, so the day was pretty trying. I spent most of it in the gym: an hour of training, 3 hours of cardio (all on the treadmill at a crazy high incline), 30 minutes of joint alignment (didn't help much), and evening beach boot camp. If there's one thing worse than dealing with joint pain on level ground, it's dealing with joint pain on the sand. So it was hell. But I did do a little (very little) sand running.
Finally, one of my favorite young campers left today. My buddies are disappearing left and right, providing yet another reason for me to be thrilled that I only have a week left.
Friday, December 5, 2008
BC Days 32 and 33: Could I Be Any More Tired?
With just a little more than a week to go, I'm a total wreck: enough joint pain (ankles, knees, hips) to make me feel like a woman twice my age, and I'm getting so much sleep that I'm not getting anything else done (except rereading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince).
Focusing on the positive, in the past 2 days I've had three good training sessions, one which was devoted mainly to posture and alignment and said joint pain, two upper body sessions with some very good stretching. I also managed to survive not one but two really hard evening boot camps this week (including the aforementioned butt routine) and did a fair bit of running at a pretty decent speed. Plus, I broke my own record at the pool and finally picked up a little speed. And today, in addition to doing 11 sets of stairs (110 flights), I climbed about 700 feet in an hour on the treadmill. Yay me.
The motivational speaker/owner was back today. I contemplated skipping, but decided that his pep talks are comedy gold and that I should take notes, of which I'll provide a sample:
stupid Q & A;
tries to engage people who are not interested;
doesn't realize that salmon goes with avocado;
conflates thinness and happiness.
Another camper and I talked about him the other day, and agreed that the problem is that he's not that bright. Not that I buy into the motivational speaking thing AT ALL, but to do it right, you have to be as smart or (preferably) smarter than your audience, and (as my fellow camper said) "dumb it down" for your audience. Let's just say that our guy wasn't busy rocking the SAT in high school, and that it's been intellectually downhill for him ever since. (And yes, I'm being especially critical because of the absolutely idiotic things he said about therapy the last time he graced us with his presence.)
Much more interesting is all of the camp gossip. The greedy woman I've mentioned before (the one on perpetual vacation who is afraid that Obama may rob her of her leisure and her 38,000 square foot house) has been feuding with some of the younger campers, going so far as making threats of physical harm that got so bad today that I believe there was a call made to the police. Crazy.
The slow, older, kinda racist camper is history. Thankfully, we have some new lazy girls (I mean REALLY lazy), so I don't have to worry about being the slowest camper around. As it turns out, the slow camper was here on some sort of bogus NIH grant. I still want more details, because it all sounds fishy, and I would hate to think that my tax dollars (and yours) were going to send that woman to boot camp to annoy me.
In travel-related news, all of my stuff has now arrived, and all that's left is to make sure that everything fits me (and into my new backpack), buy some hiking boots, and wait for my passport to be returned. I am so ready to go.
Focusing on the positive, in the past 2 days I've had three good training sessions, one which was devoted mainly to posture and alignment and said joint pain, two upper body sessions with some very good stretching. I also managed to survive not one but two really hard evening boot camps this week (including the aforementioned butt routine) and did a fair bit of running at a pretty decent speed. Plus, I broke my own record at the pool and finally picked up a little speed. And today, in addition to doing 11 sets of stairs (110 flights), I climbed about 700 feet in an hour on the treadmill. Yay me.
The motivational speaker/owner was back today. I contemplated skipping, but decided that his pep talks are comedy gold and that I should take notes, of which I'll provide a sample:
stupid Q & A;
tries to engage people who are not interested;
doesn't realize that salmon goes with avocado;
conflates thinness and happiness.
Another camper and I talked about him the other day, and agreed that the problem is that he's not that bright. Not that I buy into the motivational speaking thing AT ALL, but to do it right, you have to be as smart or (preferably) smarter than your audience, and (as my fellow camper said) "dumb it down" for your audience. Let's just say that our guy wasn't busy rocking the SAT in high school, and that it's been intellectually downhill for him ever since. (And yes, I'm being especially critical because of the absolutely idiotic things he said about therapy the last time he graced us with his presence.)
Much more interesting is all of the camp gossip. The greedy woman I've mentioned before (the one on perpetual vacation who is afraid that Obama may rob her of her leisure and her 38,000 square foot house) has been feuding with some of the younger campers, going so far as making threats of physical harm that got so bad today that I believe there was a call made to the police. Crazy.
The slow, older, kinda racist camper is history. Thankfully, we have some new lazy girls (I mean REALLY lazy), so I don't have to worry about being the slowest camper around. As it turns out, the slow camper was here on some sort of bogus NIH grant. I still want more details, because it all sounds fishy, and I would hate to think that my tax dollars (and yours) were going to send that woman to boot camp to annoy me.
In travel-related news, all of my stuff has now arrived, and all that's left is to make sure that everything fits me (and into my new backpack), buy some hiking boots, and wait for my passport to be returned. I am so ready to go.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
BC 31: The Dunk Tank
For some reason, this was my worst dunk ever. As in I was suddenly afraid of drowning and kept coming up for air before I got a decent reading. Finally (after 5 attempts) I managed to stay down. The results: I've lost 9.1% of my body fat since I've been here, losing 29 pounds of fat and gaining 12 pounds of muscle. I am told that I will start losing muscle soon, which is a very good thing, since currently my lean body mass (bones, muscle, organs, etc.) is more than my goal weight, and I have it on good authority that we need some fat (not to mention bones and organs).
Today was pretty crazy: I spent the entire day in the gym and had THREE separate training sessions (an hour of abs/core, an hour of back and biceps and an hour of legs). Too much personal training!!! The rest of the time I spent on cardio machines, where I managed to climb the 1300 feet I'll be doing every day on my Ethiopian mountain trek.
In other news, one of my favorite campers (and my first friend at boot camp) left yesterday. Very sad. We started the same day, so it's a major shock not to have her around to suffer with (although I'm pretty sure she was having a bit more fun than I was).
Tomorrow will be the last day in the heated pool (I'm told we're going to the unheated outdoor pool next week - can I call in cold?) and the last evening boot camp until Monday. The half empty: the boot camp trainer is pretty tough generally and wraps up boot camp with a horrifically painful (but effective) butt routine (by which I mean, of course, a set of exercises, not some form of X-rated entertainment).
Today was pretty crazy: I spent the entire day in the gym and had THREE separate training sessions (an hour of abs/core, an hour of back and biceps and an hour of legs). Too much personal training!!! The rest of the time I spent on cardio machines, where I managed to climb the 1300 feet I'll be doing every day on my Ethiopian mountain trek.
In other news, one of my favorite campers (and my first friend at boot camp) left yesterday. Very sad. We started the same day, so it's a major shock not to have her around to suffer with (although I'm pretty sure she was having a bit more fun than I was).
Tomorrow will be the last day in the heated pool (I'm told we're going to the unheated outdoor pool next week - can I call in cold?) and the last evening boot camp until Monday. The half empty: the boot camp trainer is pretty tough generally and wraps up boot camp with a horrifically painful (but effective) butt routine (by which I mean, of course, a set of exercises, not some form of X-rated entertainment).
Monday, December 1, 2008
BC 29: Weighing In
I've lost 8 pounds in the last two weeks, for a total of 17 pounds in 4 weeks. Could be better, but it could also be worse. I'm planning on pushing myself (even harder) for the final two weeks in the hopes of losing at least 10 more pounds before I leave. Fingers crossed.
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