With only one week left to go, Charmain Walker-Smith is considering life post-Reboot, and coming to terms with her new healthy-eating addiction
How on EARTH is it week 11 already? Only one week to go!?! Say it aint’ so. I’m not ready to stop, you can’t make me, I shall blog and go to Barry’s, eat a la Nourish philosophy forever. Actually you might make me, but you know the sentiment is kinda true. I cannot fathom what I will do with myself when this project is up. Addiction has clearly taken hold, I read up on healthy eating, I cut out recipes I think Alli would approve of. I feel practically part of the furniture at Barry’s, specifically the low stodgy sofa, but still.
It is not obsession, I’m more rounded than that. No, honestly. It is merely healthy enthusiasm. This week I’ve been obsessing / enthusing over breakfasts. The reason is firstly, BREAKFAST ROCKS. Secondly, Alli and I did some filming for the blog that you will hopefully see in the next few days/weeks and Alli chose to do a breakfast recipe with me. She sent me an email asking which breakfasts I liked best.
Breakfast is the best bit of any day. It doesn’t involve much effort, but breakfast was where I was messing up when I started and even during the reboot because I was not including enough protein. This week I’ve been breakfast tastic. Eggs, mackerel, protein shakes.
At the filming Alli decided to do scrambled eggs with chives and salmon and some of her nourish crackers. You can make the crackers at the weekend and the scrambled eggs take about two minutes. I’m quite hungry as I write this, I’ve just worked out I *could* make it while I wait for my dinner. Oh man I’m hungry.
Anywhoo, the filming was great, even if I was incredibly nervous about it. I’m not very used to being in front of the camera, which is bad enough but Alli is a tall, slender EX MODEL. And I’m not even five foot. So no matter what progress I’ve made over the last 11 weeks I will look a bit like a troll next to her.
I’m not saying this because I think I look like a troll, I look healthy and fit and I’m very happy about that. I just think EVERYONE would look like a troll next to Alli, seriously, even Gwyneth Paltrow would look decidedly frumpy. In the end I started to enjoy it though, the plate of yummy scrambled eggs helped, I’m not going to lie.
The good news is I’ve lost weight, I’m 7 stone 5. Fitness wise I’ve been doing okay at Barry’s, because of my ankle debacle I’ve been concentrating on the arms and abs sessions. I’m still a much bigger fan of the weights than the running but the sprinting is getting more palatable. I can run at about an eight for a minute with relative comfort (I’m not sure if that’s km per hour or miles… I suspect km). I started out running at level six, in fact I can remember the sheer panic when Anya pushed me to 6.2. I was so sure that additional .2 was DEFINITELY going to do me a serious injury.
At Barry’s this week it was nice to see some of the instructors doing the classes. They react rather differently to the mere mortals taking the class. When the orders came to increase the incline to 12, I roll my eyes and faff with my towel to try and put off the inevitable, but I hear whoops of joy coming from the other end of the room. When I gingerly completed a few mountain climbers, and felt knackered after about five of them I looked around to see an instructor gleefully doing them double fast. It’s simultaneously enormously annoying and rather inspiring, with one week to go that’s the attitude I’m going to adopt.
Supper – Goan prawn curry (I froze some of the first batch I made and it was even more delicious second time round)
Fitness – Anya Lahiri Charm attends three weekly classes at Barry’s Bootcamp, the new super-gym that has a huge celeb following in the US whose fans include Jessica Biel, Sandra Bullock and Katie Holmes. It’s just opened a branch in London’s Euston where Charm will be guided through her paces by chief Barry’s instructor Anya Lahiri (left).
Diet – Alli Godbold Charm’s having a total nutritional overhaul (no less) at the hands of Alli, a nutritional therapist who has worked alongside chefs Charles Amos and Alan Wichart at Divertimenti Cookery Schools in Knightsbridge and Marylebone, author of Feed Your Health (£13.99 feedyourhealth.co.uk)
READ WEEKS 1-10 OF CHARM’S REBOOT BODY BLOGS
We’re recruiting need our NEXT Reboot Body Blogger. If you want to shape up with a specific programme of exercise and weight loss tailored to your lifestyle and have more than a stone in weight to lose, contact us on editor@healthista.com telling us in 300 words or less about yourself, where you live and why you want to do the challenge and send us a recent full length pic of yourself. If you’re up for it – we will set it up!
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