Do I look better naked (yet)?
My final “Look Better Naked” session was this week and I guess you are all wondering (amongst other things) if I look better naked now.
Firstly for the squeamish among you – please continue reading because there will be no naked before and after photos so you have nothing to worry about. 🙂
For those of you who have just started following my blog (where have you been all my life?) or those of you who just need a quick reminder “Look Better Naked” is a Les Mills womens only small team training programme that runs for six weeks.
I had watched the sessions a few times when I was training in the cardio room and I thought it looked like fun AND it was a cheap way of seeing a personal trainer on a regular basis because I have been known to just coast if given the option. The kicker was that Shantelle (my fav spin instructor) took a group that fit in with the time of the day that I train so I signed up ..
THEN Shantelle told me that I had to follow the programme to a “t” which for me meant that I had to decrease my training volume AND eat more – fear kicked in and I got all jittery almost immediately, but I said I’d give it a go.
Now you are all thinking “But didn’t she start the crossfit induction while doing LBN?” and you are right .. I did *naughty* BUT even with those 3 induction sessions a week I still DRASTICALLY reduced the amount of training I was doing so although I didn’t quite get it down to 5 sessions a week that is prescribed (which is about 5 hours) I went from about 17 hours a week down to 8 .. so I’m going to score myself a B+
When it came to the food I followed the plan for awhile but I did fall back into what I was used to eating which tends to be higher protein than the plan suggests but lower in other areas like fruit (and carbs in general) oh and I obviously kept on having dessert, life is too short not to have your cake and eat it too, so I’ll score myself a “C” on that front.
So onto the results –
When I found out I was going to train less and eat more I was more worried about not getting fat in the six weeks than I was about looking better naked so for me it was more about maintaining my ability to eat dessert AND look reasonably fit with a reduced weekly calorie burn.
As you can see apart from the fact that my wrist is now better so it’s tapeless and my shoulder is shite so it has taping I’m pretty much same old same old visually.
My weight and all measurements are down and although I can’t redo the fitness test because of an injury I’m nursing I redid the strength and sit up tests and improved on both but because I’ve done more than the required training I can’t say definitively that these things happened because of the LBN programme.
What I do know after talking to some of the other girls is that as a whole they got fitter, stronger and smaller even though some of them got heavier (which is not surprising considering they started lifting weights).
For me the positives of LBN was;
- It made me realise I don’t have to train hours a day. More is not necessarily better.
- It made me run. It’s been a long time since I voluntarily ran (and I probably still wouldn’t)
- It made me do ab work – another thing I don’t voluntarily do 😉
What I found to be a pain in the arse about the programme;
- I didn’t have time to fit everything I wanted to do in because of the training constraints.
- We always started late because girls don’t seem to be good at turning up on time
- I had to run and do ab work 😉
Would I do it again?
Honestly? Probably not. Not because I hated it but because I like more variety in my training week. Now that it’s finished it gives me time to get in an rpm session, a boxing session and who knows I might even get to Ludus!
Would I recommend it to other girls?
It would depend on the girl. I can think of girls that this programme would be perfect for – girls who are new to Auckland because they can meet some new people and get in some training, girls who haven’t done much weight training because you have a p.t on hand or girls who need someone to be accountable to and can’t afford to see a p.t on a regular basis.
Do I look better naked?
I’ll ask J and get back to you on that …
Till next time
