Following on from The Lost Week, there was a definite need to start strong; and that meant climbing back on the F45 horse. Monday through Thursday I F45’d each morning, and whilst there was momentary dread at setting foot through the door on the Monday, once in the swing of things, I can say it was good to be back. One session in particular goes by the name of “Gravity” – normally the names of the sessions are a bit nonsensical to my mind: “Moon Hopper” has me reminiscing bouncing around in the back garden on my orange, toothy faced Space Hopper and does not prepare you in any way for the pain that is the F45 interpretation … which is weights, weights, more weights with a side of weights. Anyway, “Gravity” actually half describes what you’re up against … which is your own bodyweight (and as we noted in earlier posts, there’s plenty of that for me to have to move around) – simply put – the most punishing of the workouts I have encountered to date.

Now; on top of F45, I had been talking to my pal Michael and his hard to argue against fitness and diet tips (the man ought to be on the cover of fitness magazines the world over) included adding in a second piece of exercise each day. Well, we know I can barely manage one piece of exercise a day, but I thought I’d give it a crack; ‘simple’, he said, ‘just add in a 45 minute walk each day’. So I did; Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I did my classic Harbour Bridge >>> Barangaroo headland park round trip; it’s about an hour for me. And you know what? All of a sudden I am averaging 16k+ steps a day on those days.

‘What about Wednesday?’ I hear you ask. Well, I took on the Spit to Manly walk and with my guide, Rob, a Northern Beaches dweller as well as an alumni of my old school in England (Brighton College, recently voted School of the Decade, just not the decade I was there). Now I will say this; I wasn’t blown away by the Spit to Manly walk the first time I took it on, trundling along Sydney Road thinking ‘well, this isn’t much chop’; turns out there is indeed a much nicer, and well known, harbourside and clifftop walk to Manly and it is indeed very pretty, intermediately challenging, and fraught with danger to the Challenge at the end given the proximity of waterholes to the finish line.

Segueing neatly into the inevitable cheats; there were a couple of beers here and there, it has to be said, but this was no ‘Lost Week’ part two; on balance, I still have room to improve, but with average steps for the week at 14k+, four F45 classes, some healthy eats including a tasty but spicy lime and jerk chicken salad whipped up by yours truly a couple of times, also the significant uptick in water consumption (as advised by could be fitness model Michael – 4.5litres a day … just as an aside, this does see bathroom visits skyrocket) I am feeling more encouraged. I like walking so it should not be hard to make a few long walks more of a habit; my chicken salad experiments have thus far produced largely tasty meals that I enjoy eating. The next step on the journey is to cut a couple more of the beers out and see where that gets me.

The #DadBodChallenge finish line is in sight, but even I will content, I have not exactly hit the challenge as hard as I would have liked; injury and a sometimes staggeringly easy to twist arm have knifed my best efforts in the back. I suspect I have made some gains, but modest ones. My hope is that I am bedding into my life exercise, more healthy eats and less cheats and that can only be a good thing…