The heat was being turned up. We were coming into the final stretch of the 40 day weight loss challenge. One week from today, to be exact. Normally my Sunday workouts consist of calming yoga and tai chi. But when the Trainer is available for a rare Sunday session, you ditch those, but in favour of what?

The pre-workout cardio was a good 11 minutes on the elliptical. 120 calories torched.

I used the machine downstairs so had a good view of the set up Damion Daniel was doing for me. Nothing out of the ordinary. One of the things I love about working with this trainer is that he mixes things up. I gladly go to the gym in anticipation of a new exercise or a new sequence of moves.

The new one today was walking lunges. Grrrrr. The static ones were bad enough with me having a tendency to topple over. I took off, with the Trainer urging me to lunge lower. Me doh have strong muscles to be able to do that! The gym was fairly empty and a few of the persons, including the PM, watched me doing my thing. And yes, a few times I swayed from one side to the next. Ah didn’t care.

On the leg press machine, Damion put 80 lbs for me to do inner thigh presses. Oh no no no. I had picked up a strain a few days earlier so was not taking a chance.

For the cardio in between the work out, I was sent to the treadmill machine. It was the dreaded 15% incline routine. I blamed the lingering cold for preventing me from doing it to the max.

At the end of the strength training session there was more cardio. I was asked to do 10 minutes on the bicycle with the first 5 minutes at high intensity and the rest at an easy pace to prevent lactic acid build up. I did better.

While on the bike, I was able to watch some of Damion’s workout. If I thought my 80 lbs leg press was anything, I was in shock and awe….and full of admiration….when he piled on the hundreds of pounds!

Rihanna’s “Work” was playing and that he was doing. He turns into a different creature when he gets in his training zone. Inspiring to watch.

I left the gym feeling very accomplished, grateful for the breakfast of steelcut oats with protein powder and ripe banana I had chosen. It gave me a huge burst of energy.

It’s days like this that you realize your strength. Throughout, sweat was being mixed with the results of my sniffles.

At the end of my workout, Damion gave me some pointers for my diet this week. “Keep your carbs, sugar and salt down, increase your cardio, and you will see magic.”

I want the magic.