Fitness
THE DUBAI FITNESS EXPERIMENT
By Caroline Leon
Caroline Leon is a Dubai based fitness professional with a Bachelor in Medical Science and currently completing a Masters in International Health.She is a fully certified Pilates and Yoga instructor with years of experience in the health and fitness?industry.
Another Dubai summer passes and as my years in Dubai increase, I have noticed fewer and fewer people leaving for extended 2 month holidays. Instead most expats and locals alike are using the hibernation period as the perfect opportunity to get fit, lose weight and clean up their lives from the inside out. I am still amazed at how obsessed we expatriates are with new ways to shed the Dubai stone (yes I am totally included in this obsession). When considering a typical life style here includes late nights, takeout food, a full time maid, home-delivered laundry service and the local DVD woman who comes directly to your door, it?s no wonder. We all still want to drink Thursday night, stuff our faces at brunch every Friday, without missing the weekly catch up with the boys at the sports bar or have dinner and cocktails with the girls. ?Before moving here most of us used to walk, do our own laundry, everything was a ?do it yourself? thing so going out over the weekend wasn?t the ?end all? of a healthy lifestyle because we are active during the week.
After 3 years, I?m telling you it?s almost impossible to eat so much and move so little without gaining the Dubai stone, it?s inevitable. The more time you spend in Dubai, ?the more sobering this realisation becomes.? We have become so lazy that if the gym isn?t in our building, we don?t go because it?s too far way, and even as more skyscrapers pop up, so do fitness centres. Each new gym or spa or a combination of both have a new creative concept and back up ?testimonials? of how you can lose your belly fat in a month. All spreading faster than there are fat people in Dubai to fill them. Yet as Dubai continues to steadily grow, every gym, studio, and slimming centre is vowing that theirs are the solution to the Dubai stone that haunts every expat. With so many choices, how do we know that the program we invest our time and money in will give us the results we desire? Not only is Dubai beginning to be a little overcrowded with gyms and personal trainers but also with overused marketing campaigns promising to revolutionise your body in a month. ?The question is ?do they work??
So as I pondered a solution to this question, my summer reading list brought the perfect answer, an interesting little book called ?The great fitness experiment? by Charlotte Hilton Anderson. This somewhat brilliant woman spent a year trying various fitness fads in search of one that walks the talk.? Tired of photo shop testimonials that endlessly profess to be the key to losing weight, Charlotte embarked on her own method to lose weight. Although at times her book becomes more of an outlet for her personal eating disorder problems and less about the fitness test, the idea is genius. ?Every health magazine in Dubai has some creative fitness writer that tries all the newest workouts, reviews it and then moves on to the next. But has anyone put them and their slogan mantra to the test?
Hence, the Dubai fitness experiment is born, with a little inspiration from Charlotte and enough brunches under my belt to have no more shame, in revealing the number on the scale, because if you have seen me dance then you know a few numbers can?t be any more embarrassing.
MISSION : Lose A Dubai Stone! ?The biggest looser showed us how those who are morbidly obese can lose kilo upon kilo till they?ve dropped a staggering 50 kilos. But what about those of us who have only 2-4 kg or 5-8kg to lose, still a considerable amount but nowhere near the monstrous amount of those on the biggest loser.? It?s been my experience that the closer you are to your target weight, the harder it is to lose weight. If you have a Dubai stone, can a Dubai fitness centre swap your stone for a few hundred dirhams?
A STONE = 6.25Kg or 14.3 pounds
FITNESS EXPERIMENT NO.1: BOOTCAMP
This is the true veteran of fitness fads, with some companies being around longer than the Dubai Marina, when the only thing South of Dubai was the Hard Rock cafe. For those of you who are unfamiliar with boot camp it is a military type training session, where the trainer leads people through a circuit course where each station is marked with a high intensity activity or a strength training activity. In a one hour session you may complete several circuits each with different activities. Most of the time circuits are broken up with interval training. Like short sharp sprints followed by a slower jog for a designated period of time. The desired outcome is to build strength, endurance, cardiovascular fitness and lose weight. This fitness experiment is so popular in Dubai that almost every fitness centre has a form of boot camp; there are so many testimonials, so many people who swear by it so it is time to put this fitness program to the test to see if it can help me loose a stone.
BEFORE PROGRAM BODY STATISTICS
- Monday the 25th of July at 9am
- Weight ?: 56.6kg
- Height : 164cm
- BMI ?: 21
- Percentage of Body fat ?: 28.3%
GOAL
Although I know I am in a healthy weight range , Dubai has made the number on the scale below me creep its way up, my body fat percentage also looks a little higher than I have hoped for. Keeping the word ?realistic? in mind when I devise a goal for myself I think losing 2-3kg in one month, decrease my body fat percentage by 1% seems like a reasonable goal. It?s realistic, measurable, and simple.
- Goal Weight ?: 54. Kg
- Goal Body fat ?: 27.3%
BODY STATISTICS RESULTS
- 25th of August 2011
- Weight ?: 58.kg
- Height : 164cm
- BMI ?: 21
- Percentage of Body fat ?: 27.8%
Analysis of the first fitness experiment
Boot camp is challenging, full of powerful skill based exercises that make you burn and sweat every little calorie. It is one of the most enjoyable exercise programs I have undertaken, not only because of the sense of accomplishment that fills you once you have finished a circuit. It is that gratifying feeling you get? when the session is over and you know you did everyone of those push ups, in other words you are not only thinking and wishing and dreaming of losing weight but you are actually doing it.
So the famous question is ?did I lose weight?? The answer is ?No?. However, this is not a disappointment, because although I didn?t lose weight by the end of the month I felt stronger and leaner. I remember my very first boot camp session was horrifying. In the middle of Ramadan in 40degree heat and sweating like a sumo in a steam room, struggling to do the warm up run, the burpy?s, the press ups, the lat raises and the mid circuit sprint. At the end of the hour I collapsed in a taxi, smelling worse than the cab itself. It was gruelling and this is coming from someone who considered themselves fit. Fast forward to the last week and although I was still sweating like crazy, completing each exercise wasn?t so exhausting. To be honest, it felt so much easier that the last few sessions I did more repetitions, harder variations, and I no longer tagged behind during the sprints. I had more energy more power and more endurance. I would highly recommend Boot camp for anyone looking to get fit. Although it didn?t help me lose a Dubai stone it did help me with everything else, especially with strength, endurance, speed, agility and coordination.
Source: http://www.physique-mag.com/site/index.php/2011/10/the-dubai-fitness-experiment/
mcc freddie mercury hbo movie theaters dinosaurs bigfoot tahiti
No comments:
Post a Comment