I need to lose a fair bit of weight quite quickly, and want to get a personal trainer. How best to find one?

[bran]

I orginally posted this in health, but actually think this is where it should be (at least it's being steadfastly ignored in health but hopefully people will rally round in this topic).

I need to lose weight, preferably quite quickly. I also need to have a documented training routine which will prove to the adoption panel that I have a healthy lifestyle. (See this thread for history.) It also turns out (following general blood testing regarding my PCOS) that I am in the early stages of type 2 diabetes. I haven't told my social worker yet, and it may be that when I do tell her they will decide not to bring us to panel at all, but in the meantime I might as well do what I can to get thin.

I'm in East London near Canary Wharf and Greenwich and I would love a personal recommendation if anyone has a trainer who they love dearly and would like to share. Otherwise hints and tips on how to pick the right one would be great, I don't even know where to start.

I really, really don't want a boot-camp style trainer as I react badly to bossy people and usually do the opposite or have a stand-up argument with them. I also don't want to join a gym, but I do have a gym and a swimming pool in the block of flats that I live in that we can use. What I really need is someone who is interesting/funny enough to distract me from the pain and boredom and who will tell me that I'm doing fantastically well and just a few more sit-ups/whatever to go. Experience of PCOS/diabetes would be a huge plus too.

TIA

Fast weight loss isn't a good idea - as you no doubt know.

Are you on the local mums mailing list? I bet people on there can recommend personal trainers ...

Hello by the way. I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis. From what I know, a low-GI diet is the way forward, for both PCOS and diabetes.

contact your local gym and ask friends about a personal trainer. You can lose weight very quickly if youa re sensible about it. I just lost 10lbs in 5 weeks and I wasn't big to begin with.. all I did was some serious helthy eating.

I can give you an idea of what I was eating if you want

The eating thing isn't enough MO'H, I need to prove to the adoption panel that I have an exercise plan in place. In fact my diet has been pretty good for quite a while and going on Metformin seems to have made a huge difference, in that I've only been taking it for 2 weeks and lost 5lbs with very little adjustment to what I eat. But, as I say, the Social Worker is also requiring exercise proof to submit to the panel.

Would the local gyms not be a bit about me contacting them to find a personal trainer when I won't be joining the gym?

I know fast weight-loss isn't good NQC, but tbh I don't think that it will be all that fast. When I was doing WW I stuck to the points rigidly and still only lost half to 1 lb each week, so fast for me would only be 3lbs a week. How do I get on the local mums mailing list?

Go to groups.yahoo.com/group/ - this makes 5 letters.

Thanks NQC - have posted now. I bloody hate yahoo though, it always insists that you need a yahoo email address to join a group.

You need the yahoo email address, but you don't have to have the group emails go there.

You've had quite a few strong recommendations now, anyway - it's a v good group. I use the archives to get recommendations for plumbers/etc/etc. It's good for local stuff, kid stuff, all that.

The co-op has three adopted kids in it these days.

I wonder if I know any of the adoptive parents (assuming they're all TH that is).

I have emailed the bloke who was recommended first as he sounds as though he as the right personality (would it be very wrong to hope that he has a nice bum too?).

I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting eye candy as part of the encouragement part of personal training.

At least two of the three are TH. One is the one I got you in touch with when she first adopted. (Mum is S, daughter is S.) The other two, mum is S, son is E, and mum is A, daughter is N.

I met him today and he seems a very nice man, bit of a rugby player sort of build though so nothing special about his bum. He seems very positive though and well informed about dealing with people who are desperately unfit and diabetic to boot.

Workouts start on Wednesday.

ooooh, bran, why don't you do a blog sharing your experiences of it? - I'd love to find out how you get on...

Good luck BTW

• with the training, health and adoption stuff

A blog! Wouldn't that be a bit dull? "Today I did 12 sit-ups and wee-ed a bit with the effort. I did 2 more bicep curls than I managed last time, and farted embarassingly when dismounting the exercise bike."

Thanks for the luck though, I could probably use it. Trainer seems quite keen for me to stun the adoption panel into silence by swanning in all lithe and thin, I suggested that I would need seriously strong magic knickers to even come close to that vision.

If you don't mind me asking how many times a week/how long are the sessions

(am currently looking for a trainer as well but if they suggest 4 hrs a week at £45 ph I'm well and truly stuffed)

good luck - i hope it all goes well.

Oh and (excuse my rudeness) I hope it all goes well

oh I'm sure you could write some interesting things about his bits popping out. And anyway, I wouldn't find the farting and weeing bits dull

An hour a time, once or twice a week. He said I should be working out 3 times a week, so if I see him once a week I should be doing it twice on my own. He did have a client that he used to see once a fortnight, but it didn't work very well because it was hard to the client to motivate himself to do 5 workouts between meetings with the trainer.

I'm going to do once a week for the first 2 weeks (because I'm travelling) and then twice a week for a few weeks and see how it goes after that.

Thanks that sounds a lot more do'able.

You should blog !

can i be dead cheeky and ask how much it costs?

Also, does the personal trainer give you advice and monitor/check your diet?

I'd love to have a personal trainer, am so fed up of doing diets and getting nowhere!

MS, he charges £45 an hour for block-booked sessions or £50 an hour for individual sessions.

No danger at all of his bits popping anywhere Monkeybird, he was very demurely dressed. I suspect he lives in fear of being pounced on by his female clients as he mentioned his wife and daughter several times at our first meeting. He's not really my type anyway, he's a square rugby-player shape and I go for a more athletic/less muscular shape.

I'm still not sure it would be an interesting blog, but the first session went well. I could do everything that he asked me to do with my lower body, although the lunges were hard work. My upper body work was pitiful though. He set the weigh on the bench press quite low and I couldn't even take the strain let alone pump it up and down. And I couldn't do the abdominal stuff at all without feeling the strain in my lower back, so we will have to do different ab exercises next week. Right at the end we did some boxing, which was great. He wasn't expecting me to hit hard because I'd been so pathetic at the upper body stuff, but I actually hit so hard that he staggered back and had to get me to stop while he recovered. Apparently I have a good shoulder action on my right side, and I guess that with all my extra weight on my torso (my hips and bum are fairly skinny) the momentum generated by a good follow-through must be quite formidable even if my arms are weak.

I'm suffering today. Walking down stairs is painful and I imagine fairly funny to watch (imagine a middle-aged woman doing a John Wayne impression). I can squat down to within about 2 inches of the loo seat, but fall the last little bit and hit it with a bit of a thud. I was out with friends at a tapas place last night and had to get someone else to cut up my chorizo because my right hand was too sore from boxing to be able to apply pressure to my knife.

The very end of the session we did stretches, he got me to lie there and be stretched by him (make up your own jokes here). This is where the kindly, mild-mannered front was dropped, he basically stretched all my muscles until I screamed and then held the stretch at that point.