I made an appointment for my first fitness assessment one Sunday at the local gym with a Darren or Damien or something. Neither was there, and that’s how I met my trainer. He knew a useless whingeing princess when he saw one but signed me up anyway. What’s wrong with my diet, I said to him. Lots of pasta dishes for dinner, toast every second night (what’s a vegetable?), plenty of iron in red wine etc. He said I need more food. I need more protein. I need fewer empty calories? I've been cheated.

My sessions with the personal trainer included everything. We went around the streets running. Well actually he ran and I shuffled behind stopping every few houses to pat a cat or smell a rose and recover. I would be running up and down the gym stairs, lifting things that were too heavy and pulling things things that seemed too hard. We did boxing. I don’t box. My trainer suggested that self-defence was good to have. I still think a lawyer is better. We did dead lifts and I was proud of the small pizza sized weights placed on the end of my bar bell until I saw a 15 year old girl in the corner of the gym lifting 50 kilogram barbells like they were tampons. I often wondered if you set your goal to increasing your load, what happens when you run out of barbells. Do you have to leave because the only things left to lift are caravans and trains?

I’ll never have to worry about this. I tried gym food. A sample of the latest protein bar, then spent the rest of my session picking it out of my teeth. Tastes like chocolate almost but I suspect it maybe tile grout. My trainer bless him, in an effort to encourage my cooking and better eating campaign gave me a recipe for Protein Powder Banana Muffins. I baked them and they even had the appearance of real muffins but they tasted so bad I think only NASA would know what to do with them. I was given the task of completing a food diary. I may have underestimated the wine consumption, but he was too young to understand. I continue on, 'go hard or go home' the poster says. So I'll be off then.