Marilyn's Fitness Progress, Week 3

This is Andrew Duffy, signing in. 

This week's personal training session with Marilyn started emotional and finished strong.  Marilyn is a strong woman and often has a sassy attitude.  She has acknowledged that she wants to be more fit and lose some weight.  (Flashback to a previous blog entry: our goal weight loss is twenty to twenty-five pounds). But today, we tapped into the stream of emotions related to her body image that revealed a deeper discontent and concern for her health and well-being. 

Early in the session, Marilyn woefully compared her lack of fitness now to her hay day years ago.  She was a gymnast, and her metabolism was high.  She had a physical foundation and youth working for her.  Her recent injuries and physical obstacles have stifled her confidence about her body and physical abilities.

As she wiped the mascara away from her tearing eyes, I reassured her that positive change is coming. I thought, even though she's sustained some tough major injuries and surgeries in the last few years, even though she was sick and inactive last week, even though she's not at her goal...she's already lost close to five pounds.  
I just have to make sure that she sees what I see: that the effort she's putting in is already paying dividends, and her goal is achievable within months!  

Marilyn and I resumed training after an emotional start, and she jumped into it full force.  One of Marilyn's strength is her upper body ability.  One of her weaknesses is core strength and lower back posture.  So, after working on her strength, we worked on her core stability and posture with a plank.

With audio to help educate on her movement, here's a video on how to properly perform a plank, starring Marilyn:

She aced it, and we finished the session strong.

Andrew, Over and out.