I Just Spent Seven and a Half Hours at the Gym.

Oldham Sports Centre, where I spent pretty much the whole of Wednesday

No, I am not on the juice, before you ask. I was making a vain attempt to get my body weight under 70kgs for the first time since 2010.

I started at 1.30pm by weighing myself. On entering the gym I was 76.8kgs, 12'1. I followed this with a 10-min warm-up on the cross trainer, and an hour of heavy weights. Fairly early on I set a new PB on leg press, 170kgs. I'm confident that if I focussed on this movement I could make serious gains quite quickly. I then upped my dips record to 65, another movement that I could improve on if I dedicated myself to it.

I ran through pretty much every machine in the gym, including resistance machines, free-weights and cardio machines- in that order. I wanted to keep my strength for the bigger weights, then rep out with kettlebell swings and the punch bag, followed by battle ropes. These movements are muscular but used more for endurance than strength building. After this I moved onto a series of ten-minute cardio movements, and ended with a long slog on the cross trainer.

Throughout the day I ate nothing, putting only water into my body. Adrenaline will keep you going once the food in your stomach is used up, and fat burning I understand takes place normally after 90 minutes of working out.

I decided against using the pulley row from now on. After a conversation with another gym-goer it seems there's too much inclination to move my back, putting most of my body into the rowing action. This will result in damage eventually. It's too hard to keep your back still when you get to the heavier weights

Although this project was about fat burning, I still, as mentioned, wanted to improve strength. During the day I still tried to beat some PBs, something I've not really focussed on in the last few months. Here are the results:

170kg leg press, extra 10kg

65 dips, extra 5

10-min row 2263, extra 74 metres

I was impressed that I still had the strength to do anything notable on the cardio machines as I'd pretty much worn myself out on weights, or so I thought. But I slogged on half dead 'til I was kicked out at 9pm. I walked out at 76.2kgs, 11'14. 600g (1.3lbs) down.

There were a couple of movements that I didn't try yesterday- box jumps I didn't have space for, and 60-minute cross trainer I didn't have time for, for instance. If I'd have got there earlier I could have fitted them in, but realistically I wouldn't have beaten PBs on them and I would have gassed earlier. For the last couple of hours I was in a daze trying to make anything happen. I was running on empty.

It as also my plan to make use of the sauna and steam room facilities, and even the swimming pool, but I typically forgot to bring swimwear. I'd probably have sank like a goddamn stone anyway after the gym.

It was perhaps not the most successful gym session. I've lost more than that in the cardiotone classes that OCL run every Thursday, which lasts an hour. It might be worth trying to pencil in a few more classes to my routine throughout the week. (It also helps if you don't reward yourself with a massive portion of chicken and chips at the end.)