WHEN I told my friends, family and colleagues that I was going to be working with a personal trainer in the New Year their initial reaction was to laugh.

I imagine this was because I have not done any exercise since Secondary School and to leap from no exercise what so ever in the past eight years to one-to-one sessions with my own trainer was apparently quite an amusing thought to them.

When I say no exercise there was an attempt to go running with my boyfriend last year but that only resulted in me yelling at him the whole time and after three attempts it’s now something we don’t talk about.

So it’s fair to say that I was not exactly filled with confidence when I went to my first session with personal trainer Dion Trigg at his brand new gym True Function in Hallidays Mill, Chalford on Friday.

I had met with Dion just before Christmas to discuss what I hoped to achieve from my sessions – to be able to walk and talk at the same time without getting out of breath.

After taking all my measurements, including my weight which I haven’t checked in nearly five years, Dion worked out my body fat percentage which turns out to be one per cent away from obese – so it’s safe to say the session didn’t really get off to a good start.

The word obese just doesn’t really register with me – I mean I wouldn’t even refer to myself as fat let alone obese.

However according to Dion this can all be turned around with just doing a little bit of exercise twice a week – so we begin my first workout in eight years which I have to say did not go as expected.

There were no treadmills, cycling machines or an angry man screaming at me to work harder while I cry silent sweat tears hoping for the ordeal to be over.

Instead I was put to my paces with a number of exercises I had never tried before which included pulling and pushing 15 metres of rope along the gym floor which worked muscles I had forgotten about in my near decade absence from exercise.

Then there was the bean bag weight throwing which was extremely satisfying after work on a Friday followed by some box jumping.

And although my body almost went on strike at the idea of an increase in my heart rate I can actually say I enjoyed myself and left the gym with a genuine sense of satisfaction.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say I was looking forward to my next training session today, Wednesday, but I am definitely going into it with the confidence that I’m not going to keel over and cry in front of the other gym users.

To find out what happens after my first full week of training with Dion see next week’s copy of the SNJ.