The Girl in the Gym

Surf and Turf workout

Inaya's eyes were open when he opened the front door. Bud was napping at her feet, snoring softly. Jack handed her the file and sat down across her, imitating her cross-legged position. They sat in silence for a few minutes while Inaya perused the file. Jack was content to sit and watch her.

Suddenly, she got to her feet and said, "Let's go. We'll put Bud in our pet daycare centre on the way."

Jack picked up the sleeping puppy and started following Inaya. He fell into step with her. "You need to lose 68 kilos in 90 days right? Well, it would be extremely difficult, but not impossible. If you stick with me through the training regime, we can help you get to your ideal weight," she said.

"To shed one kilo, you will need to exert 7,500 calories. You will also have to go on a strict diet with very low sodium and zero sugar. If I have your commitment, we can proceed. And let me warn you, Mr Jack, I am a brutal taskmaster," she said seriously, turning towards him.

"I'm glad to hear that Miss Inaya, I am in need of a tough taskmaster," he said, eyes twinkling. He knew she would get irritated at his use of the word miss. A second later his prediction proved correct.

"Please," she said, barely reining in her irritation, "It is just Inaya."

"Then it's just Jack, for me."

"Fine."

"Fine."

A few seconds later she burst out, "We're going off-topic. Like I was saying, you're going to go through a carefully designed exercise regime that will encompass various practices."

"That sounds interesting. Can you tell me more?" Jack asked as they started walking towards the main building. His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it. He didn't have enough points to eat in any case.

"I am going to design a number of workouts for you that will mix a little bit of everything. You can start with some fast-paced treadmill intervals with muscle-building resistance training in a high-energy group environment. After that, I will customise a workout that alternates between the treadmill and strength training exercises every ten minutes. It will get your metabolism fired up, we'll keep that momentum up and let you stay in high gear for an entire hour," she said. Jack mentally recorded all the details, intending to do some research of his own once he got back to his room. Then decided against it, he was in the care of professionals. He would have to place his confidence in them for better or for worse. And judging by Inaya's competency, it would definitely be the latter.

Inaya was still talking, so Jack was forced to get out of his head and pay attention. "I am going to apply a pyramid-shaped workout to you where you will be jogging comfortably for a minute, running faster for a minute, then go for an all-out sprint for another minute — with no rest in between. This will happen during a course of fifteen minutes on the treadmill with at least three reps. After the third rep, you will reduce your speed to a slow walking pace and do 15 repetitions each of walking lunges and lateral side steps. You will do the whole rotation four times after which you will do some cooling down exercises," she was saying.

"Okay, got it. You will basically be increasing and decreasing my heartbeat for maximum calorie burn, and increased metabolism, right."

"Exactly," she said, without any inflexion.

They had reached the pet daycare centre which was on the east lawn with plenty of shade. Jack introduced himself to the caretakers. There were two of them, and both seemed friendly and completely at ease. Jack was relieved to see Bud get along with them as well. Once he had made sure that Bud was okay, he walked back to Inaya to continue their conversation.