My Workout Plan

Slowly, I am taking steps to establish roots in London. A few weeks ago, I found a hair stylist even though I almost freaked out as he was cutting my hair. I had been going to Ella in Chicago for 6 years. It felt like I was cheating on her....I have my favorite Thai place that I go to often. A certain brand of bread that I really like. Little things that are becoming routine for me.

I haven't quite been able to commit to a mobile phone package yet.

The biggest commitment I made so far was to join a health club. I joined Virgin Health Clubs which is a popular chain of gyms throughout the UK. Note - I only signed up for 3 months. I had to pay a bit more however because that I walk everywhere, I am afraid it won't be convenient enough for me so I am on my own personal trial basis. I also decided to sign up for two personal training sessions to give me the extra motivation. Today as I met this young 20-something girl, I wished for my old trainer Lisa. My new trainer was really nice though.

She asked me the typical questions - What are your fitness goals, how much weight do you want to lose, blah, blah.... We proceeded to take my BMI measurements. The first obstacle to overcome - how to convert my height into centimeters....no idea....Second obstacle - translate my weight in pounds to kilos and stones....She had no clue so she had me go on the scale at the gym. It was so funny.

As we proceeded to develop a workout plan, I went on the treadmill to warm up. When I was initially on the treadmill, I noticed I wasn't going as fast I would have expected had I been on a treadmill back home. She pointed out that I needed to be on the treadmill that calculated miles per hour. We were trying to figure out what my mileage would be in kilometers. How complicated. I swear the treadmill I used at my old gym gave me the distance in kilometers.

My experience pointed out the obvious that I already knew - only Americans have their own metric system. The rest of the world uses kilometers, centimeters, celcius, the correct date format. However, it's sooo hard to unlearn all the years of thinking in a certain way...Sometimes I get a headache when I have to write 13/04/2010 or 12-Apr-2010. Imagine big project schedules??

After my training session, I went home and converted my weight from stones into pounds! I turned to my trusty google tool bar for a conversion tool. Geez I have some work to do!