Day 5, Champneys boot camp, Henlow Grange.

We are wearing Ki Fit armband monitors throughout the week which record how many calories we are burning throughout the day during all our activities, as well as our sleep pattern. Last night we were given some feedback, and it looks quite promising, despite the setback from my injury on the second day when I pulled a muscle or ligament, when there was clearly an activity dip, but I still burnt 2,864 calories that day, which was above my target of 2,600.

I need to burn 3,500 calories to lose a pound, and I came close to that on a couple of days with 3,245. As I am performing on 90% capacity due to the injury which is still niggling, I am delighted with this. From these results, I am hoping to shed around 5lbs by the end of the week. I am determined to reach 3,500 burnt calories a day, that is my personal goal for the rest of the week.

We had a two hour break from our activities yesterday to give the trainers time to assess our monitors, and I expect they will be making us work all the harder for it today. We start off with strength training at 7am, and yoga (hurray!), then a trim trail, a challenging exercise jaunt through the woods. The afternoon includes legs, bums & tums class (we feel the burn constantly!), followed by speed, agility and quickness (more circuits), which will be very testing for me as I woke at 4am this morning. I find my mattress too hard and uncomfortable on my back and I’m sipping fresh lemon and ginger tea as I write this at 5.45am.

At least the day ends with aqua fit, which is always fun and hardly seems like exercise, and I can soak my muscles in the warm mineral water during thalassotherapy. Bliss!

We are always exhausted at the end of the day and my head hits the pillow at 9.30 pm. However, this evening we have a guest speaker, an osteopath who will be talking about posture. Let’s hope we are not slouched sleeping in our chairs throughout her presentation.

*I am here as a guest of Champneys.