This blog post is a follow up from:
1) How to get a beach-ready body in 28-days (Intro)
2) How to get a beach-ready body in 28-days (Week 1), and
3) How to get a beach-ready body in 28-days (Week 2)

When most people think of swimming they think of this.

Or this...

...and this.

Unfortunately, when I think of swimming, I think of this.

OMG, and this!

So basically, I blame my water phobia on this.

If you read my last blog post, you’ll know that I took a big step to overcome my water phobia last week – I had my first swimming lesson.

My swimming teacher is a very interesting lady. She comes from China (yes China CHINA, so no nonsense) and she used to train the national swimming team in her country. Guess what? Her son is a national swimmer for China and was on TV just the other day for the World Championships.

Did you expect anything less?

For ease of reference, let’s call my swimming teacher Super-Cikgu.

So having such a super “keng” [Cantonese equivalent to the Malay expression “terror”] teacher kindda made me a little nervous. Just a little.

Ok I lied.

Don’t laugh, but I actually had a nightmare about swimming last week, so you can imagine how stressed I was about my first lesson. No joke.

Anyway, since I’m still alive writing this blog post now, you’ll know that I survived that lesson. Lol

Within that first half of my first lesson, I had learnt the proper way of swimming breaststroke.

Okay, I have to clarify here, that “learnt” doesn’t mean I “can properly execute” the style. Let's just say that I tried my very best. Lol

So the first half of the lesson was stressful, but I survived (although I felt like vomiting for some reason and tried so hard to hold it all in. Maybe I drank too much pool water. *laugh*).

The second half of the lesson was when it got interesting. Super-Cikgu asked me to try freestyle (oh did I tell you it was a very efficient and productive first lesson? Lol~ Hey, I had to pay RM180 for that 1-hour lesson, so I was determined to make the most of it. Come on guys, do you blame me? #kiasu).

Okay, back to learning freestyle. Once I managed to get the hang of breaststroke (it was far from perfect but at least I figured out how to float and inch my way about in the water looking like a distressed frog), Super-Cikgu said..

“Ok, now I want you to try freestyle.”

Me: Errr…freestyle?

Super-Cikgu: Yes, freestyle. Do you know how to do freestyle?

[In my head, I was like… “If I knew how to swim freestyle do you think I’d be in this pool with you?!”…but of course I just said…]

Me: Errr…I’ve seen it once or twice on TV…

Super-Cikgu: Good. Now you try.

Me: Oh.

[Mampus. What do I do now?!!!!! ]

Anyway, to cut the long story short, what happened in the next few seconds after was…shall I say, a rather embarrassing ordeal. Thank God there wasn’t anyone else in the pool with us.

All I could think of was:

Just kick my legs to stay afloat no matter what
Swing my hands like a windmill, but alternating between left and right hand (honestly, I was just trying to recall what I saw on TV a LONGGGGG time ago)
At some point, I’m gonna need to put my head out of the water to catch my breath

So that’s why I did. Or at least attempted to do. Lol

Not very successful, and I leave the rest to your imagination.

If you’ve seen a cat being forced into the water, you’ll be able to imagine what the commotion in the pool was like that glorious morning. Yep.

I can imagine Super-Cikgu shaking her head amidst all the water splashing in her face thinking… “What did I get myself into?” Lol

So yeah. My first lesson was… interesting. I suppose since Super-Cikgu agreed to meet me for the next lesson, it wasn’t THAT bad. Or was it? Lol

Anyway, I will have to be doing a lot of practising over the next few days which brings me to Week 3 of our lil’ beach-body program. Hehe.

How was your last week on the program?

Moving into Week 3, time for us to pick up a sports activity that we can commit to, during our cardio off-days. As you would’ve already guessed, I chose swimming, and here are some of the reason’s why:

Great way to tone muscles (and apparently, swimming is now recognised as one of the biggest calorie burners around)
Works the entire body
Low impact
Burns calories (this website says that swimming burns anywhere from 500-650 per hour depending on how efficiently you swim, and apparently you burn more flopping around than swimming cleanly, so good for moi! Mwhahahaha~)

So this week, just keep up the good work with Week 2’s toning exercises + commit to your new sports activity (cycling, running, playing badminton, etc).

And just to update you, my progress for the week (with normal eating and no crash dieting)

Happy, happy! Not so much on the weight drop, but because I feel a little less flabby all-round. Hehe. 1 more week to go, and out comes the bikini so let’s get to work ladies! Have a fantabulous one this week. Mwah!!!

This blog post is a follow up from:1) How to get a beach-ready body in 28-days (Intro) 2) How to get a beach-ready body in 28-days (Week 1), and3) How to get a beach-ready body in 28-days (Week 2)