Weeks 45 & 46…in which I get up close and personal with a sex therapist

 

I was a bit low after my last blog. Totally crippled with jet lag and overwhelmed by a punishing schedule that left me physically drained and emotionally depleted. The thought that I was behind target on my weight loss quest was crippling me and after spending way too long in the snack aisles at Waitrose bargaining with Mildred (see Weeks 28 to 30…in which I do battle with the voice in my head (Aussie edition) ) I knew I was in trouble.

Fortunately so did my friend. I’ll call her Gail. I’ll call her Gail because that’s her real name and if I’m sharing everything in my blog then so will she! She had an idea, an intervention – it took her a few days to get hold of me because I was hiding in my bedroom under a duvet wrestling with Mildred and a bag of Sensation Balsamic and Red Onion crisps – ‘Let’s do a challenge together’ she said ‘one juice a day, replacing a meal, for 30 days. We’ll send each other a photo of the juice every day’.

This woman loves me. I know she loves me because SHE DOESN’T NEED TO DO THIS. She has a gorgeous physique (I have a photo somewhere of her half naked on a 4ft swan). She was doing this for me. So I agreed, knowing she’d hold me to account.

It’s been much easier than I thought. The key to juicing every day is;

• only juice the veg / fruit that you like the taste of (beetroot tastes exactly like the mud it grows in)
• batch juice your veg  /fruit and then freeze it so you can use your nutribullet to blitz it up, saving you the half a day it takes to clean the juicing machine
• on cold days do a veg one, add peas, warm it up and drink it like a soup
• have your juice around 10.30am and you’ll hardly want anything for lunch.

And then she introduced to Massimo.  He runs EMX Squared, a kind of holistic mind, body and soul place near Mable Arch (http://www.emxsquared.com/). ‘He’s the answer to your prayers Sherilyn, you just stand there while your muscles get pummelled by electrical impulses burning up 2000 calories in 20 minutes, book it now!’ she said.

I was cynical. This is a woman who can do 30 burpees without breaking a sweat, I’ve known her to run 5 miles before breakfast and she can hold the plank position for 10 minutes..whilst balancing on a power plate (I was with her at the time trying not to throw up – see Week 4…in which I get intimate with a Power Plate).

There was NO WAY this was going to be as easy it sounded.

She texted me before the appointment ‘dig in for the first experience, it’ll be transformative I promise, but it is WEIRD’. This freaked me out a little..she has a high tolerance for weirdness…‘weird’ to Gail is like totally fucking bat shit crazy to anyone else.

So with a little apprehension I arrived at Massimo’s studio in London. I needn’t have worried. This guy REALLY knows how to put you at ease. I spent 20 years as a head hunter, which means I know how to build rapport very quickly with people I meet for the first time. But he put my skills to shame. Within seconds he’d found out more about me than my daughters know, told me his background, his philosophy and the fact that, in addition to the fitness work he does, he’s a trained, very experienced sex therapist. Wait, what? We were soon discussing the effect of menopause on your libido and the female capability for multiple orgasms. Him ’So when you masturbate do you feel like you’re making love to yourself?’  Me  ‘Ummmm’… I’d been in the room for 3 minutes.

Back to the matter in hand (so to speak) he bought out a two piece outfit for me to put on. It looked suspiciously like a wet suit – with padding. I was hyperventilating at the thought that the suit wouldn’t fit until I remembered that I hadn’t been a size 22 since February. It still looked tiny though – ‘will that fit?’ I said ‘absolutely’ he said ‘if anything it’s going to be too big’. I was loving this guy.

It wasn’t pretty but with a bit of huffing and puffing on it went. He then connected me up to a machine which does indeed send electrical impulses to every muscle group, turned up as high as you can stand.

‘Is the sensation bearable?’ he said. I didn’t know, I was too busy trying not to fart and distracted by the thought that I might need to pee before I could unpeel myself from the suit and could that result in electrocution.

But then followed the best 20 minute ‘work out’ I’ve ever experienced. It’s a bit like being strapped into a body size version of a TENS machine (mothers, you’ll remember it..sounded like a good idea but TOTALLY ineffectual once the contractions started)…or a souped up Slendertone.  It truly is a weird sensation which pummels your entire body and every single muscle, not painful, but not entirely pleasant either. The current stimulates your muscles, flexing them 300 times PER SECOND so 20 mins is the equivalent of an 8 hour work out. He gets you to do a some gentle stretches and bends (there is nothing elegant about your movements when you’re constantly being shot by a taser) and the machine does the rest. Amazing. When it was over and the suit came off I was surprised to find myself drenched with sweat and flooded with endorphins. THIS was the kind of workout I could get into and I booked another 4 sessions immediately…because I REALLY need to find out more about those multiple orgasms.

Outcome: I lost 2lb

p.s. Its Sunday, my session was on Thursday. Every muscle is screaming at me ‘what the fuck did you do??’ Brings a whole new meaning to ‘no pain, no gain’ but at least I know IT WORKED!