Tess Nichol's boot camp, week six: This out of shape reporter got shredded for summer ... sort of

So, can an out of shape reporter get shredded for summer?

The long awaited answer: well, sort of.

In six weeks I lost about 2kg, gained about 1.5kg of muscle and lost about 3 per cent of my body fat.

My waist, hips and abdomen all shrunk by 1-2cm.

By the end of the six weeks I could do 100 burpees, 100 press ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats, 100 lunges, 100 leg raises and 14 four-point press ups in 45 minutes.

Impressive, aye.

Even more impressive, I plan to keep going even now the six work-mandated weeks are up.

No one is more surprised by this than me.

Herald journalist Tess Nichol at her final boot camp session. Photo / Michael Craig

Could I have transformed my body further? In truth, probably.

I could have been stricter with my portion sizes and my snacking, I could have followed the many recipes in the Shred It program closer to the letter.

I also could have exercised more than three times a week, and made up for the boot camp sessions I missed when I had my car towed, when my car had a flat battery and the one time I couldn't be bothered.

I could have done these things and in retrospect maybe I wish I had, but when I reflect honestly on how much effort I put in I do think I gave it pretty damn near my best shot.

Six weeks may be a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but trust me, days feel long when you're in the midst of it.

It's easy to think "oh I shouldn't have eaten that slice of cake" when reflecting two weeks after the fact, less so when it's sitting there with its icing glistening in the fluorescent office lighting and you haven't had a sweet treat in weeks.

Kate Walker's Shred It plan is designed to be followed for 12 weeks, so my results are about halfway to what I could expect if I'd followed it the whole way through.

Tess Nichol does a press up while trainer Raphael Barcellos Victoria times her. Photo / Michael Craig

I'm not sure I could have done it - but maybe I would have surprised myself.

What I am sure of though is that any further restrictions on my diet would have been next to impossible to keep up for any meaningful length of time.

For this reason, diets promising you'll drop two dress sizes in four weeks are probably bogus.

Even if you could keep your food intake low enough to drop a dramatic amount of weight in four or six weeks, your life would suck.

Food is social, food is necessary for energy and food is one of life's greatest joys. Making a life where you can't have any is no life at all, in my humble opinion.

What else have I learned? That diet and exercise make a great combo.

You're getting results on two fronts, which is satisfying and in my experience helped reduce obsessive weight-loss fixation.

Another important lesson: banana is extremely versatile and your best bet for beating sugar cravings. You will get sick of it though.

Tess Nichol talks to fellow Herald reporter Frances Cook about her boot camp journey to kick of a new podcast series, Go To Health:

Listen to "Go To Health with Frances Cook" on Spreaker.