Evening Standard article

Evening Standard JUST GET ME FIT IN TIME. June 2000

Personal Trainers are the latest accessory. Gymphobic MIMI SPENCER called in the expert to get honed in time for her wedding.

Always, always, I have wanted to be fit. I have fit friends the kind of people who jump from the breakfast table ( me chugging through bacon sandwich ) to do pull ups from door frames just to test their muscle strength before they head off to bag a Munro. Always, always, I have wanted to bag a Munro- which, for all you sac of spuds out there, is any peak in Scotland with a summit higher than 3,000 feet. To bag one, or several, is a mark of fitness, and the verb to ''bag'' is richly appropriate. Hike up one and it is yours.

But I have never been up one, because I have never been up to it. For a start, I have the stamina of a mayfly. I go a sort of strawberry puce as soon as I'm within breathing distance of a running machine. Rowing machines scare me ( what if your sleeves gets trapped in the mechanism and you go hurtling into the ether, legs akimbo and ponytail flailing?

What if people are watching? incidentally, I feel the same way about parallel parking, which I like to do in private, preferably in the dark). I am also deeply suspicious of running machines, which I have always thought could do terrible damage to a chin if you're not concentrating fully. Gym's as a rule, smell of boys and athletes foot. And, yes, I know athletes foot, strictly speaking, doesn't have a smell, but if it did, it would smell of gyms. Slightly damp, a combination of Head and Shoulders and Sure extra dry and the lurking cloy of perspiration trying to break through. Not my world.

I am too vain for the strawberry puce bit, too picky for the slightly damp bit, and a whole lot too concerned with my appearance for the bit that involves sweating in public.

But then two things happened, I got engage. And I met Christianne. You need know little more about the former other than the fact that anyone who has set a date for the wedding suddenly becomes besotted with the size of their bottom. Christianne's job, nay her duty, was to nix the butt, and while she was at it , erase the little shelf of extra that had some how, stealthily- replaced my tummy at some point during the past decade or so. Christianne is an Elle Sports personal trainer. She has worked with Bond movie stars and championship motorcyclists. She wears those annoying little crop tops and possesses an extraordinarily pert bottom, which fulfilled my first rule of exercise; only people with a better body than you ( hilarious that I have a first rule, given that nearest I have ever got to a tennis racquet is watching Wimbledon. I did do the cabbage soup diet once, when it was achingly trendy, and I joined a Holmes Place for a bit, (because it was pleasant to suck passion- fruit smoothies through a straw while reading the Sunday newspapers in the chi chi cafe area )

But Christianne was a different prospect entirely . If you booked a personal trainer, if she is getting up at 6am to meet you in the gym, if you have paid a fine sum for the privilege of her doing just that- well, you damn well better hoik yourself out of bed and get on with it. The insidious gym- killer that lurks in all our early morning heads just can't get a foothold when your financially astute self is screeching '' Fifty quid'' fifty quid it cost you to get you here! Get out of bed, you sluggish slacker!''

And so, there I have been, day in, day off, day in, for the past month. Now, quite apart from a nice line in cropped tops, Christianne has a few other bits and bobs to recommend her. She comes equipped with a realm of odd devices to make getting fit more fun. Well ''more fun'' might be pushing it a bit; lets just say, less hopelessly mind-numbingly, Richard-and-Judy-on-the-telly dull. She has an inflatable sphere, a sort of beach-affair, which requires that the gymee sits upon it and uses only her stomach muscles to retain balance ( surprisingly effective; in four short weeks the beach ball has given me -wonder of wonders-muscle definition in the bits of my belly where once I had convinced myself that squishy was a plus ) Christianne also makes you box, as in Lennox Lewis, which is unadulterated pleasure and gets your heart rate going at a pleasing 160bpm, even at the crack of dawn. She has a wobble board, which is the nearest adult can get to full Fisher Price Activity Center experience without neighbors talk ( it involves persuading a small ball to meander towards the center of a small maze, using muscle power alone )

But, best of all, I have been out in the park of a morning to do ''resistance running'' using a parachute attachment which makes you feel as though you are wading through treacle. At a given moment, you release the Velcro belt, and-ping-off you shoot like a bat out of hell, surprising local dogs and ducks along the way.

The point of all this is, of course , to finesse the shape of my bod. Its what every girl wants, even if she's too politic to admit it, And yes, Christianne's methods are having an effect. One friend said''hmmm svelte' when she clocked me in a pair of joggers. Svelte! Oh joy. Give me another few months and those Munros will be mine.

Christianne Wolff can be contacted on christianne2@onetel.net.uk