Yesterday, I met up with "Sierra", my personal trainer for the second of four pre-paid sessions. This time, she warmed me up on the stair-stepper, which is a machine I hate, Hate, HATE with a passion. "I noticed that you work out on the bicycle, treadmill and elliptical. I'm going to mix it up a bit for you," she said, smiling. Gee, thanks, Sierra.

After the warm up, we focused on strength training. I did multiple sets of tricep rows, chest presses with dumbbells, lunges, squats, general floor exercises for my legs, and abdominal work. We did not use a single weight machine. "Machines do lots of the work for you," she explained. "These strength train exercises force you to use your balance, which works out more muscles." She noted that my abdominals are weak and that I need to stretch more.

Once again, Sierra tweaked my technique and workouts. She nixed the bicep curls I had been doing by saying, "No one really moves like this. You need to find exercises that move you like you move your body during the day and work multiple muscles." Okay, no more bicep curls.

She also said that I would need to workout a minimum of 5x a week if I want to lose 20 pounds by November. Given that my weight loss has slowed, I might modify that goal to 15 pounds.

Overall, the session went by fast and today, I'm slightly sore. This evening, I will return to the gym and do cardio. That godawful stair-stepper machine awaits.