18: With compliments

Last weekend I drove to Cheshire to attend a 25th wedding anniversary event for one of my best chums from art college and her husband. Amanda and Paul had certainly chosen a spectacular location in which to hold their gathering - the Discovery Centre at Jodrell Bank - home the third largest steerable radio telescope in the world.

As part of the pre-supper entertainment we were treated to a tour of the orrery in the Planet Pavilion. It was an ideal opportunity for us to ask those questions we'd always wanted answers to… for example: "What happened to Pluto?" and "Where else do you think there's intelligent life?" Sophia, our knowledgeable guide, made the mind-blowing subject of our planet, solar system, galaxy and the universe easy for us to follow.

For me, what made Saturday evening so memorable, was meeting-up with members of Amanda's family again. As her folks lived not far from mine, I regularly used to see them - and her sister and brother - when I occasionally gave Mandy a lift home from Ravensbourne College of Design & Communication.

That was 27 years ago! - and although I'd met Amanda's parents briefly in the early 2000's - I haven't had any contact with them since then. So it was fun to instantly recognise Mandy's brother, say hello to him, and then watch as he tried to guess - wrongly - who I was. Similarly the same with her mum. When they both realised it was me, their reactions were the same. The compliments flowed about how well I looked.

On Sunday, before I headed back to Scotland, I called in to see friends in Stockport who are also customers of mine. I hadn't seen Mary and David since January of this year, when they exhibited at a trade exhibition in Glasgow. So "the Derek" they remember was the one at the start of 2014. Their compliments about my physique were the same as those of Amanda's family.

Before starting my fitness programme with Luke, I'd read somewhere that it would take approximately two months for me to notice any changes to my body shape, two more months for those immediately around me to acknowledge the changes and a further two for the whole world to see them. Certainly from the reactions and compliments I received at the weekend this seems to be the case.

As Yuri Gagarin said to ground control, during the first manned space flight he piloted on 12 April 1961 - "I feel fine. How about you?"

17: Halftime

I know it's September and it's technically the start of autumn, but I've only just managed to shoe-horn a week off work - a consequence of being self-employed - and am enjoying some much needed time-out in a relaxed Ionian idyll.

The day before departing Scotland I had a monthly evaluation with Luke Bremner. Considering my Fringe Festival naughtiness (way too much alcohol) and the less intensive gym workouts (due to my IT-band problem), the stats weren't bad at all. Waist and chest measurements down, body fat down, lean mass up a little.

Suddenly my vacation, and week away from the gym, feels like a natural halftime for me.

Over the past five and a half months I've achieved a lot with Luke. Looking at my initial goals and incentives - most have either been met or I'm well on the way to reaching them.

My goals were to lose the "spare tyre" around my mid-rift and have a flatter stomach. Tick. I wanted to swap the "moobs" for pecs, start developing my biceps, and lose weight but replace it with muscle. All of these are underway.

My incentives were: new motorcycle leathers. Not on order yet, but will be soon. Be able to change body type status of online profiles from 'average' to either 'athletic' or 'toned'. Tick. Find Mr Right. Tick.

Prior to the evaluation, Luke and I had agreed that I'd continue working with him for another 6 months. I'm loving what's happening to me - both physically and mentally - with his input. I'm now interested to see what we can achieve by March 2015.

However on Thursday Mr Bremner asked me the killer question: "What do you want to achieve in the next 6 months?" My answer was simple. "I don't know. I'm really going to have to think about that."

There's no doubt that my original aims and objectives kept me focused and committed to my fitness regime. I'm also excited to see where the next half of my personal training programme will take me. But in order to sustain my current motivation I need these new goals.

So for the next few days, whilst enjoying the warmth of some late summer sunshine, I'm going to contemplate this dilemma. Regardless of what I decide, I know the second half will be as beneficial to me as the first one was.

16: Ouch!

A couple of weeks ago, whilst preparing to go to Luke Bremner Fitness, I became aware of a slight pain in my right hip. I didn't think too much about it and, as usual, walked briskly uphill from Edinburgh's Stockbridge to Luke's private training studio in Jamaica Street.

After changing and doing a general warm-up, Mr Bremner started to show me some new exercises that he'd incorporated into my home workout routines. As we went through these together, I became aware that the pain in my right hip was increasing.

"It could be something to do with your IT band." Luke said.

Not knowing what he meant, I assumed he was referring to the resistance bands I used at home for exercises like rowing practice. Thankfully he went on to explain what the Iliotibial tract, or 'IT band', is and its function. His final thought of that session was "Let's keep an eye on it!"

I returned the following Thursday and started my hourly session with some squats. However there was little improvement with my right leg. Instead of making things worse, Luke took swift action and decided that we should spend the remaining time looking at foam-rolling and muscle stretching techniques.

Up until then I'd only used a foam roller for thoracic spin exercises. So to start with Luke demonstrated some foam roller exercises that would help to alleviate the pain in my IT band.

Often when I'm the process of doing the final rep of a final set in the gym I let loose a lion's roar that's inside me. However these new exercises had me yelping more like a wounded pup!

We progressed to using a tennis ball to massage other muscle groups in the feet, chest and shoulders. Each exercise seemed to hurt more than the last, so much so, that by the end of the hour I'd almost forgotten about my original IT band problem.

Luke's advice was not to do any more home workout routines. Instead I was to focus on the foam rolling and stretching exercises, which I've been doing diligently. As each day passes, not only does the IT band in my right let become less painful, but the exercises themselves seem to hurt less too.

In order to allow my leg time extra time to recover, we spent last week's workout sessions looking at mobility and posture. As always I've been given excellent advice and techniques by Mr Bremner on how to improve these too.

Yesterday I finally started to lift serious weights again and my right leg, although not 100%, held-up to the challenge pretty well. There's no doubt that all the stretching and rolling I've been subjecting my body to over the past fortnight has really worked. More importantly I'm now doing many of these exercises daily in order to prevent something like this happening to me again.