Demanding boot camp turns it up a notch

When I was much younger and considering career choices, I actually thought about joining the military. It wasn't more than a passing thought because I quickly realized I probably wouldn't even survive boot camp. I'd seen enough movies to know I wasn't cut out for push-ups, long-distance running or climbing walls. And I really don't like getting yelled at. So imagine my dismay when 30 years later I'm heading to boot camp ... Push Fitness style.

In addition to our time in the gym and working out with our trainers, all the Fittest Losers are required to attend boot camp at least once a week. Tony Figueroa, my trainer, and Michelle Amsden, the trainer for contestant Kristen Kessinger, take turns whipping a room full of recruits, I mean volunteers, into shape. Besides the Fittest Losers, there are brave people in the class who actually sign up to be there. I was there because I was told to be there.

I typically train very early in the morning, so it's usually just me and Tony in the gym. While it was kind of nice to have others suffering, I mean working out, alongside me at boot camp, it was also embarrassing to display my lack of exercise prowess so publicly.

I knew I was in trouble the first day when I could barely breathe and we were just five minutes into the warmup. The pace is fast, the exercises are varied, and the trainers are unrelenting. I'd only been training with Tony for a week when I went to my first boot camp, but I'd spent enough time with him to know to do whatever he said, for however long he said to do it. But somewhere between my Friday morning workout and Saturday boot camp, Tony morphed from a mild-mannered, soft-spoken trainer into a motivational drill sergeant.

At the end of the hour, which I thought would never end, I was still alive. Barely. All I could think about was how much I really did not want to do it again.

But then the other equally-as-tired contestants who had worked out alongside me that day, Bob, Jayne and Kristen, talked about doing it again the next week. Really? Yes, really.

Every Saturday morning you'll find us jumping rope, doing push-ups, squats, jumping jacks, presses with a weighted bar, or decked out in boxing gloves and pads sparring with a partner. Boxing and burpees ... don't ask!

Both Michelle and Tony have an endless supply of exercise options and boundless energy. Just like in the gym, their mission is clear. They want us to get stronger, and they push us further than we think we can go. They encourage us and don't let us give up.

After several weeks of boot camp, I'm exhausted every time, but I can do more, last longer and I get to the end of the hour really, really proud that I didn't quit on myself that first week.

As for the Army, well, I have no ambition to be the nation's oldest recruit. When Tony reads this, he'll breathe a sigh of relief remembering the morning he had me do an Army crawl across the gym. Let's just say there was a part of my anatomy that was supposed to be low to the ground that was sticking up way too high. I think what he wanted to communicate in his critique was that our country might be in greater peril with me in the Army than without me. “You'd have been shot in the #*$,” he said. He got his point across. I'll settle for surviving boot camp.

• Gerry Alger, editor of the Daily Herald's Niche Publications, has been sitting at a desk for 25 years.

Status report

Current weight: 168 pounds

Weight lost this week: 4 pounds

Total weight loss: 20 pounds, 10.6 percent