Three pints, tired Wednesday, skip the gym
That’s been the loop for longer than I’d like to admit. It’s also part of why this blog has been quiet for months, the gap between posts is basically a public log of my discipline slipping. Two or three nights a week at the pub with friends, a few pints, a great chat, and then a tired next day where the gym feels impossible. You skip it, you feel a bit rubbish, and the cycle locks in. So a few months ago I did something I’d never done before: I hired a personal trainer.
Why I started (the honest version)
A bit of context on the body I started with: 183 cm, 79 kg, and what the internet kindly calls skinny fat. Not heavy on the scale, but with a beer belly that has been weirdly resistant to everything I’d thrown at it. The sort of body where clothes hide it well and a mirror does not. I didn’t start because I wanted abs. I started because I’d run out of internal motivation and I knew it. Going to the gym alone, picking my own program, hoping I felt like it on the day, that clearly wasn’t working. I needed three things, and I knew a PT could deliver all of them:
- A reason to show up that wasn’t just willpower. Someone waiting for me at a specific time is a much louder cue than “I should probably go today.”
- Confidence that I’m not wrecking my form. I’ve been around gyms long enough to know that doing squats wrong for a year is worse than not squatting at all.
- A program built for me, not a YouTube generic. Posture has been a thing for me, and the skinny-fat starting point meant I needed someone to actually look at how I move and build from there. If you’ve read this post on fitness and behavioral science, this is basically me leaning into a commitment device on purpose. I knew the science. I just had to actually use it.
The setup
Here’s the reader-useful bit, since “is a PT worth it in Dublin?” is the kind of search I’ve done myself:
- Where: A small studio in Ashtown, Dublin.
- How often: Twice a week.
- Session length: 30 minutes.
- Cost: 450 euros for 10 sessions
- Duration so far: Three months in. Half-hour sessions sound short, but for someone who isn’t used to lifting, they’re plenty. There’s no scrolling between sets. There’s no “I’ll do one more later.” It’s dense.
What a session actually looks like
Most sessions follow the same shape. A short warm-up to get the joints moving and wake up the glutes (we started everything by working on glutes, apparently your posture starts there, which I did not know), then the main block, then a quick cool-down. The main block has rotated as I’ve progressed. In the early weeks it was glute work, leg curls, and reverse squats, building the foundation, fixing the way I stand. More recently we’ve added chest press and rows, with core exercises threaded through whatever else we’re doing. By the back end of the session my legs are usually shaking on the last set, and I walk out a little wobbly and a little proud. My trainer is genuinely motivating, took the time to understand what I actually wanted out of this, and built the program around it. He also handed me a food-tracking template, which I am… working towards using consistently. More on that in the honest part below.
Physical progress
I’m going to be honest: I haven’t been logging numbers from day one, which I now regret. I’ll cover the earlier weeks and starting weights in a future post once I’ve pieced them together. But here’s where my last session landed:
- Single-arm row – 18 kg
- Leg press – 45 kg
- Barbell press – 40 kg
- Barbell curl – 20 kg
- Lying cable reverse crunch – 25 kg
- Modest numbers if you’re an experienced lifter. For someone who started skinny fat, slightly out of breath, and slightly hungover three months ago; they’re a real signal that something is happening. Beyond the weights:
- I feel noticeably stronger, especially in my legs and back.
- My posture is better. Both in the mirror and in how my shoulders feel after a long day at a desk.
- I’m running 5km once a week, which sits comfortably alongside the PT sessions rather than fighting them.
- I’ve signed up for the Athletics Ireland Race Series | Irish Runner 5K Challenge to give myself something with a date on it. That last one is on purpose. A scheduled race is another commitment device because temporal discounting works against you when the goal is “be fitter someday”, but it works for you when the goal is “don’t embarrass yourself in two weeks.”
The behavioral side (the bit I find most interesting)
The strength gains are nice. The mental shift is bigger. What having a PT has actually done is outsource a decision I kept getting wrong. Twice a week, at a fixed time, I don’t have to decide whether to train. The decision has already been made by past-me, paid for, and put in a calendar. All I have to do is turn up. That’s habit formation as environmental design rather than willpower which, frankly, willpower has never won this fight for me. It’s also slowly shifting how I see myself. Three months in, I’ve caught myself saying “I’m heading to PT” to friends without it feeling like a costume. That’s the identity piece James Clear writes about, you don’t get fit by setting fitness goals, you get fit by quietly becoming the kind of person who trains. I’m not all the way there. But I’m closer than I’ve been in a while.
The honest part
I still drink. Not as much as I did, but the pub didn’t politely vacate Dublin when the PT showed up, and there are weeks where I do a great Tuesday session and then undo a chunk of it on Friday. The beer belly is taking notes. The food-tracking template is still mostly aspirational. And there’s a particular flavour of guilt that comes with paying for sessions while not nailing the rest of your week, something like the “I’m wasting this” voice, which is loud and not very helpful. I’m trying to hold both things at once: I’m doing more than I was, and I’m not doing as much as I could. Both are true. All-or-nothing thinking is one of the fastest ways I know to quit something, so I’m refusing to play that game with myself.
What’s next
- May 16th: the Phoenix Park run. Second proper race this year.
- A follow-up post walking through the earlier exercises and starting weights, so the next time I post numbers there’s a proper before-and-after.
- Actually using the food tracker. Even imperfectly. Even just three days a week to start.
- Eventually weaning off the PT, not yet, but at some point. The longer goal is the same one I wrote about months ago: build the habit well enough that I don’t need to outsource it. PT is the scaffolding, not the building.
Over to you
Have you worked with a personal trainer? Did it stick after you stopped, or did you slide back? And if you’re in Dublin and have a studio you love, drop it in the comments!
