Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
GulfWeekly Editor Stan Szecowka sets on the path of a 'dream' body in a bid to lose weight and get fit ... but will he succeed?
They call today's 50s yesterday's 30s and that's great if you're not feeling nearly 60 and aged only 49.
The doctor's worried about your blood pressure, you're finding it hard enough to put on your socks in the morning let alone touch your toes and you know if you don't do something about losing the excess weight around your middle you're heading for a coronary.
Work colleagues call it 'the Bahrain tummy' - good food, warm weather and easy lifestyle add up to an expanding waist.
Then suddenly some cool dude puts an advert in your newspaper suggesting you can transform your body in just 23 minutes.
Now, that's all well and good if you're already a lean, mean fighting machine and a martial arts master to boot.
But the man behind the venture, Suhail Algosaibi is also a shrewd businessman and how could he refuse the offer of free promotional space if I could put his boast to the test?
Quite easily, as it turned out. At first he declined, not that he doubted he could 'melt away the ugly fat' and finally help me get my 'dream body'... he was concerned that I didn't have the staying power.
A bitter experience involving a local writer who hadn't lasted the course at an unrelated establishment was still doing the rounds on the island.
So, we made a compromise - I wouldn't publish anything about my three-month journey until AFTER the event and when I did, he could NOT see or change a word before it went into print.
Trust is a two-way thing.
So I started my Fat Boy, Slim(er) Stan Diary (apologies to aging British music maestro Fat Boy Slim and Helen Fielding, the author of Bridget Jones) and set off on my quest.
The directions to the premises were clear - head towards the Ritz-Carlton Hotel & Spa, do a u-turn at the roundabout and on the right will be the Elite building and tucked alongside it a pink-coloured venue marked the Dream Body Centre.
At the entrance I met Suhail, author of the Ultimate Self Defence Book, owner of the Zen-Do Bahrain martial arts school, business entrepreneur, father-of-two with one on the way.
He was genuinely complimentary about my GulfWeekly ... so if he's one of my readers, he's all right with me. He was helpful and patient as he revealed the magic of circuit training and explained how the hydraulic machines worked.
It was certainly not like any gym I'd ever seen before - not that I have often frequented such establishments apart from walking past a few in various hotels on the way to breakfast.
What I liked about the Dream Body Centre was that there were no piles of weights to be intimidated by and no mirrors to reflect what a depressing fatty I had become.
The buzzer sounds every 30 seconds to tell you to move swiftly to the next station. Twice round the circuit, in around 23 minutes and you're ready to shower and be away.
Three times a week, for three months and I would be a new man, a new Stan. Well, let's wait and see.
One month on - See next week's GulfWeekly.
