Over the next two months we will bring you a weekly diary with Esther Bascome.

The HWP customer service representative is undertaking the annual 100-Day Challenge fitness programme in an effort to lose weight and bring down her high blood pressure and cholesterol.

The challenge pits two teams against each other to see which team will become the most fit.

After a struggling start, Esther Bascome is getting into the groove of the 100-Day Challenge and has lost 20lbs.

She also survived the first elimination round in February.

“Last weekend we went to Magnum Power Force Gym and did combat training,” she said. “It is actually aerobic exercise. You are learning different punches. I also do that at my gym with my trainer. I actually like it.”

Mrs Bascome has noticed that she is not as tired as she used to be after training, and her fitness level has picked up. But she said she still has a long way to go.

The previous Saturday the 100-Day Challenge Teams played tennis, and Mrs Bascome also enjoyed this.

“I liked it so much, I might arrange private lessons,” she said. “I used to play in my twenties.”

She said during the elimination process held in February she was pretty confident she wasn’t going to be eliminated because she had lost the most weight out of all the women in her team.

“It was sad that my other two colleagues had to go,” she said. “Now the group is really gelling because it is six of us.

“We are so in tune with each other. It will be weird to have someone else leave.

“The two people who were eliminated had both lost weight, they just had lost the least weight of everyone in the group.”

Mrs Bascome said the next elimination round will be even harder.

“The coach keeps saying: ‘One of you has to go. It depends on

you who goes!’.”

For the next Saturday boot camp the 100-Day Challenge teams will be pulling an aeroplane out of a hanger at Longtail Aviation.

“I am not very competitive,” said Mrs Bascome. “Some of my teammates are. They want to win challenges, but I am there to get fit and healthy and to lose weight.”