My Personal Trainer

My personal trainer has no large intestine. She is my age, perhaps a few years younger, and she is a colon cancer survivor.

This introduces an interesting dynamic into our relationship. She once weighed 130 pounds of fitness and muscle. Due to her illness, and the resulting aftereffects, she now weighs under 110. We were at the YMCA yesterday; usually we work out in my home gym but yesterday was our scheduled 30 day fitness assessment, and we needed to use some equipment that I don't have. So after the assessment, we went to the locker room to fetch our purses and she decided to get on the scale. She was devastated to see that her weight is down to 104 pounds. She's 5'7". Needless to say, she's very thin and she does not like it.

So she and I are working toward fitness from opposite ends of the spectrum. One could easily and rightfully say that my challenge is much easier than hers - I do, after all, have a fully functioning digestive system and as far as I know all my hormones and blood levels and everything else that goes into weight management are in check. I just need some behavioral modifications, and I am working on them.

When we are working out together and I see us in the mirror, I feel like a big, bulky oaf. She has looked at herself in the mirror while next to me and said "Look at this!", grabbing her upper arm with her fingers nearly touching around it. "My arm used to be as big as yours!"

A large part of my own career involves coaching and motivating and helping people set and reach goals. One day this week, while my trainer was coaching me through the "Arms and Shoulders" DVD on P 90 X, she said "I wish I could do this with you. It looks so great!" I said "Why CANT you do it with me?" She said, "Because I'm here to help YOU". I told here there is NO reason, especially not some established trainer/client dynamics expectation, why she can't work out along side me, while we train. I've been working out long enough that for the most part, I know the moves. I just need the scheduled appointment of someone showing up at my house so that I can't make ANY excuses. I have to do the program. She serves that purpose well.

And I think it would be an interesting symbiosis, to work together toward a common goal. Right now, the differences in our bodies as we look at ourselves in the mirror together are exaggerated. But we're both traveling down different roads to the same destination - a body we can look at in the mirror that doesn't reflect our past tragedies and transgressions, but instead reflects the present care and love and time we are investing in making those bodies as healthy and beautiful as they can possibly be. I think I will talk to her about directly creating a plan to arrive at this same destination together.