A message for the trainers in the audience...

Ok a quick public service announcement first...... *climbing up on table with megaphone*...... I did it, we did it, 274 pounds!!!!!! I know I am not supposed to focus on the number, but this was a big deal for me. I can't recall the last time I weighed less than 275 pounds. It had to be the mid 90's. If someone had asked me three months ago if I believed I could get here at all, let alone in this time frame, I would never have believed it or even considered it. Gui, I can't thank you enough for all the help and support, for kicking my butt, for putting me back on the wagon and dusting me off every time I fall apart. *jumps off table* (too bad I can't manage that in real life *grin*). Enough celebrating, lots of hard work ahead as I crawl towards 250!

Now, I hope the non-trainers reading this will forgive me. This is a targetted post. Gui, Tiffany, Kristin and even you "Murdering Meredith" and any others reading who I don't know are reading, this is targeted to you. I have a question for you, do you really get how much impact you have on people's live? Do you give yourselves credit for how much you come to mean to the people you work with? Ok, yeah two questions, I know!

I have already gone into, at length, my fears of being without my trainer. And hadn't intended to open that topic back up again. But in addition to the immenese gratitude I am feeling towards my trainer tonight, I also had an experience at the club tonight that just left me thinking about all this again.

Today was ab work with Gui, which tends to be more obvious to others, because you arent nicely tucked away on a machine. You are on the floor and quite obvious. Gui was also back in "cheerleader mode" *grin* and invisibility wasn't happening. I had noticed a woman watching us, but didnt think much of it at the time.

While I was changing after the workout she came up to me and said sheepishly "You work with Gui right?" Yes? "I really wanted to get to meet you". My two regrets from this conversation were 1) I never asked why she wanted to meet me and 2) I never got her name. But I was cordial and we started chatting. She then shared with had been working with a trainer she really liked and he had just transferred to another club. And how she had been watching us and thinking about that. She said she felt lost and had been crying over what to do next.

The timing of the conversation was rather ironic considering how hard I am working right now to try to become ok with being away and my own struggles over even temporarily being without a trainer.

This is also the third conversation in a week I have had or heard with people who used to work with the trainer who left and are feeling lost. And Mary Kay and I chatting around her trainer moving away was pretty much the same topic.

I have to admit I get the sense talking to Gui and some of the other trainers at the club, that most of you really don't get it. That while you see your jobs as meaningful, you don't get how much you change our lives and how much you become part of our lives. I realize to you we are one of many, but you need to understand to us you are so much more. I can say without a doubt, I didn't start down this path looking for any kind of meaningful relationship in my life, but I am now not sure you can truly be on this path without that bond.

It was funny, a comment was made today during my workout about me being like a child at times, while it was said in sarcasm because I was whining about not wanting to do something, thinking about it, in some ways that is how this all feels. I have not felt this lost at something, or felt like I had to try so hard with such slow progress and felt so insecure at something as I do with this journey since I was a child learning to read and tie my shoes. For a reasonably intelligent person who learns everything else in my life at a very fast pace, I do feel like a child at this. And just like a child you look for those teachers and mentors to guide the way and also to make it safe. And just like many of those teachers, you come to hold a special place in our lives! You become part of who we become!

I genuinely hope you realize even part of how much you mean to us and how valuable what you do is!