Attitude

Last night, I went through some of my old "Diary of a Hot" girl posts. Some of the things I wrote in the seven months I worked with Gershom are hysterical. We really did have quite acidic conversations at times. But in the end, I always trusted him and I am forever grateful that he helped me get as far as I did before my sessions ran out and unemployment set in.

I'm still struggling to come up with a nickname for M. for the blog, because, to be honest, he's so much nicer than Gershom. Well, wait, that sounds awful. Gershom is a perfectly nice person, he's just very demanding as a trainer and he always held me to his sky-high expectations. Sometimes I thought that was rather mean. So I blogged accordingly.

I had a revelation last night--my inability to figure out a nickname for M. doesn't really have much to do with M. himself, and I doubt he's actually nicer than Gershom. The difference, this time around, is me. Perhaps M. seems nicer than Gershom because M. has a nicer Megan to deal with.

Gershom met me when I was 200 pounds and not a runner--not even a little bit. I had zero confidence in my athletic abilities and I was facing a long, long road of weight loss and lifestyle overhaul. It was daunting and flat-out frightening--and I was never sure I could actually pull it off. In my fear, I retreated into sarcasm and defensiveness. So Gershom responded in kind, because that is exactly what I needed from him. I think, in our earliest sessions, he didn't know whether or not he could believe in me, but he believed in his abilities as a trainer enough to give it a try. I rose to the occasion.

Now, after my first two appointments with M., I continue to have this positive, I-can-do-this attitude. Sure, some of the exercises he will make me do will be difficult, but I come to him with this completely different attitude. I know I'm strong. I know I am capable. I know that an exercise that is really difficult today will be a little bit easier tomorrow, and easier the next day, and the next, etc, until finally, one day, the exercise is doable.

So M., the lucky guy, gets Positive Meg, whereas Gershom had Desperate and Scared Meg. My attitude is the biggest deciding factor in how I perceive my trainers.

Some of the funniest blurbs from my past blogs are below. I laughed out loud reading them--not because I think I'm particularly funny but because it shows just how the dynamic between Gershom and I changed over time, as I started to believe in myself.

The other day, I blogged that I was referring to my trainer as G. the Meanie less and less. Well, we're back to Meanie status. He's going to make me run THREE miles on Friday. Non-stop. With him pushing me along. In public. We're going to do a big loop that I often run through my neighborhood. I hope it rains.

Another one--I was really hating him this day:

We started, as usual, at his desk. He picked up a medicine ball and said, "We have a teammate today." A medicine ball is basically a basketball, except that it only bounces about a foot off the ground because it weighs 10 pounds.

"This ball is not allowed to touch the ground AT ALL during our workout today. We'll take turns holding it."

"Okay..." I replied with a growing sense of forboding.

"We're going to do 20 minutes stairs, some Versa Climber, some sprints and some skips and see what time it is when we've done all that."

"Right." Oh, shit.

He walked briskly to the row of Stair Masters as I trudged behind. We had a new rule today--no holding on. He didn't seem to care that I have a near-constant feeling that I'm going to fall backwards off the damn machine to my certain death three feet below. "No excuses, Megan!"

  Honestly. M. the [TBD] is lucky to get me at this point in my training. : )