Motor-Mouth Mabel

One thing that drives me crazy is personal trainers who don’t work out. There’s a woman that I work with who has been a trainer at the country club for 15 years. IMHO, she likes her job because she likes to talk – and boy can she talk! She yammers about mindless drivel all day long.

Motor-Mouth Mabel is fortunate in that she has a naturally slim figure. I suppose that this is a problem because she doesn’t have to exercise or eat right in order to maintain her weight. MMMabel has a family history of high cholesterol. About six months ago she got a checkup from her doctor. I think her total cholesterol was somewhere around 230 or 250 & her doctor wanted to put her on Lipitor or some other medicine in order to lower it. But first, they would try lowering it with diet & exercise. I remember her saying at the time “It just ain’t gonna happen.”

So MMMabel started performing 30 minutes of cardio most days of the week. Occasionally she would walk in the neighborhood, but I think she preferred to do it in the club on one of the elliptical machines because then she could talk to whichever victim happened to be on a cardio machine next to her.

She asked me about diet changes – most of my suggestions she dismissed, but she did implement one; adding fiber to her diet through the use of Metamucil.

Fast forward 3 or 4 months – MMMabel was able to lower her total cholesterol 20 points! That’s fantastic – but it wasn’t enough to get below 200. As a result, she agreed to go on medication in order to lower it further.

Since that time, I have not seen her on any cardio equipment nor have I seen her walking the neighborhood. It’s no wonder that I don’t see any change in her clients appearance. I think they choose her for their trainer so that they can say that they workout, but it’s easy & they get the day’s gossip.

Be careful what you ask for

I’ve been toying with firing Mr. Money. I mean, I like having the income, but he doesn’t allow me to do my job – and that’s frustrating.

I see him Monday, Wednesday & Friday mornings. Sunday evening I received a voicemail from him saying that he was cancelling our appointment because he played golf earlier that day & his back was hurting. He didn’t want to aggravate it with working out. Oh My Lord!

Tuesday afternoon I get another call from him saying that he just got back from the doctor & they think he’s ruptured a disk. I’ve tentatively canceled all of our remaining appointments.

So here’s a man who had back surgery about a two years ago. Again, he knows what helps him (personal training, swimming, massage, yoga & chiropractic) and what hurts him (his Mercedes SL, tennis (although he’ll deny it), soccer, & golf). Because he couldn’t take it easy, he may never be able to do those things again – and then some.

Mr. Money

I see Mr. Money 3 times a week. Mr. Money had back surgery a few months before we started working together, which was almost 2 years ago. He’s in his mid-fifties, is a wealthy business man.

Money is about 50lbs overweight. About 1 1/2 years ago, he offered me an incentive: if I helped him lose 30 lbs by Christmas 2006, he would give me $5000. Great! Cha-ching. Let’s start with a food journal. Every week I would ask him for his food journal & I never got it. I’m still waiting for it. When asked what he ate, he’d respond with “I only eat healthy foods – fish, salads, fruits, vegetables.” Well, at least he knows the right answers to give.

Because of his back problems (aggravated by his 50 lbs of belly fat) he flat out refuses to do certain exercises stating that they hurt his back. I am limited to about 10 exercises that he will do. He is a naturally very strong man, yet he refuses to exercise at his potential. The weight he will allow me to put on allows him to do ~30 repetitions, yet he stops at random numbers. I have instructed him to do 15 repetitions per set, but many times he will count to 12 & stop. When I ask him why he didn’t continue to 15 he states, “You didn’t tell me how many I was supposed to do.” On the Assisted Pull-up machine, he stops at 8 regardless of the resistance. I don’t know why.

My appointment with Money is scheduled for 7:30 – 8:30 in the morning, however our appointments end at 8:10. Initially it was because his business partner had some health problems & his workload had increased. I don’t think that’s ever going to go back to the full hour. Honestly, considering how many exercises I can’t do with him, I don’t know what we would do for the full hour anyway.

Money likes to play tennis. Tennis hurts his back because of all of the twisting from running back & forth across the court, and reaching for the ball. Yet, he still plays. Playing tennis has aggravated his back on many occasions that he has had to cancel appointments with me.

Now, I want to mention that the country club has a policy that if a client cancels an appointment with less than 24 hours notice, we must charge the client. I get paid for these unscheduled cancellations. My beef here is that this man is doing something that he KNOWS is not good for his body – not only not good for his body, but something that hurts – yet he continues to do it.

About a month ago, Money decided that it was a good idea to play golf one day, and then later on, play soccer too. Since then, his back has been worse than it has ever been. His response? “I’m Stupid”

Yes sir, you are.

Blondie

—–Original Message—–
From: blondie
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 10:13 PM
To: dumbelle
Subject: Tomorrow’s Appointment

Hey there! Sooo I messed up my foot, possibly just bruised the bone, but it hurts like hell to move. Sadly I injured it after seeing a bug, screaming, jumped backwards onto some dry leaves and slipped and fell. Anyway, I doubt it’ll be in working condition by tomorrow. I’ll keep you updated on it, luckily, I don’t think its broken.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

So this is how I spend my life. I am a personal trainer,  and nutritionist. I used to be a desk jockey, but wanted to make a difference in the world. I decided that I wanted to help people lead healthier lives through healthy attitudes, good food, exercise and daily activity.

I spend my personal training time working between two different locations. I work in a fitness center in a country club, and I also work independently out of a small personal training studio.

Although I come to this profession with good intentions, and I believe my clients have good intentions at the get go, I just have some of the most bizarre interactions with them. They wear me down.

The purpose of this blog is hopefully make you laugh, and keep me from crying or going insane. Through each post I’ll introduce my clients to you, and you’ll get to know & love them as I do.

Meet Blondie. Blondie is a Country Club client. She’s 20 years old, and attends a nearby university. You might be wondering, “How does a 20 year old college student belong to a country club?” Well, she doesn’t; but Daddy & Mummy do. Blondie also has an apartment in an expensive part of town, used to drive a Land Rover Discovery, has a kitchen stocked by Williams Sonoma, and frequently shops at Neiman Marcus for Diane von Fursenberg wrap dresses.

I don’t think that Blondie has any concept of money. But then, why would she? Her parents give her anything that she would want. Recently, she traded her Land Rover in for a Toyota Prius (by the way, she canceled her appointment with me at the last minute that day also – so that she could buy her new car). Within a few hours of having her new car, her boyfriend wrecked it – bad enough that it had to go into the shop for a few days to get fixed.

Blondie wants nothing more than to be thin. The problem is that up until about 2 years ago, she was quite obese. To her credit, she’s worked her a** off (quite literally) to get to where she is today. Unfortunately, she had her gallbladder removed which seems to have changed her metabolism. Now she’s gaining some of the weight back without changing her eating habits.

I have no doubt that she will be getting some sort of plastic surgery in the future.