The Biggest Loser......

 

The Biggest Loser….. Um, yeah....

So, this was week one of me being a trainer for this Biggest Loser contest that’s coordinated by a group of women in

Raleigh

. When I was asked to be a trainer I immediately jumped at the opportunity. I was so excited about helping people get fit, coming up with fun and challenging workouts, getting practice at training people and working out while I train people. It seemed like a total win/ win situation to me. So what could go wrong?......

I’ll tell you what went wrong. I didn’t consider the fact that the participants in the program are lazy and unmotivated people who don’t want to show up, aren’t genuinely interested in working out and want their fitness to be handed to them on a silver platter.

OMG

! People make appointments with me, then cancel them at the last minute with lame excuses. Others simply ignore me completely. I send text messages, face book messages and emails yet they never respond. WTH? They’re the ones who signed up for this program so why they should I have to chase them down?

I send them text messages in the morning to motivate them and remind them to be mindful about picking healthy breakfast foods. Do they even acknowledge them? But of course, NOT! I almost feel like I’m bothering them and it’s because they’re clearly NOT motivated to make serious lifestyle changes even with my direction and support.

This is week

ONE

out of a 90 day program. That’s right. I said a 90 day program!!!! Can I take a full 90 days of struggling to hand hold these people? We shall see. In order to survive this debacle I am going to have to re-asses my emotional investment. A.K.A I’m going to need to care less and be less available, which is easy because I actually have a life to live. So, I am going to pick 2 or 3 days out of the week that I am willing to allocate towards training these people. I’ll let them all know. If they decide NOT to show up, tough titty, not my problem. I will not allow them to stress me out.

Also, the program in and of itself is designed to fail. The participants are all spread out across Raleigh,

Cary

and other parts of NC. I’m in

Durham

. Only people who are dedicated to fitness are going to put any effort into traveling to

Durham

in order to meet with me. Meanwhile the program by nature is designed specifically for people who are NOT dedicated to fitness. So, the program is an oxymoron!

Last night was when I realized that this is all just a big waste of time because the people aren’t serious. They’re not going to put forth the required effort and if they lose any weight at all they will probably gain it back within two weeks after the program ends. I’m sure I sound like a pessimistic jerk but so what because it’s true.

Where does all this leave me? I’ll tell you where. It leaves me feeling like the real loser in all of this. That was a highly emotional response. Let me try it again. This leaves me way more aware of people’s attitudes towards fitness, health and exercise in general. This leaves me very grateful for my attitude towards my health and fitness. I feel grateful for having the motivation and ambition to workout regularly and to workout hard. This also leaves me even more grateful for being with a wonderful person who has the same attitude towards fitness as I do. I realize Gen and I are yet again outliers. People don’t give a damn about being healthy. I honestly don’t know what exactly they do give a damn about….

Also, I realize with all of this going on and the entire struggle I am experiencing I’m not yet deterred from training people. I still want to do it. However, I have decided that I need to train a different type of people because it will be more rewarding and fun for me. I need to train people who actually care, people who are already putting forth effort in their own way. I don’t need to be working with people who are so far gone that caring is out of reach. I am not interested in making people care. I am interested in helping people who already care in some way shape or fashion. I mean, I need SOMETHING to work with. I can’t make something out of nothing.

OK, I’ve literally exhausted myself with this rant but I just needed to get it out and off of my chest….

Ta Ta!