Special Women #5

Is there a woman...

...Who you've been greatly encouraged by?

This answer came to me quickly and easily: my personal trainer, DENISE.

When I first met Denise, I was most impressed by her friendly, welcoming attitude. I was attending a workshop she was conducting on proper use of fitness balls. As usual, I was the biggest person in the room and very intimidated by this fit, gorgeous instructor, thinking that I had made a huge mistake coming to the class. My experience was quite the opposite.

Denise led the class and never once made me feel like I didn't belong in it. When I had trouble doing a certain move, instead of pointing me out, she would just make a general statement to the group like "if this isn't working for you, try this instead."

Last June, she offered the first of many Boot Camp sessions: 3 mornings a week at 6:00 a.m. for 3 weeks of intense workouts. I gingerly signed up and once again was quite relieved that she made me feel welcome and 'one of the girls' even though the skinny girls stared at me and sneered quite a bit. Denise never for a minute treated me any differently than she did the skinny girls.

Since then, I've completed 3 more sessions of boot camp, a couple of sessions of cardio kick boxing and lots of personal training with Denise. Each time I think about trying something new in the gym, I always ask her "do you think I can do this? Her answer most often is "well, I think you can, but the question is do you think you can?"

She has encouraged me to work on being healthy and not obsess about numbers on the scale. Through her confidence in me and my abilities, I have built my own confidence and self-esteem in addition to strentghening and toning my body. I have become more at peace with my own body and the shape that it's in because she has taught me that it's ok to be a big girl. She pushes me beyond what I think are my limits and makes my try things that I would never even dream about trying on my own.

And, of course, she kicks my ass every time I go to the gym.

Until next time,

Kel