A letter…

It high time I wrote a letter to the Head Trainer at All Star  Fitness so I sat down with some tea at Starbucks and hand wrote the following:

Robbie,

This letter is long in coming. I spent hours wondering how to put down in words the life changing experience I’ve had since walking through the doors of Allstar Fitness back in april of this year. The beginning is probably the best place to start. December 29th 2009 I decided I had had enough of living the life laid out before me. I weighed 263.5 pounds. I was depressed and my life had come to a screeching halt. I had just celebrated my 40th birthday and I realized if I didn’t start to move and move with purpose, I wasn’t going to have too many more chances to get my life back.

December 30th I began to move. It wasn’t much, but it was more than I was used to. I took stairs instead of elevators. I parked as far away as possible from buildings and began walking on my lunch breaks. I began to eat consciously and slowly the weight came off. This was a fight to save my life. I promised myself that I would take the first 30 pounds off myself, then join a gym. The day the scale said 233.5 I walked into Allstar. I’ve never been a  card-carrying member of a gym before and to say I was intimidated would be an underestimation of how I really felt.

With the membership came the free assessment with the trainers and after acclimating myself for a few weeks I took the plunge and set my first appointment with Kent (Superman). I hear stories about people having bad experiences with trainers and having to try a few out before finding the right match. I never had that problem. Kent and I hit it off right away. He saw something in my that I never saw in myself: Potential. Kent is very much a “get down to business” kind of trainer. I am very much a “get down to business” kind of person. We made a great team and over the course of two months he helped me lose an additional 20+ pounds. He set a fire inside of me to become what I was born to be: an athlete.

Due to unforeseen circumstances beyond both of our control I had to transfer my remaining sessions to another trainer in June. Kent had set the standards pretty high so I had to be firm with my choice. I’d been watching trainers for a few weeks knowing a choice had to be made. One particular trainer caught my eye: Chuck Carone (Godfather). Every morning I would watch him with his clients and I knew I needed to be a part of his team. By the end of our first session together I knew I wouldn’t need to keep looking for a new trainer. Kent set the fire to become an athlete. Chuck has made me an athlete.

Chuck sees in me things I never knew possible. He sees strength and determination. He sees me as a stronger, fitter, faster person. I’ve been with Chuck for close to 2 months. When we first started training together I weighed 213 pounds. As of this letter I weigh 183 pounds. I am stronger today than I have ever been. When I didn’t believe in myself, Chuck believed in me. When my thoughts are full of “I can’t”, Chuck shows me that I can. When I am tired and cranky and dragging my feet into the gym at 6am for our session, he is full of energy and has a smile and enthusiasm that is contagious. I don’t know how other people feel about Chuck, but he has become an extremely important person in my life. A coach. A trainer. A mentor and a friend.

In all honesty he not only makes me want to become a better athlete; he makes me want to become a better person.

There are very few people who I look to as role models and even fewer people I aspire to be. Chuck is easily on the top of both of those lists.

~ Tara Martin