Where do I begin to tell you how life changing my Personal Training experience with Keri Mantie has been? This will sound trite but it is true, my personal training experience and relationship with Keri, have been profoundly life altering.
First just a little about me Mary Tangney. I am 56 years old. I have had almost no physical exercise activity in my life since my 20s. I am a workingwoman with a successful career and a full and happy personal life. I have been blessed in all ways possible. Because of my obesity and inactivity, what I didn’t have was good health. I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in the early 1990s. For years prior my primary care physician and told me my obesity gave me an 85% chance of becoming diabetic. Although I dieted “successfully”, losing weight many times, it was never a permanent weight loss. I saw dieting and exercise as something you did until you were at your goal and then life could resume as it was before. WRONG!
I joined Fitness Unlimited in October 2005. At that point, I had been dieting and had lost about 55 pounds. I started doing nothing but a treadmill workout 3 days a week. Slowly I increased to more days each week but I did nothing but the treadmill. I could barely do that even holding on for dear life. It took more than 6 weeks before I started walking without holding on, and I considered that a significant milestone. In February 2006, I made myself use the Elliptical trainer, it was an amusing experience but it was another step forward. You can see why I never saw myself as an exercise kind of person. Eventually, I made a half-hearted effort to do some strength training on the Nautilus equipment, but that was short lived. I resisted Personal Training for a long time. I said it was the cost but I really just didn’t want to exert the effort or commit to the time. What really motivated me was a co-worker who was also losing a lot of weight and was having great success having added personal training to her other lifestyle changes. I was more than a bit jealous of the obvious changes in her shape and stature with much less weight loss than I had already had. I decide to take the plunge into Personal Training and started in September 2006.
I chose Keri as my trainer based on her bio posted at Fitness Unlimited and seeing her on occasion in the cardio room. This was a big step in my commitment to a permanent lifestyle change – so I signed up for the package 20 one-hour sessions meeting with Keri twice a week. Based on where I was and where I wanted to be, I knew that anything less was totally insufficient. I was excited, but more so, I was nervous. Physically, I could not jump off the ground. I was to find that there were muscles that I could not isolate and tighten. Emotionally, I was embarrassed by my size and how I had abused my health and my body. How would this young, attractive, fitness professional judge someone like me? How could she ever understand me? I saw people like Keri and people like me as just plain different. Yet again I was totally WRONG!
From moment one Keri was friendly, kind, supportive, and non-judgmental. Keri wanted to know what my goals were and if I had any physical problems. She talked about how the training would start with work that would focus on muscles that are small but had to be prepared before we could move on to the more obvious muscles, heavier weights, and the exercises that people think about when doing strength training. She also started by commending me for making a 20-session commitment. Let me tell you, that first recognition meant an awful lot to me because to me it was a big commitment to me. Keri’s on-going recognition, encouragement, and praise have made me feel very differently about myself. They have been integral to my progress, and may I even say, my success.
When I hire an expert I have accepted that they have the knowledge and training that I do not, so I do what they tell me. I am interested in the why and the benefits of what I am doing, and I ask, but I do not say no. When Keri would add weights, or repetitions, or sets, I might be skeptical about my ability to meet the additional challenge but I would always try. For every attempt and every success there was Keri’s recognition and praise. Keri made me feel good about me in an area of my life I don’t ever remember feeling good about. Never for one session has there been a moment of boredom or sameness in my workouts. Never for one moment in our workouts has Keri ever seemed to be focused on anything except my performance and me. Every session starts with how I was after the last session and how I am now.
So how am I now? I have lost 26.75 pounds. I have gone from 6% excess body fat, to 0% excess body fat. I have increased by lean body mass, that’s the muscles, from 66.9% to 73.5%. I can run, I can jump, and I can lift, and push, and pull weights at levels I never expected. I can tighten any muscle in my body. My body can to what I want it to do. Then there are the more subtle but maybe more important things. I can stand on my feet for hours without my legs going numb; I can go up and down flights of stairs with ease; I can get down on the floor and get back up again; I can roll around in the back yard or run around a baseball diamond with my great-niece and great-nephews. I have the physical part of my life back that I thought was gone forever. I enjoy the everyday pleasure of a whole new posture and body carriage. It is nice to get compliments from others but the way I feel physically is without compare.
I have to close this with where I started – Keri. Keri is so dear to me and she always will be. She is at least 50% responsible for where I am physically, but she has given me so much more than the fitness and exercise tools to be physically fit. She has helped me realize that I have physical strengths and capabilities. She has uncovered a part of me that I didn’t believe existed. Keri showed me, and continues to show me, that fitness and healthy lifestyle are not things that some people are born with and some aren’t. It is all in the choices we make. Strangely enough Keri and I are making many of the same choices everyday. What food do I choose to eat today? How much do I choose to eat today? Do I choose to exercise today or do I choose sit in front of the TV today? I know that these are choices that I will have to make everyday for the rest of my life. There is no being done with health and fitness. That is exciting, that is empowering, because I can live an active and full life because I choose to. Keri is my personal trainer, my teacher, and my friend. I love her for what a great work she has done with me and for everything she has shared with me.
I recommend, from my heart, that you make a place I your life for Personal Training. You don’t have to do what I did. We each have to do what is right for us. I believe you will never be sorry for taking this step and then each step that follows.
Post Script 2011:
I wrote this testimonial back in 2006. Now in 2011 I am 60 years old. I continue working with Keri staying fit and still building strength. I remain at my normal healthy weight with the ups and downs that come with life events. The constants in my life that keep me healthy and fit are my fitness work and a diet that supports my work and my desire for a long, healthy, and active life.