Giving Back

I have a friend. He's a pretty big guy. We were talking the other day while my son was in his karate class. He was considering joining the gym where my wife and I train. He was asking me a few questions about the equipment, the staff, and such. One of his questions was about the cost for personal training. I told him that I didn't know, because I had never used the training staff at our gym. Beyond that point, I told him 2 very important things:

1) I told him about weightingon40.com (in addition to Transformation.com, which has been a huge help for me) and the wealth of information and encouragement a person can receive from this website, and

2) I told him that I would help him without charging him a cent.

We made arrangements to work out together. That was Friday.

Today, we met at the gym and took in a pretty solid upper body workout. He was puffing like a locomotive, but handled the workout like a champ. I think he said it was the first time he'd worked out in a gym in nearly 20 years.

I'm going to encourage him to take some before shots to start tracking his progress.  There's something about being able to have a point of reference to compare current condition to past condition.

What really felt good was being able to help a guy that wants to make a change get started down the path to fitness and overall health. We're getting together tomorrow morning for a 25 minute HIIT session. I look forward to the opportunityto help him further. I'll keep up with his progress as I blog about it here.

Let's hear it for my friend, Russ, who took the first step today towards reclaiming his health!

Comments

[Russ]

I will be the first to comment on this post. Yes, I am Russ and Keith is my friend. First to comment on a quote from Keith's post, "Today, we met at the gym and took in a pretty solid upper body workout. He was puffing like a locomotive, but handled the workout like a champ." It was more like a near death work out and I could barely breath afterwords. Just kidding buddy! :) I enjoyed having someone to guide and inspire my efforts to lose this extra person I have hanging on to me. For as long as I can remember..., my family members were all "BIG" people. I went threw allot of ups and downs as a kid. Little for some years, chubby for some and when I joined the Army in 1992 I was 161 lbs @ 20 years of age. I am 37 now and it saddens me to think what has happened over the years and I have tried to maintain a positive attitude towards myself, but most of us know what you actually feel inside. Keith you are the key that I hope will unlock the door to the me I've been missing. Thank you for having the courage and strength to accept a challenge such as myself and I wish you and I both success. Your friend, Russ