A thank you letter to the trainer who saved my life
Never underestimate the impact that one individual can have on a life. Not just those who are supposed to like a spouse, parent, or child, but someone who enters it as a total stranger in the unlikeliest of circumstances and ends up changing someone’s entire life – or even saving it. For me, one such person was my personal trainer, Paul Diaz.
Throughout this blog, I’ve told many stories about how Paul helped start me on this journey. He encouraged me, motivated me, and pushed me to do what I didn’t think was possible -- changing my body and my mind. But there’s an end to our story of training together that I haven’t yet told.
Six months after the pandemic hit, and with gyms still closed, Paul told me he was retiring from training. The timing was right for him to move on after many years in the business, and while the news hit me hard with a ton of emotions, the timing was right for me too.
Paul and I had been training together since November 2013. While I have already discussed the skepticism with which I approached that first session as someone who was out of shape, morbidly obese, and simply not what I imagined trainers were interested training, there’s more to the story than simply the fact that Paul told me that day that I was the reason he does this.
Much of that story will be told here in this thank you letter to Paul (who I call “P” while he calls me “A”) . . .
Hey P!
I just wanted to say “thank you” from the bottom of my heart for saving my life. When you told me a little more than four years ago that you were retiring from training, the news hit me like a ton of bricks. Not because I took it personally in any way, but because it was the end of a relationship that had transformed me into a new person. The news made me reflect on our part of my journey, and to be honest, I was in tears when you shared it with me. The tears came from my appreciation what you devoted to me and from the realization of what my life might have been had we never met. So, in essence, they were tears of joy for what we accomplished together and tears of gratitude for the life you saved.
We had not trained with each other for six months at that point because of the pandemic, but for six years we had a routine of two training sessions per week. We texted daily about workouts, eating habits, the science of fitness, and about life in general. In the beginning of our journey, you taught me to try to “win the week” by working out more days than not. When I failed at that, which was often, you never showed that you were discouraged, and the extent to which I was dejected by my own shortcomings had been lessened by your belief in me. As a result of that support, I now “win the day!”
After our very first training session, when you taught me to do a squat with the assistance of a chair to sit on, I went home motivated to work on squats. It was one or two sessions later that I told you to get rid of the chair. Later we added weight or resistance to them. The point here being that I learned from you quickly that this works! Ten years later, I’m doing hack squats with 330 lbs of weight on them, and I almost always win all 52 weeks in a year.
Thank you for making my fitness something that went beyond our training sessions. When I went away to trial in 2018, you sent me this list of high intensity strength training workouts designed to get me in and out of the gym as quick as possible during my busy schedule while still maintaining my fitness.
Thank you for teaching me that I have time to work out when I had no idea that I had the time to do so. Now, when I go to trial, I get in no less than 4-6 workouts each week. Sometimes I wake up as early as 4 AM to get in a long workout before the day starts, and other times my trial workouts are as short and efficient as what you sent me. On that note, thank you for also teaching me what constitutes a workout. As you said, “You can walk on a treadmill for an hour while eating a bag of chips, and that’s not a workout. But you can go really hard for 10 minutes and that is definitely a workout. So, you know it when you see it.”
Over and over, you taught me and trained me to get out of my comfort zone so much so that I now try to live almost entirely in that space. Perhaps the most unlikely of these lessons was when you somehow taught me (and my two left feet) to salsa dance, not only so that I could join your Salsa Bandz classes among your other students who truly knew the dance moves, but also so that I felt like I belonged there. The training method you invented of combining both of your passions – salsa dancing and strength training – is genius! Yet, when you would first tell me about it, I admitted thought that it was cool for you and your salsa friends, but it would never be for me.
You never made me do anything I wasn’t prepared to do, but you made me realize that I was prepared to do more than I thought. Whether fitness, lifestyle, or diet, you never once lectured me on what I needed to do better. Instead, you set the example by doing it all yourself and letting me figure out in my own way what I wanted to or needed to change. Today, I do my best to incorporate this method into how I approach this blog. I try my best not to tell others to do anything, but rather, I hope to share what works for me.
I’ve already told the story to my readers about the time I broke my foot and you had me back at the gym later that week with a routine set to work around the injury. But I wonder . . . did you even know that, at the time, you were not just making sure I kept to a training schedule, but you were also opening my mind to a whole new way of thinking about overcoming setbacks? Yes, as you always told me, I did it; I have it in me. But surely you were aware that while you knew that about me, I did not! Now, my hope is that any of my readers who may not realize that about themselves can learn the same lesson from you that I learned – that we all can overcome much more than we believe we can.
When the pandemic hit, it would be the first time in six years that we would go for such an extended time without training together – and gyms were closed! But thanks to what you had instilled in me by then, the day the lockdown began, I went to Amazon and ordered dumbbells, a weight bench, and a TRX (thankfully before they all went on backorder). I also had my Peloton and resistance bands, and I kept winning every week. I later added a rowing machine into my small New York City apartment that I fully converted into a home gym. At the end of a strength training workout that mirrored what we used to do, I texted you a “Boo-yah!” – which was how we ended each session as we fist-bumped.
At first, my workouts simply mirrored exactly what we were doing entering the pandemic with the same weight and exercises – that is, right up until you told me you were retiring. What happened next is why I will say (in the nicest way possible) that not only was it time for you to move on, but it was time for me to move on too. It was time for me to take my fitness into my own hands in ways I never had before.
Up until that point, all I knew was to take what you gave me and do what you told me to do. I knew what weight to use because it was the weight we had last used. My mindset was to do the workout, but I never thought about planning a workout based on moving forward with my fitness. Yet, I could not merely maintain the strength that I had from when we stopped training. I knew I had to keep doing more. You had always been doing this for me each time you planned our sessions, but it was time for me to learn this for myself. That I ever even had this thought was because of you!
Every time I thanked you for what you did for me, you told me with your unselfish humility, that I did it myself. While your praise was appreciated, I didn’t believe you, and to this day, I don’t think that’s true. You somehow had the magic formula to do what no one has ever done for me before. Yet, since that day you retired, I discovered my potential, and I proudly take credit for what I have accomplished since our training days ended. As a result of your commitment, I do even more. Not because you didn’t push me enough, but because you set this locomotive in motion at such a fast pace, that I cannot stop it from going harder, faster, and longer.
I can’t thank you enough for continuing to stay by my side to this very day for advice, motivation, and friendship. I’ve gone miles further than where we left off with our training, but only because you trained me to do that too.
It’s been over 10 years since that day I first walked into your gym feeling insecure and pessimistic about what was ahead, yet this turned out to be the best decade of my life. The reasons for that go back when you looked me in the eye at the end of that session when I was at my lowest and said, “You are the reason I do this.” Now I only hope you look back on that moment knowing that, for you, it was mission accomplished.
My life is forever changed thanks to you, P. I really could not have done it without you! And while this is “mission accomplished” for you, my journey continues. Not only by moving forward with my fitness, but also by accepting my responsibility to help others with all that I learned from you about fitness and life.
So, as your trainee, but more importantly, your friend, I once again say thank you for saving my life, and “Boo-yah!”
- A