When we finally understood that it was a gym that was opening up across the road, there were many heated debates at the office and in the home about my weight and overall appearance. The consensus was to go - spend an hour for myself and just be healthy. I was not convinced. Eventually lola subscribed to the gym and told Eduardo, the gym sales person, that he should call me as I would never come by myself. So he did and that's how I enrolled in the gym.
one of the "free" services was a body check - basically an assessment of how fat you were and how much work you needed to put in to lose weight. when the gym finally opened on may 5, i got a call not so long after from Roberto - a personal trainer, who had seen that i wanted a body check and he was going to do it for/with me.
so i eventually met with Roberto and at the start of all of this i weighed 66.5kgs and was always out of breath and i couldn't even run with jordan. so i figured, i had to do something. at the end of the body check, Roberto offered his services of a personal trainer and asked if that was something i was interested in. he told me his rates and when i thought it over, it seemed reasonable. so i agreed to do 5 sessions with him.
at the same time, i tried to go to the classes. at a certain point, i managed to do one class 4 times a week. monday nights are with daniele for ntc, tuesdays are with junior for full body, wednesdays are step with alessia and thursday was roberto's time - sort of, otherwise, back to junior.
we were on for the 3rd session when he told me something happened to his knee and he had a problem and had to cancel on me. it sounded serious. so after monday's class, i asked daniele if he also did personal training. i explained that i was training with Roby but something happened to his knee and i wasn't sure when he was coming back again etc.and i wanted to get an idea of how much we're paying PT's. anyway, dani is expensive and he explained his whole methodology (initially you have to see him twice a week - that's already 8 sessions a month) but this was late and i was tired and hungry and the cleaning crew wanted to clean - so the conversation was cut kind of short. but i walked away knowing he was expensive and that i was not ever going to go with him.
so i had seen dani again in the gym and he said, hey, we haven't finished our conversation yet. give me your number, which i answered very lamely, i don't have my phone. ok, let me give you my number, which i just shook my head and he's like, here's my business card. so i took it.
a week after, he says, hey you haven't called me yet. i didn't know what to say, i still wanted to talk to roby first anyway. and then another time, he just told me to call him. i felt bad at this point. so i sent him a message to say i was really sorry i hadn't called because i was insecure with my bad italian and was afraid we'd misunderstand each other. i told him when he has time before or after a class i'd find him and we'd talk.
roby was finally returning to work and we found an afternoon where we could agree to train. so just as small talk, i told him about dani and his work ethic and his price. roby was far from impressed. he was pissed. he told me that dani's first response should have been, if you're training with roby, stay with roby and when you're done come to me and we can have a conversation all together. instead, dani told me that to have a reasonable price with him (reasonable being 45euro an hour) i'd have to subscribe to 20 sessions - I have commitment issues. I could barely commit to meeting Roby for 5 sessions I was not going to commit to 20. besides, roby was more cost effective.
when I say roby was pissed, he was pissed. he made me work and sweat and be out of breath and I know he was pissed because while I was on the ski mill he asked, ok, I want to know what you would have done had dani been cheaper. I was dying. out of breath and wheezing, I just went, ok, the honest truth is that I thought he was cute so I asked him. I was never going to train with him. to which he was just like, yeah, right. I took a selfie with him and posted it on IG asking for his forgiveness, although I was sure he had already gotten his revenge.
then jordan's birthday happened and then we were off to abruzzo for a week - so no gym during this period. the Monday of being in abruzzo, dani sent me a message, are you coming to class today, lets talk. i was like, oh shit, whats going on. he said, no, nothing, lets just make an appointment. i was like ok, lets talk after class the week after as i'm out of town.
when i showed up to class, he was already a bit different. the first thing he said to me was, are you training with roberto and i said yes. he said ok, finish up with him and then lets talk calmly. it was the way that he dismissed me and the conversation that made me pause a bit. at the end of the class, i asked him if he was mad, he said no.
so last week, tuesday at 6pm i trained with roby and i asked him, have you spoken to dani, and he said yes, of course. He continued, dani gave me some bullshit that he confused you with someone else and he's very sorry for the confusion and he didn't know. and I just said, dude, what the fuck are you saying. regardless when someone tells you they are training with someone else the first reaction is to say finish with the other guy then come to me. at this point, I kinda realized, oh fuck, what the hell did I just do.
so monday (today is friday), i went to ntc class and afterwards, dani asked if the group wanted to go for a pizza. 8 said yes. i decided i'd go to as it was a good chance to get to know the classmates, practice my Italian and just to make new friends. there's another daniele from bergamo in the class who is the class clown, he's super nice - marine guy. so dani the marine was going on and on about no carbs after class especially during the night. particulary considering that we had just died on the obstacle course dani the trainer had made us go through.
I went home to shower (I haven't showered ever at the gym, nor gone to the spa. I really should, but I feel guilty for being away for too long) checked that both kids were sleeping and went to join them. by the time we sat down, it was 10pm. I met Federica, an accountant and Leonardo, the guy just next to me.
at dinner, dani the trainer was still insisting that everyone have a slice of pizza, to which almost everyone did. and he was even trying to convince me to eat. he's argument? come to the gym tomorrow and work it off, but now, just have a slice. it was 10.30 pm. I resisted. no to pizza. Federica was across me, Leonardo to my right and dani the marine across him. they were having a serious conversation about the trash in rome. I tried to make small talk with federica but she just wasn't as open. anycase, I forgot how it happened but then the marine and I started talking in English. Federica then felt even more out of place. dani made a comment that we were talking in English and he had the girl beside him went to Federica to talk to her, while I continued to converse with the marine. this brought Gloria, the girl beside the marine, who is a vegetarian to say she can speak English too. the girl next to her, a Hungarian, spoke English too and the girl who went with dani, was concerned that we had to switch languages for my benefit. I thanked all the girls but I did want to practice my Italian but the marine and I continued in English and he told me, I liked practicing English. slowly the food started to arrive and finally also my salad. half way through, lola calls me. Jordan is crying and I should come home. the reason why she was pissed at me was because she was watching the end of money heist and firmly believed she should not be comforting my son. I should do it and not be out having dinner.
I explained to the immediate four around me that I had a crisis at home and had to leave. I left 20euro with Leonardo for my part, although I probably should have left it with dani. anyway. I left.
that night, dani leaves me a voice mail that my euro10 change is with him and I should get it from him.
tuesday was my last session with roby for various reasons but i have to renew the 5 session package as ralph already gave me money for it. so for the first time ever we trained early, at 5pm. our sessions are normally at 8. I walk up to the weight room, and dani is already there training some guy. he looks at me and says I got your money. i'm like, well, I can't take it now, let me get it later. I apologize for abruptly leaving and he says not to worry about it. then I go to the treadmill as I always do to warm up. then roby finds me. 45 mins into our training session and as first times go, dani walks in with the girl he's training. he says hello to roby and says, make her (me) work hard as she had a pizza last night.
roby was a bit confused. why does he know what you ate? did you have a pizza during the day? I was really defensive. that's not what I had for dinner. I had a salad. and then dani crosses the room as was like, yeah, no, no i'm kidding, she was good she had a salad. he kind of just shrugged it off thinking that I had pizza during the day. then i told him about the marine saying no carbs at night. so he asked, wait, did you or did you not go and have pizza? i went but not to have pizza. at this point my legs had cramped up and we were on the machine to do sit up rolls. he said, time out is over. I started to protest, but my legs have cramped up. he says, doesn't matter, we're working your core. go. me: my legs hurt. roby: I don't care, start your sit ups.
needless to say, he was pissed again. but I couldn't quite understand why. we did our stretching and he was so different from the week before. he was distant and cold. even when I tried to make him laugh. he wasn't having it. we said our goodbyes and he was convinced I wasn't going to train with him anymore....something I should tell neo about, my extra money is going to a personal trainer. although I wrote to him now telling him that I actually do miss our sessions so when he's back on the 20th to let me know and we'll organize something.
goodness, this was a post with no real direction just sharing the very weird and awkward interactions I've had at the gym.
post script:
I wrote dani a message that I wasn't going to coming to the gym for the rest of the week and that we're leaving on Saturday for two weeks, if he wouldn't mind keeping the 10 for me and giving it back the week of the 13th. he told me to come down straight away. he gave me 20 instead! and then I owed him money. not wanting to drag this thing on forever because I really couldn't visit the gym the rest of the week, I decided to pass by on Wednesday to give him his change back and since I had made mochi and almond bars, give him those. he was very surprised and quite happy about it.
so we're off. no more gym misadventures for a solid 14 days. I hope I don't have any other misadventures.
one of the "free" services was a body check - basically an assessment of how fat you were and how much work you needed to put in to lose weight. when the gym finally opened on may 5, i got a call not so long after from Roberto - a personal trainer, who had seen that i wanted a body check and he was going to do it for/with me.
so i eventually met with Roberto and at the start of all of this i weighed 66.5kgs and was always out of breath and i couldn't even run with jordan. so i figured, i had to do something. at the end of the body check, Roberto offered his services of a personal trainer and asked if that was something i was interested in. he told me his rates and when i thought it over, it seemed reasonable. so i agreed to do 5 sessions with him.
at the same time, i tried to go to the classes. at a certain point, i managed to do one class 4 times a week. monday nights are with daniele for ntc, tuesdays are with junior for full body, wednesdays are step with alessia and thursday was roberto's time - sort of, otherwise, back to junior.
we were on for the 3rd session when he told me something happened to his knee and he had a problem and had to cancel on me. it sounded serious. so after monday's class, i asked daniele if he also did personal training. i explained that i was training with Roby but something happened to his knee and i wasn't sure when he was coming back again etc.and i wanted to get an idea of how much we're paying PT's. anyway, dani is expensive and he explained his whole methodology (initially you have to see him twice a week - that's already 8 sessions a month) but this was late and i was tired and hungry and the cleaning crew wanted to clean - so the conversation was cut kind of short. but i walked away knowing he was expensive and that i was not ever going to go with him.
so i had seen dani again in the gym and he said, hey, we haven't finished our conversation yet. give me your number, which i answered very lamely, i don't have my phone. ok, let me give you my number, which i just shook my head and he's like, here's my business card. so i took it.
a week after, he says, hey you haven't called me yet. i didn't know what to say, i still wanted to talk to roby first anyway. and then another time, he just told me to call him. i felt bad at this point. so i sent him a message to say i was really sorry i hadn't called because i was insecure with my bad italian and was afraid we'd misunderstand each other. i told him when he has time before or after a class i'd find him and we'd talk.
roby was finally returning to work and we found an afternoon where we could agree to train. so just as small talk, i told him about dani and his work ethic and his price. roby was far from impressed. he was pissed. he told me that dani's first response should have been, if you're training with roby, stay with roby and when you're done come to me and we can have a conversation all together. instead, dani told me that to have a reasonable price with him (reasonable being 45euro an hour) i'd have to subscribe to 20 sessions - I have commitment issues. I could barely commit to meeting Roby for 5 sessions I was not going to commit to 20. besides, roby was more cost effective.
when I say roby was pissed, he was pissed. he made me work and sweat and be out of breath and I know he was pissed because while I was on the ski mill he asked, ok, I want to know what you would have done had dani been cheaper. I was dying. out of breath and wheezing, I just went, ok, the honest truth is that I thought he was cute so I asked him. I was never going to train with him. to which he was just like, yeah, right. I took a selfie with him and posted it on IG asking for his forgiveness, although I was sure he had already gotten his revenge.
then jordan's birthday happened and then we were off to abruzzo for a week - so no gym during this period. the Monday of being in abruzzo, dani sent me a message, are you coming to class today, lets talk. i was like, oh shit, whats going on. he said, no, nothing, lets just make an appointment. i was like ok, lets talk after class the week after as i'm out of town.
when i showed up to class, he was already a bit different. the first thing he said to me was, are you training with roberto and i said yes. he said ok, finish up with him and then lets talk calmly. it was the way that he dismissed me and the conversation that made me pause a bit. at the end of the class, i asked him if he was mad, he said no.
so last week, tuesday at 6pm i trained with roby and i asked him, have you spoken to dani, and he said yes, of course. He continued, dani gave me some bullshit that he confused you with someone else and he's very sorry for the confusion and he didn't know. and I just said, dude, what the fuck are you saying. regardless when someone tells you they are training with someone else the first reaction is to say finish with the other guy then come to me. at this point, I kinda realized, oh fuck, what the hell did I just do.
so monday (today is friday), i went to ntc class and afterwards, dani asked if the group wanted to go for a pizza. 8 said yes. i decided i'd go to as it was a good chance to get to know the classmates, practice my Italian and just to make new friends. there's another daniele from bergamo in the class who is the class clown, he's super nice - marine guy. so dani the marine was going on and on about no carbs after class especially during the night. particulary considering that we had just died on the obstacle course dani the trainer had made us go through.
I went home to shower (I haven't showered ever at the gym, nor gone to the spa. I really should, but I feel guilty for being away for too long) checked that both kids were sleeping and went to join them. by the time we sat down, it was 10pm. I met Federica, an accountant and Leonardo, the guy just next to me.
at dinner, dani the trainer was still insisting that everyone have a slice of pizza, to which almost everyone did. and he was even trying to convince me to eat. he's argument? come to the gym tomorrow and work it off, but now, just have a slice. it was 10.30 pm. I resisted. no to pizza. Federica was across me, Leonardo to my right and dani the marine across him. they were having a serious conversation about the trash in rome. I tried to make small talk with federica but she just wasn't as open. anycase, I forgot how it happened but then the marine and I started talking in English. Federica then felt even more out of place. dani made a comment that we were talking in English and he had the girl beside him went to Federica to talk to her, while I continued to converse with the marine. this brought Gloria, the girl beside the marine, who is a vegetarian to say she can speak English too. the girl next to her, a Hungarian, spoke English too and the girl who went with dani, was concerned that we had to switch languages for my benefit. I thanked all the girls but I did want to practice my Italian but the marine and I continued in English and he told me, I liked practicing English. slowly the food started to arrive and finally also my salad. half way through, lola calls me. Jordan is crying and I should come home. the reason why she was pissed at me was because she was watching the end of money heist and firmly believed she should not be comforting my son. I should do it and not be out having dinner.
I explained to the immediate four around me that I had a crisis at home and had to leave. I left 20euro with Leonardo for my part, although I probably should have left it with dani. anyway. I left.
that night, dani leaves me a voice mail that my euro10 change is with him and I should get it from him.
tuesday was my last session with roby for various reasons but i have to renew the 5 session package as ralph already gave me money for it. so for the first time ever we trained early, at 5pm. our sessions are normally at 8. I walk up to the weight room, and dani is already there training some guy. he looks at me and says I got your money. i'm like, well, I can't take it now, let me get it later. I apologize for abruptly leaving and he says not to worry about it. then I go to the treadmill as I always do to warm up. then roby finds me. 45 mins into our training session and as first times go, dani walks in with the girl he's training. he says hello to roby and says, make her (me) work hard as she had a pizza last night.
roby was a bit confused. why does he know what you ate? did you have a pizza during the day? I was really defensive. that's not what I had for dinner. I had a salad. and then dani crosses the room as was like, yeah, no, no i'm kidding, she was good she had a salad. he kind of just shrugged it off thinking that I had pizza during the day. then i told him about the marine saying no carbs at night. so he asked, wait, did you or did you not go and have pizza? i went but not to have pizza. at this point my legs had cramped up and we were on the machine to do sit up rolls. he said, time out is over. I started to protest, but my legs have cramped up. he says, doesn't matter, we're working your core. go. me: my legs hurt. roby: I don't care, start your sit ups.
needless to say, he was pissed again. but I couldn't quite understand why. we did our stretching and he was so different from the week before. he was distant and cold. even when I tried to make him laugh. he wasn't having it. we said our goodbyes and he was convinced I wasn't going to train with him anymore....something I should tell neo about, my extra money is going to a personal trainer. although I wrote to him now telling him that I actually do miss our sessions so when he's back on the 20th to let me know and we'll organize something.
goodness, this was a post with no real direction just sharing the very weird and awkward interactions I've had at the gym.
post script:
I wrote dani a message that I wasn't going to coming to the gym for the rest of the week and that we're leaving on Saturday for two weeks, if he wouldn't mind keeping the 10 for me and giving it back the week of the 13th. he told me to come down straight away. he gave me 20 instead! and then I owed him money. not wanting to drag this thing on forever because I really couldn't visit the gym the rest of the week, I decided to pass by on Wednesday to give him his change back and since I had made mochi and almond bars, give him those. he was very surprised and quite happy about it.
so we're off. no more gym misadventures for a solid 14 days. I hope I don't have any other misadventures.
