By Corey McMickle

I love fitness. I enjoy the faces of people telling me the story of their transformations. How they don’t struggle with their scales bullying them anymore. I smile when I see mothers and fathers going for a stroll with their adorable children, pulling them along in a little red wagon. I understand the reason for the gym rat working her butt off. The look she’s chasing or the trophy she’s trying to win. All these things are mounted in a special place in my heart. You are something special to me. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t have disclosed so much vital information to you. A personal trainer is paid off the experiences and knowledge they hold. If you already knew what was wrong with you, would you ever go to see the doctor?

Well, it seems like we’ve finally reached that grey area, the threshold of knowledge. I educated you how to shop smarter, debunked the issues with salt and shown the importance of a daily food journal. We’ve explored the starting point of beginning to tackle a 5k running routine as well as seen the benefits of high intensity interval training (HIIT). Fitness and health is what I’ve wanted to lend your ear for every time. My last piece is now about the people like me.

A personal trainer can be an irreplaceable tool. Like any other tool however, you have to pick the right one for the job. You’re the job. Personal trainers can be pushy and aggressive or they can be loving and caring. It depends on what you respond to best. I’ve always favored a pat on the back rather than a boot to the butt. Just like adopting a path towards your fitness goals, you have to pick one you can pick up and enjoy and easily coexist with on a daily basis. Nothing is different for personal trainers.

Having said that, I hope you’ve enjoyed our time together. Maybe even picked up a few things along the way? My heart is heavy to say it but this will be my last installment. Roles around the house, church and work are starting to meld together. I’m in early stages of reinventing myself to make sure my family is proud of me and that my child has the proper role model and mentor she needs in her life. In doing this some important housekeeping needed to be done with my time management. So I decided to stop making you feel so bad about those DQ blizzards you just bought.

Before we depart, I want to tell you something. As much as I enjoy fitness, and as fond as I am of writing, nothing can compare to what I feel for each of you. Everyone has been so awesome to me and my wife (who recognize her) when all I’ve wanted to do is just help all of us. I want to ask you do the same to each other. Anyone can hate.  The disunity and hate we see in the world is what I expected the first time I sat down and submitted my first piece to our newspaper.

That’s half the reason why I never wanted to post a picture of myself on my first few articles. But you loved me. Just a simple man, using simple words, trying to get you to do the simplest of things, you loved me. So if you can shake my hand after noticing me at Walmart, or go out of your way to tell me those kind words while I’m pumping gas, you can do it to your coworker too. Your mom. A stranger. Your kids.

As much as losing a few pounds can keep you from going to the doctor, sharing love with everyone you can will give you a life worth living to begin with. Loving each of you is what’s kept me hitting these keys and made it this difficult to stop.

“For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen…”

I love you Port City.