Healthy living is a core mission of the Y, and that means healthy living for everybody of all ages, shapes and sizes. At the Y, it’s part of the culture that people taking their first tentative steps off the couch feel as comfortable as people who are running marathons and bench-pressing their body weight.
People like Lindsay Collis embody that philosophy. Lindsay is the group fitness coordinator and a master trainer at the Livonia Y. In just a short time she has already made a huge impact on the lives of her clients and class members.
One member, Jonathan, had a special connection with Lindsay. Jonathan had lost 70 pounds through diet alone, but knew he needed to exercise to meet his weight goals. Like many people in this economy, paying for personal training was sometimes difficult, so Lindsay made sure he knew how to get the most impact from his workouts between sessions. Even on her own time, she would encourage Jonathan to challenge himself. She would sometimes ask him to join her for her own workout sessions. “I told him to come work out with me, and he got to see me getting all beaten up and out of breath and exhausted myself,” she said. “I wouldn’t make him do anything I wasn’t willing to do.” Another time she saw him walking on the treadmill and took him outside to run a mile with her, something that had been a longtime goal. He’d send her a text when he hit a milestone with his workouts or had a great weigh-in.
“It’s people like him that make me love my job,” Lindsay says.
Eventually, Jonathan lost 30 more pounds, but the best part for him was that he could play with his children without getting tired. He calls Lindsay one of the most influential people in his life.
Recently, another member emailed her, sharing how delighted she was when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and noticed defined muscles in her torso for the first time. “I can’t do everything (in her fitness class) all the time yet, but I am getting there and most importantly, you make me want to keep trying!” she wrote Lindsay.
Lindsay has been a personal trainer for a little more than two years now. She was drawn to it after realizing that she enjoyed fitness classes and that other people often asked her for workout advice and encouragement. She joined the Livonia Y about five months ago and says the emphasis on family and community is one of the things she loves about it. “At the Y, we’re a team and we work well together. We help each other, and we all want to succeed together, not all for ourselves.”