by Liam Hurley
“Yeah I saw the sign… what does it mean exactly?”
“It is a thirty-day course Antonio runs. He is our head Life Coach.”
“Oh. Life Coach?”
It was all sounding a bit wanky to me.
“Yes.”
I was trying to think of a way to get out of there.
“So, does Antonio have an e-mail? Like, can I just e-mail him or do you have a website?” I asked. He wasn’t answering me. “Like, how do I get in touch with Antonio?”
“I am Antonio.” He said.
“Ah. Right.”
We looked at each other. I looked around, there were no posters or leaflets or anything in this room.
“How would you like your life to change?” he asked.
“Erm.” I was a bit taken back. “Well I dunno, I’d like to lose a bit of weight I guess. And just maybe be like a bit happier? Well not happier. Just something.”
“Something.” He repeated back at me.
“Yeah.” I said. “Anyway, like I said, if you’ve got a website or- “
“What is your name?”
“Jimmy.”
“Jimmy.”
“Yep.” I nodded.
I breathed out. I looked around the room again.
“When do you want to start Jimmy?” Antonio asked.
“Oh. Well let me think about it for a bit.” I said. I started to walk away from the desk. “You know I need to check it all out, I don’t even know how much it costs.”
“Yes, you do.” He said.
“Sorry?” I stopped.
“It costs thirty days.”
“But money wise?”
“Time is the true cost. Can you give up thirty days of your current life to create a new one?”
I squinted at him. It all sounded a bit airy for me. It sounded like New Age bullshit. But there was something about Antonio which kept me rooted to the spot. And at the very least I know what I was doing already wasn’t working.
“Okay. Yes.” I said.
“I ask again, when do you want to start?”
“Fuck it. Tomorrow?” I said.
“Tomorrow it is. Meet me here Jimmy. Seven A.M.”
“Seven?”
“Yes.”
“That’s early.”
“It is.”
God, he was frustrating.
“Fine.” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
I pulled the door open.
“Jimmy?” Antonio said.
I turned around.
“It is fifty pounds for the thirty-day course.” He smiled at me.
I laughed.
“Sure.”
“But like I said. The true cost is time.”
“And fifty quid?”
“See you tomorrow Jimmy.”
I smiled and stepped back into the world.
Chapter Sixteen- The First One, The First Five and The First Thirty
I didn’t know what to expect the next day. But I quickly realised that waking up at 5.30am sucked dick. If I was going to be making this a regular thing I was going to have to go to bed much earlier. Five hours sleep wasn’t enough for me to function on. I’d attempted to wear sports-like clothes for the day. I found a pair of shorts in the base of my suitcase, an old white t shirt and a pair of pumps. I was stood outside the Wellbeing Centre smoking a cig and drinking a large milky coffee. I looked the building up and down. It was so non-descript it wasn’t even funny. It was three stories high, and the only colour besides black and grey on show was the neon green sign which was still perched up in the window.
As I reached the end of the cigarette I discarded it to the pavement. I walked towards the building. From the outside, it had no discernible signs of life. As I’d done the day previous, I pushed the door open and popped my head inside. And also like the day previous, Antonio was stood behind the desk in an odd position. His eyes however, were wide open.
“Jimmy. Come in, come in.”
I obliged and shut the door behind me. I walked to the desk. Antonio nodded and smiled when I was directly in front of him.
“So, first of all, you must complete this form.”
He pulled a sheet of paper and a pen from thin air and put them in front of me. I pulled a chair out and sat at the desk. Antonio sat across from me. I looked up at him.
“Please.” He said and waved his hand towards the page.
I looked down at it, the opening section was just the generic personal information so I got on with filling that out. Once I’d put in my phone number I looked under the top section, and read the title of section two. Statistics. I looked down the page; height, weight, chest size, waist size… I looked up to Antonio.
“Erm Antonio?” I asked. He locked eyes with me. “I don’t know some of these answers. Like my weight.”
I muttered the last part. I then looked back to the page.
“Jimmy, I thought one of your goals was to lose weight?”
“Yeah it is.”
“How can it be a goal if you don’t know your starting point?”
I scratched my head. It was a good point. But still, weighing myself was a terrifying prospect. It was like a bank account balance I never had to check. Now someone was asking me how much I want to save up, but I could owe millions.
“It’s erm, scary. I don’t really want to know.”
“Admitting you are scared is the first step to being brave.” Said Antonio.
“Is it?” I asked.
“It is.”
“So…”
“Take the first step.”
I heard a scrape as Antonio pushed something towards me with his foot. I looked down, it was a digital scale.
“Ah.” I said.
“Be brave Jimmy.”
I shook my head. Fuck it, why not? I stood up and pushed my chair to one side. I pulled the scales towards my foot. I kicked my pumps off and shrugged off my jacket. I looked at Antonio. He smiled up at me. I nodded and took a step onto the scale…
19st 6lbs
Shit. I took a step off the scale and pushed it back under the desk. I stuck my feet back into my pumps and sat down in the chair. Fuck I didn’t think it would be that bad. I stared down at the empty box next to the word ‘weight’.
“Jimmy?”
I looked up, Antonio was looking at me. I nodded at him. I scooped up the pen and wrote the data in the required boxes. I felt a bit sick thinking about how heavy I was. I always knew I’d put weight on in the last few years but I’d never imagined it would be that much. I was ashamed of myself in that moment. But, I ploughed on with the form. I turned the page over and found myself at section three; my life. The first question read; describe your current life in three words. I pondered this for a moment before putting my pen to paper.
Empty, vague, painful.
The next question said describe the life you want to have in three words. This one was quite a bit easier.
Fuller, brighter, braver.
I smiled down at the words it felt good that I’d actually managed to be a bit braver already today. I took that as a good sign. The next question read; write down three things you can do more of to achieve the life you want.
Do more stuff, just be happier, do things that scare me.
I was happy enough with that answer. Just being happier was a bit vague but still it felt like the type of change I wanted. Next up; write down three things you should do less of to achieve your new life.
Thinking about E, drinking, sitting around doing nothing.
I had reached the bottom of the page now and only one question remained. I read it, the question asked me… do you believe you can do this? This was an odd question. I looked up to Antonio who stared a hole through me. I looked back at the sheet and slowly, and firmly, wrote out;
Yes.
“Here you go.” I said.
I slid the sheet towards Antonio. He waved his hand in front of us.
“No Jimmy, it is for you.”
“Right.”
&
nbsp; “So, let us begin.”
Antonio jumped to his feet and I copied him. He walked back towards the entrance and I followed him. He pulled the door open and lead me outside. He walked around the left hand-side of the building. We ended up rounding the building and I noticed there was a wrought-steel staircase attached to the back of it. Antonio started to climb the steps. I followed him and the stairs began to creak and wobble as we ascended. At the top of the stairs was a wooden door. Antonio inserted a key into the door and swung it open. He disappeared inside.
I followed him in and found myself in a surprisingly well-equipped gym. Along the entire left-hand wall was a ceiling to floor mirror. At the bottom of the gym was a large black leather boxing bag. In front of the mirrors were multiple treadmills, rowing machines and bikes. And towards the right was a large rack of weights and a few piles of mats.
“Wow, this is nice.” I said. “Private too.”
“Indeed. Until the other clients show up.” Antonio said.
He was stood in the far corner plugging his phone into a speaker system. After a moment of fiddling a song blared through the speakers. I struggled to place it for a moment. Then the penny dropped.
“Antonio?” I asked.
He strode past me towards the mats.
“Yes?” he said.
“Is this Call Me Al?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Jimmy, come here.” He pointed to the spot next to him.
I ambled over towards him and as I arrived on his right he threw a mat down in front of me. He had a mat in front of his own feet and before I could ask what to do he was lay down on his back on his own mat. He patted the mat next to him. I took his queue and lay down next to him trying not to think about how strange it looked that two grown men were lying on their backs next to each other.
“Jimmy, bend your knees, place your feet flat on the ground.”
Antonio bent his own legs and I followed suit,
“Jimmy, one of your goals is to lose weight no?”
“Yeah.”
“Jimmy, do you know how many people want to lose weight?”
“Erm, lots I’d guess.”
“Millions. Millions of people.”
“Yeah.”
“How many do you think manage to lose weight?”
“I dunno, you see a lot of those like mad stories online of people losing loads, so I dunno, a lot?”
“Thousands. Thousands from millions. And do you know why so few do it?”
“Erm, it’s hard?”
“Exactly.”
Phew, I was glad to get one right at last
“There are three elements to master in order to lose weight, now breath in.”
He took a sharp intake of breath, I panicked and copied him. He slowly breathed out so I also copied that.
“Good. Now number one we have what you do with your body, that is what we will learn today.”
“Cool. What about the other two?”
“Number two is what goes in your mouth. And number three is what should happen in your head.”
I nodded.
“Now, why do you think people find it hard to do what they should with their bodies?” he continued.
“Erm, well it’s hard, and if you’re bigger it’s harder to move your body so…”
“True. But when we move our bodies Jimmy, what do we need to make sure they are moving efficiently?”
“Erm, muscles?”
“Yes. Muscles are powered by blood. And blood is powered by?”
“Erm, the heart?”
“Oxygen.” He said. “And today, we are going to start off by learning how to correctly process oxygen.”
“So, erm, breathing?”
“Breathing.” He nodded.
It sounded ridiculous. How was breathing going to help me? I was a bit worried I was being scammed out of £50. Antonio talked me through opening my diaphragm and mastering holding my breath for up to thirty seconds and expelling for thirty seconds.
Antonio bent his legs into his chest as we finished our exercise and then kicked out into the air, springing to his feet. I pulled myself up and pushed on my knees until I was vertical.
“What was that?” I said pointing back to the mat and making a flip motion with my wrist and hand.
“A kip-up.” Antonio said. “One day, Jimmy, one day.”
“Yeah sure.” I laughed.
“Now let’s do some body work.”
Antonio clapped his hands together.
By 8.15am I was drenched in sweat. I was hunched over the iron staircase dry heaving. A few more people had started to arrive at the Centre and had passed me on the staircase. I tried to smile at them but my Daz-white face gave me away.
Antonio stomped out onto the staircase.
“Jimmy?” he said.
I waved my hand up at him before pulling myself up right.
“Downstairs, come on.”
He set off at a light jog down the metal stairs. I trudged after him, each step made my knees clatter together. I rounded the front of the Centre and made my way into the front entrance. Antonio was stretching besides his desk.
“Jimmy, come sit down.”
I limped over to the desk and dropped myself heavily into the chair, I breathed out very quickly.
“No remember, nice and slow, breathing controls your body, Your mind. Your balls. Come on Jimmy, sit up!”
I straightened up and took a longer, deeper breath in. I closed my eyes and slowly let it escape as best I could.
“Better Jimmy.”
Antonio rounded the table and sat down across the desk from me.
“Well done Jimmy. You applied yourself very well today.”
“Thanks” I breathed. I was struggling to speak.
“The movements we did today, the yoga work and the resistance work are all techniques you can do outside of the Centre.”
I looked up. Surely this maniac wasn’t thinking I could do this more than once a day? My expression must’ve given this thought away.
“Not today Jimmy.” He smiled.
He pulled another piece of paper from thin air, where did they keep coming from?
“I present to you, stage two. What goes in your mouth.”
He slid the paper across at me. I looked down at it.
“Now before you read Jimmy, I want to tell you this simple rule. Anything you put in your mouth is either a step towards, or a step away from your goal.”
“Okay.” I said.
“Keep that in mind.”
I really wanted to make a joke but my energy levels weren’t at the point to do so. I looked down at the paper. There were numerous different meal options and plans. Printed across the top of the page were three sentences in bold font.
Careful with carbs!
Sugar is poison!
Water, water, everywhere!
I scanned through the week’s food plan and was surprised to see there was a lot of food.
“I always thought going on a diet meant less food.” I said.
“You are already on a diet Jimmy. Diet just means what we consume. Good or bad.”
I nodded.
“You will be eating lots of real food.”
“I can work with that.”
Antonio smiled at me.
“And step three Jimmy, do you remember?”
“Erm, the mind thing?”
“Yes, what happens up here.” He tapped the side of his head.
“Yeah?”
“Jimmy, every day you are to tell yourself, ‘I believe I can change my life, Antonio believes in me, I believe in me’.” He said.
I nodded. It still seemed a tad hippy to me, but I was so tired from my first bit of exercise in five years that I couldn’t question Antonio.
“Okay. Yeah I can do that.”