Could you tell me a little bit about Arvanh?
Arvanh we met in college. That wasn’t that long ago. We ended up becoming really good friends. I kind of knew him of this super fit guy who was always at the gym unless he was super stressed about school. Then he would complain about how much weight he was losing -laughs-. I found him to be a really reliable guy. A really good friend – someone I could hit up whenever both of us were free.
What made you reach out to Arvanh?
I actually hit him up to ask him some questions about fitness. He also got certified at the same time. We sort of started talking and I was just like – I never had a trainer. I trust Arvanh. Just from what I knew of him, I trust his credibility as a trainer. And it just happened and I’m glad it happened.
What were you look for from his services?
I initially just wanted to get into a consistent schedule with working out. All of my life, my longest streak would be maybe a month of exercise. Maybe I went back to school then I got too busy. I wanted to get into consistency because that was always my issue. I wanted to become stronger. Since the pandemic happened, I started really getting complacent with my physical health and I felt it physically and mentally. My mental health gets really impacted about how physically healthy I am. I wanted to improve my physical health. I didn’t like being stationary.
How did he help you on your journey?
Once thing that he probably does with everyone, but it was a huge huge help for me. Creating a program that was just tailored to what I wanted with my own journey with exercise. I didn’t really realize that he could do this in the beginning until maybe a few weeks in or a month in, I didn’t tell him initially if something wasn’t working out for him. When I did, he would adjust the program to be more suited for whatever I was looking for. Like I was doing pike push ups but I was having too hard of a time. I thought I had to muscle through. That’s just how I think of doing things. But I realized you don’t really have to do that. Just regularly hitting me up just to see if I did my workout for the day or how I’m feeling for the week; it’s just nice to have someone keep you accountable. Being held accountable it was one of the biggest things that helped me out too.
How did he make you feel along the way?
I felt very supported. At no point did I ever feel like I was being judged or feeling less than about what I was doing. The more comfortable I got with the process of note taking. We have weekly meetings where we talk about how the week goes. The more use to it I became. The more open I became about talking about my experiences. It felt more natural talking about it each week. He’ll ask you how’d your week go. You just sort of have to talk and I think at first I found it a little awkward because I didn’t know what to touch base on. Even just talking about random things that weren’t necessarily about exercise; it felt nice. It felt nice having someone I can talk to, having someone I can text about “oh look I filmed myself dancing you wanna check it out”. It felt nice to be confident and brag about myself. I don’t like to do that. I don’t like to post on social media and feel like “look at me”, I’m very uncomfortable with that. It felt nice to have a friend that I trusted and a trained that I trusted to go to for that.
What progress did you make?
He said he definitely noticed a difference in the beginning vs how I talked about my day. Before I was like “I dunno I took a nap. I dunno. I did this. I did that.” After a few more weeks he pointed out, he pointed out it seemed like I was a lot more purposeful about my day. That wasn’t initially something I was going for and it felt really nice to feel like “ya I am planning something about my day with intention.” So there’s my internal growth. Having more purpose with my day instead of slugging by day-to-day.
Physically, I feel like I have more energy. I genuinely feel more confident with myself physically than I did in the beginning of the program for sure. I felt really insecure and I periodically feel insecure. I’m working out not has a punishment for myself, but I deserve to feel good about myself.
Should I reach out to him?
Yes. YES reach out to Arvanh Pchan!
Any last words?
Thank you Arvanh. I’m really glad I hit you up. I’m really really glad we were able to talk every week. I sincerely find you to be one of the greatest friends I’ve ever made in college. I’m so happy to see you’re finally doing something that you’re happy to do. You deserve it. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to make other people happy and feel better about themselves too.