You Are Unique and Designed for Something Greater
Stanislav Chufus is an International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA) certified and European-certified Personal Trainer and Nutritionist with international experience in fitness, coaching, rehabilitation, and wellness. He helps clients improve their health, strength, nutrition, and confidence through personalized, goal-focused guidance.
You are unique! This is what you have to know in the first place! It might sound cliché, but you were created for something bigger, something greater, and you cannot neglect gifts like your time, talents, abilities, and your body. Yes, I will repeat it again. Your body is a gift.
Just realize one hard truth: God took 6 days to create the heavens and the Earth, shape it, put trees, make rivers, lakes, and oceans, and create and bring living organisms, fish, birds, reptiles, animals, and everything that you can see, or even things you will not be able to experience during your lifetime, but to create you, He needed 9 months. How special you and your body are.
But yes, maybe someone who is reading this article right now is fighting an illness, was born with a disability, or became disabled, and is questioning, “How is it fair?” I have an answer for those people: it is not fair, and the whole world is unfair. Fairness exists only in your mind if you are willing. But nowhere else. You do your best and still have not reached the level of someone who has done not even a drop of what you have done for it and has much more. Court cases have different results because someone has a different colour of skin, religious beliefs, or was “playing” in the courtroom better than others.
The world is not the place to go looking for what is fair and what is not. All you can do is make yourself better: physically, spiritually, mentally, and materially.
Before I came to the United States of America, I had never seen such a gigantic number of obese, overweight, and unhealthy individuals, but also people who were physically ill and refused to give up. How huge is the power of persistence. People who were born healthy, because of their negligence or lukewarm behaviour, decided to become disabled, but people who are in special need, in unfair situations in life, use this “gift” and refuse to be treated unfairly.
It was never about fairness, but rather about your desire to make your life better, to believe in yourself, and in the goodness of God who has brought you into this world.
I want to share one of the best quotes I have ever heard in my lifetime:
“Take care of your body as if you were going to live forever, and take care of your soul as if you were going to die tomorrow.” – Saint Augustine of Hippo (St. Aurelius Augustine).
I am not trying to push my beliefs and religious practices to either convince you to believe or not believe, but I will be honest: one day you and I will stand in front of the Judge, and we will go to the place where we have chosen to be. The same applies to your life and your body. You are where you have chosen to be.
This is the story of Margaret, one of my clients. She came to me with a request to help her lose some weight, but I saw that she had more needs than just that. Marge was 70 years old when we started. She had not had an easy life, losing her son and her beloved partner, but she did not lose her faith in her God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
She is lonely and has gone through loss and betrayal in her life. Her only decision to fight stress and depression was to turn to food, until she reached over 400 pounds. One day, Margaret said to herself, “This is not who I want people to see and, definitely, not the person I want to see in the mirror.” So, she started her journey of losing weight.
To be honest, I was shocked when she told me that she was over 400 pounds. When she came to me for the first time. Every session and every week was a challenge. There was a lot of work and a lot of conversations because she needed, and still needs, support. As I said before, she came not only for weight reduction but also because she needed spiritual support and psychological encouragement.
Margaret hated herself and called herself different, disrespectful, and rude names because of how she looked. We did a lot of work on her inner world first because, maybe, a lot of you would not agree with me, but as a personal trainer, I pursue three things: first, healthy well-being, second, mental health, and third, results.
Why did I tell you about Marge? Because we went through a tremendous amount of work on her inner world during our sessions. We did not work only on her body but also on her mind and mentality. I will never forget two things that she told me, and we worked through them together:
“Stas, it is easy for you to talk and live when you look like that.” I explained to her that this physique I have was not given but earned through more than 15 years of training, more than 25 years of participating in different kinds of sports, discipline, dieting, a huge number of hours in the gym, thousands of kilometres of walking, running, and hiking, etc.
“I do not have self-esteem!” The truth is, you have as much self-esteem as you decide to have. The same applies to discipline, self-control, confidence, and everything else in your life. Everything that is inside of you is your decision, your choice, and the place you are in is where you choose to be.
Although Margaret started only a couple of months ago, she has gone from complete self-hatred to loving herself, gaining the desire to get better every day, and becoming the best version of herself.
Nevertheless, she still needs encouragement to keep going and do better every day.
Because Margaret, and every single one of us, has encouragement from God: Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
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Stanislav Chufus, Personal Trainer & Rehabilitation Coach
Stanislav Chufus is a European and ISSA-certified Personal Trainer and Nutritionist and a sports academy alumnus whose career in fitness spans multiple countries. His education includes specialized training in sports anatomy, physical therapy, stretching, kettlebell training, and nutrition. Stanislav approaches fitness as more than physical transformation, combining training, nutrition, discipline, and mindset to create lasting change. Having built his own journey around continuous self-development, he leads by example and encourages others to discover what their bodies and minds are truly capable of. His purpose is to help people become stronger, healthier, more confident, and ultimately build a lifestyle they are proud to live.
