As athletes, our bodies stand in the center of all that we do. My body carried me as I won national dance championships and broke records during volleyball games. Throughout high school and college, however, I focused more on how skinny I was compared to other girls my age. I spent my high school and college years trying to achieve the perfect body, not understanding that I already had the perfect body.
Everyone Loved To Call Me “Too Skinny”
I danced competitively for 15 years and played volleyball for five; these activities kept me muscular and slim. Others always felt the need to comment on my size and ask if I ate enough. These comments taught me to hate what I looked like. The glorification of curvier bodies online I began eating an unhealthy amount of food per day, performing workouts that injured my joints and taking supplements like Apetamin to accelerate the weight gain process. After feeling low about the wear and tear on my body and further defeat, I decided to take weight lifting seriously.
I know if I wanted real results on this weight gain journey, I had to go into it open and ready to learn. I worked with my first personal trainer for a whole summer at 24 Hour Fitness. Not only did he develop a workout plan and meal guide for me to follow, he established my fitness foundation to improve my functionality. This ensures that I care for all aspects of my physical health.
Fall In Love Your Natural Beauty
Lifting is a lot more about your mental than your physical health. I incorporated the gym into my daily routine in my junior year of college and swiftly signed up for a gym membership when I studied abroad in Prague, Czech Republic. I went to the gym four to five times a week to follow a consistent lifting routine. It felt amazing to watch my body get muscular with each passing day. Even though I wasn’t yet as big as I wanted to be, I learned to fall in love with my slim body as it was. The new weight I gained would not due me justice until I learned to appreciate what I already had.
I allowed my weight training improvements to filter into other sectors of my life. I told myself if I can work my way up to squatting 100+ pounds, I could get all As in a semester. Each semester from when I started taking weight training seriously until graduation, I had a 4.0 gpa. Weight training gave me the confidence to take over the world and win.
Through social media and our ever evolving tech world, we have access to opinions of the masses. The negativity expressed towards certain body types creates a misalignment between one’s body and mind. People start to think what they naturally have isn’t good enough. Through weight training, I learned to love and appreciate my body not only for how it looked, but for how it protected me from illness, for how it rarely ever broke or sprained, and for giving me the strength to get through daily activities.