Image from Carissa Vianca
Some people are born with a passion for movement— those who grew up with regular walks and runs, joining sports clubs, and making movement a staple in their younger years. For some, it might take more than a lesson during class about the importance of fitness was.
For some, on the other hand, fitness came into their lives through a harsher front. At one point, a conversation, an image on television, or a picture in a magazine, even a brief comment, gave us a rude awakening. Suddenly we were conscious about how we look. Maybe at a young age, we began delving into the world of self-image, questioning what once didn't bother us that much. How come we didn't look like this person? Why do I look different from my friends?
This instance started a misplaced drive to be a version of healthy that looked like one thing: skinny, with just the right amount of muscles not to look too strong to seem 'unfeminine.'
It began to consume our thoughts and time more than it should, and we started doubting ourselves more; we began to look at ourselves with harshness, and soon we find it extending it to others as well.
Image from J
Before we knew it, we were spending afternoons looking for 20-minute workouts that give you abs in one week or searching for juice cleanses that a teenager could afford. More than our bodies could take, we would come home tired from the activities during the day and go straight to exercising with little to no rest. We delved into the world of whole-grain-this and low-fat-that even if it meant the resources to spent there would only last us a week— giving the weird bonus of not feeling satisfied or full when we believed it should be enough. It began to consume our thoughts and time more than it should, and we started doubting ourselves more; we began to look at ourselves with harshness, and soon we find it extending it to others as well.
Looking back, it seems useless to pin the blame solely on that one celebrity we compared ourselves to or that one remark from a relative who, just like us, must have believed that to be acceptable, we had to look like one thing only. Without knowing it, we might have contributed to this culture, too. A seemingly small remark that slips out of our tongue during a meal, a stare that caught on for too long, and the conversations one would overhear can make the unsuspecting Woman in Progress feel like they have to do the same. It took time to understand that while we may have been perpetrators at one point, we're all just victims of what society has set up with 'acceptable sizes' and a diet culture (and industry) that pushes forward the 'look' of health rather than the reality of it.
Slowly but surely, we started healing our relationship with our bodies. We focused on our journeys, finally taking note of how different bodies will work and look differently no matter how uniform our workouts are, even if we eat the same meals.
Image from Carla Cascales Alimbau
Once we got to that point of awareness, we started seeing things for what they should be. It's no easy feat. It didn't take a resolution one night and the action the next day. Slowly but surely, we started healing our relationship with our bodies. We focused on our journeys, finally taking note of how different bodies will work and look differently no matter how uniform our workouts are, even if we eat the same meals. We took our time to know ourselves— what works with our lifestyles and what we could take. We finally started letting go of the rigid structure of fitness and health that made us feel bad for straying away, now focusing on our own pace, stories. Healing through this fact gave us more agency and control over our thoughts and our bodies.
Soon enough, our thought of fitness, once driven by an image in our head, moved more towards self-accomplishment. The end goal is now to say that you pushed through today with a walk or that you got up to water your plants. Or that you feel stronger now, more motivated just because you squeezed in what you can in your schedule. What comes in physicality no longer comes in one shape and size but of various ones, and not the endpoint of it all.
Sometimes it may be slow, the start painful, and perhaps it will take a while for us to see or feel the change, but it becomes all the while worth it when we look back and notice how far we've come without sacrificing the good parts of ourselves.
Image from We Heart It
From that experience, we found that it takes a lot of self-work and considering what we can take to own our journey. We found out that the best way to have a good relationship with the word fitness and health was to make it personal, taking everything at our own pace. Yes, sometimes it may be slow, the start painful, and perhaps it will take a while for us to see or feel the change, but it becomes all the while worth it when we look back and notice how far we've come without sacrificing the good parts of ourselves. No longer bearing the heavy weight that comes with chasing an image in our heads that was never us in the first place, we'll see that our decision to keep things consistent yet still in our pace was all the while worth it. We may be nowhere close to those images that inspired our roads to fitness. But we'll be better in ways the prints could never do justice.
Thumbnail from Carla Cascales Alimbau and Hande