Eight years ago I stepped into the gym for the first time in adult life with one goal in mind. I wanted to be skinny. Nothing else mattered, and I had no other goals for my fitness endeavors. I spent a few weeks hanging out on the cardio equipment pursuing my fat loss goals. I started a 1,000 calorie a day nutrition program and began religiously checking my weight. Every morning started out the same. Did the scale go down yet?
I upped the ante and hired my first personal trainer. She introduced me to bodyweight and dumbbell strength training. I didn’t jump in with passion and fervor. In fact, it was quite the opposite. How was lifting weights going to help me reach my goal of shrinking my body? I didn’t want to get big and bulky. I wanted to get ‘toned’ and ‘lean’. Despite my reservations, I kept showing up because I had already paid for it. The first session felt like the longest 30 minutes of my life. For the first couple of weeks, if felt like every muscle in my body hurt, including ones I didn’t even know existed. Nevertheless, I persisted.
Armed with a new strength training routine, an (unhealthy) 1000 calorie a day diet, and a self-prescribed, hour per day cardio plan, my body quickly transformed. However, while my body was transforming and shrinking, my dissatisfaction with the way I looked was growing. The more weight I lost, the more things I found that needed ‘fixing.’ I joined the gym to lose weight but I developed an extremely unhealthy, obsessive, and negative relationship with my body. I reached the lowest weight of my adult life, and I was more miserable than ever before.
But despite being miserable, the one upside is that I was actually getting pretty physically strong. I didn’t grow up athletic or working out. The running joke in my family was that I was a ‘weakling’, and I owned that narrative for myself. I always thought I just wasn’t a physically strong person. But after months in the gym, I could see that changing, and I loved that feeling.
Through a series of events, I found myself training at a small strength and conditioning gym. For the first time in my life, I saw women powerlifting, a strength sport that consists of benching, squatting, and deadlifting. I was intrigued despite the fact that I had never even held a barbell in my hands. After a couple of months of casual observing, the owner encouraged me to try it for myself, and the rest is history. It was love at first lift. I went on to compete in powerlifting and deadlift over 400 pounds.
Powerlifting was transformative for me both mentally and physically. I spent the majority of my twenties focused on shrinking — my body, my voice, and my life in general. I obsessed about my weight and truly believed that my happiness lay on the other side of fat loss. Powerlifting changed that narrative for me. It allowed me to stop focusing all of my energy on what my body looked like and to start seeing all that my body could do. I finally grasped how strong and capable I was. Powerlifting helped me realize that my body is not an object for consumption. I am not an ornament or decoration for the world, and I don’t have to conform to cultural standards of beauty. My life’s purpose wasn’t to be ‘skinny. It enabled me to stop obsessing over the scale and learn to love, appreciate, and accept my body in all of its iterations.
The strength I gained and lessons I learned from powerlifting transferred into every area of my life because the benefits of strength go far beyond just the physical. When you approach the bar knowing that you are preparing to lift some really heavy weight, you have to approach it with confidence, resolve, and determination. These are the same skills I utilize when facing the challenges of everyday life. Getting stronger and tougher in the gym made me more mentally prepared to handle challenges out of the gym.
Even more, I stopped playing small and learned to take up more space in the world, unapologetically and authentically. If the narrative about being physically weak wasn’t true, what other narratives had I been telling myself that weren’t true? Powerlifting allowed me to tap into my unrealized potential in nearly every facet of my existence. It gave me the strength to start sharing my truth in the world, build self-confidence, and even led me down an entirely different career path.
While I do realize that powerlifting isn’t for everyone, I do believe that we can all learn so many lessons from strength training. The mental strength and transformative power that comes from building physical strength is undeniable. This realization invoked my passion for creating a health and fitness industry that is more inclusive, representative, and accessible. With the face of mainstream fitness being mostly white, thin, able-bodied and young, while also being plagued by fatphobia, transphobia, racism, elitism, and misogyny, among other issues, it’s not surprising that many people lack a sense of belonging within fitness spaces.
Strength is for everyBODY and everyone deserves to feel welcome, seen, respected, and celebrated. Everyone deserves access to move their bodies in ways that feel affirming. Through advocacy, education and access, collectively we can disrupt what has been accepted for far too long as the status quo and change the face of the entire fitness industry.
Strength truly is for everyone, and while that may look different for each individual person, the transformative power applies to everyone equally. Physical strength is not about changing our bodies or shrinking ourselves to reach idealized standards of beauty. It’s a way to find our own personal power and feel empowered and safe in our bodies.
Through powerlifting, I healed my relationship with my body and reclaimed my narrative. It has become my ever present, empowering form of self-care. I’m the strongest, both mentally and physically, that I’ve ever been in my entire life. And while I did transform my body physically, the mindset shifts that resulted from powerlifting are the real victory.
