To be honest, I didn’t necessarily defeat it. What it is now is more acceptance. At some point strength started mattering more than size. I gave up on trying to over-critique my body every time I looked in the mirror. I still flex in the mirror... it’s a nice feeling, you look good, but the main thing in my head now is: am I healthy? Am I strong? And at a certain point, it became am I flexible? Because I couldn’t touch my toes at one point.
When it stopped being about how you looked, what did the gym start doing for you mentally?
For me, the gym was really a testimony to not ever assume that where you’re at with your strength, especially mentally, is all you can be. The only thing you can assume is that you haven’t pushed yourself past the wall you’re currently at. If you’re still struggling to do one or two things, more likely it’s the way [you’re] thinking about it rather than it being all that difficult.
Does that mindset carry through to other aspects of your life?
I believe it does, because when I come back from the gym, I feel good. I feel like I’ve just accomplished something. A good type of pain. I feel like that helps because when I come back from the gym, I’m tired, but because of the way I’ve worked my body and the way I feel, I wouldn’t mind doing those dishes I said I’d do tomorrow, because I’m just not full of excuses.
What would your advice be to someone trying to improve their body image through fitness?
There’s people who might be a bit chubby, or on the other side, whatever the case may be, but you can still see that confidence in them. So I guess my advice would be: don’t be so focused on the aesthetic of why you’re doing fitness, but rather, as corny as it sounds, how you feel from the inside. There are people out there who are not as tall as the next person, not as good-looking as the next person, not as fit as the next person. But when they walk in the room and they speak to you, their confidence is booming. It’s vibrant. And that makes you look past all of that.
So I think that’s the main thing. When you’re going for fitness, it’s for your health, it’s for your mental, before it’s for your looks. The internal is the most important part. That changes before the external. The external may come, but focus on the internal for sure.