I was a fat kid in primary school. I come from a family where provision of good food (in large amounts) was a gesture of love. Right before entering secondary school, I decided I’ve had enough and needed to be “regular sized”. In the span of two to three months I shed 10kg. For a 12-year-old this was quite a big decision – involving loads of of exercise and restricted eating. Like so many young girls, I associated food and exercise as means to achieving the ideal body – a set of rules/routines I had to follow, chasing an often unrealistic end goal rooted in aesthetics.
When I was 14, I joined the swim team and started training really hard. I came to learn that exercise and sport is great in its own right, and there are so many additional benefits than achieving a thigh gap or fitting in size 0 clothes. For example, benefits included seeing my times improve, getting stronger, feeling alert and refreshed all day, the good night’s sleep, the close friends I made… to name a few. I stopped worrying about my weight and shape of my body when I started performing well and having fun in my sport. I was happy with my progress and realised that it was not a result from being skinny. I began to see food as fuel for my body and learning about nutrition and what is good for me.
Today I work as a management consultant and travel a lot (I have flown 10 flights in January alone!). It can get difficult to maintain a consistent fitness routine, but I recently took up CrossFit and now train three to four times a week. The great thing about it, besides being an awesome workout, is the global community (I do drop-ins in different cities I visit find myself in).
Of course, there are still parts of my body I feel less confident about, but that’s okay. People still tell me swimming gave me broad shoulders and squatting will give me big thighs, but that’s okay too. Haters gonna hate. My primary focus is the functionality of my body – how much I can lift, how high I can jump, how far I can run. Abs and a nice ass are byproducts of these efforts and I am sure they will come if you give yourself time to test the limits of what your body can do. But more importantly, have fun and enjoy the fitness journey!
