ROCKstar of the Month (August): Yanee Tan – Rock The Naked Truth

ROCKstar of the Month (August): Yanee Tan

I have always been on the bigger side of things since I was young. Body image issues plagued me since I was in primary school, where I was one of the biggest in class. This went on to secondary school where I was one of the heaviest.

I hated my body and wanted to be slim like the other girls. I took up sports but instead of losing weight, I became even bigger, so I started to take slimming pills in Secondary 4. My weight dropped, but it was because I was suppressing my appetite and only eating one meal a day.

Fast forward to adult life, I started working and had no time for any form of physical activity. My weight ballooned and I was not able to wear most of my fitting clothes anymore as they were too tight! I started to buy oversized clothes so that I can hide my undesirable body. It was tough – I went from a size M to L and then to XL.

People repeatedly asked if I was pregnant and it upset me greatly each time I heard it. I didn’t want to show my emotions hence I put up a front and shrugged these comments off with a joke. It was not an easy feat, as I was going through some rough patches in my life at that point of time as well.

I sought solace in alcohol almost every day and partying every other night was my happy pill. I enjoyed it because I would momentarily forget my troubles when I was intoxicated. That was how I led my life for two years and it was really bad because my work got affected and my body was getting bigger and bigger.

One day, I took a good look at myself in the mirror and I freaked out. I dragged my sister Lynn out of bed to head out for a short run and that was the toughest 2.4km we ever ran in our lives. Both of us used to be sportswomen in our younger days, but we struggled really badly that day.

That’s when I decided to end the unhealthy lifestyle.

We started to eat healthily, we stopped our crazy drinking days and we ran on alternate days, slowly increasing the distance. Our dreadful 2.4km gradually became 10km over a period of two years. My weight dropped but I still felt my legs were big, so I went to the gym to build the other parts of the body. That didn’t work so I went back to running again, but I started to find it mundane and boring.

This was where we discovered Rock The Naked Truth (RTNT) through a former colleague. She had participated in a fitness competition that RTNT conducted a training session for and I went online to search more. Together with Lynn, we decided to attend one of their ROCKrunners sessions.

All this time, I’ve only been exercising with Lynn and this year we actually made a pact to exercise with like-minded people and widen our fitness circle, so thank God for RTNT! Everyone is so friendly and bubbly, crazy at times, but I’ve never felt so comfortable in a group before and that’s what kept us coming back.

Unfortunately, life took a turn for the worse shortly after I joined them and I fell back into a dark place. I couldn’t function with all the added stress and problems, and my immunity crashed too. I just wanted to be alone; so even though I signed up for RTNT events, I kept missing them.

That was the darkest period in my life and I didn’t know how to continue on. My life just revolved around work and home. I stopped exercising. I stopped socialising. I ate nonsense to comfort myself. I even stopped meeting my sister. It was just hell crazy.

One fine Saturday, Lynn managed to drag me out to a ROCKrunners session and I really thank her for that. I realised this is my happy pill. I allowed myself to open up and we have grown a lot closer. I feel the love. I feel something I haven’t felt for the longest time. Now I’m almost back to my normal self.

I’ve been actively attending several of the RTNT events such as ROCKbounce, ROCKdance and more, and I feel immense happiness with this crazy bunch of people. With renewed motivation, I finally signed up for a half marathon – something I thought I would never ever be able to do.

To be brutally frank, I am not entirely happy with how my life is now, but I have made great progress in recovery. Slowly but surely. With the support that I get from this community, I am sure I will recover fully one fine day. It’s hard not to when there’s so much love, care and concern from this second family of mine! I always look forward to meeting them every Saturday morning for our weekly ROCKrunners session.

To be brutally frank, I am not entirely happy with how my body looks like now, but I am happy that I am learning how to love it and how to rock it. I enjoy working out and eating healthily, and I no longer drive my body towards that ideal body image anymore.

Sometimes, you have to step back in order to move forward. Sometimes, you have to lose something in order to gain something better. You are in no competition with anyone. Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.

Now I am looking forward to run my first ever half marathon, together with the many loves of my life in ROCKrunners. Thank you guys, this one’s for you.

ROCKstar of the Month is a monthly award given to an inspiring individual who advocates a positive mindset and living an active lifestyle (see full requirements below).

Requirements to be a ROCKstar of the Month awardee:

SUPPORT – Believes strongly in the movement and advocates the right mindset
INFLUENCE – Displays ability to be a positive influence to those around him/her
ENTHUSIASM – Regularly attends Rock The Naked Truth events
LEADS BY EXAMPLE – Demonstrates desire to improve lifestyle aligned with the movement
CONTRIBUTION – Does his/her part to give back to the movement

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I had a very unhealthy relationship with my body w

I had a very unhealthy relationship with my body when I was in my early 20s and the relationship carried till Circuit Breaker. This period of isolation forced me to reflect on my own inner child wounds.

I was born with big hips structure and damn jialat metabolism. At 24, I tried to lose weight by jogging every morning and only having yogurt for the whole day. I did lose some weight but I also lost a lot of my hair. That lifestyle lasted for 2 months and I was not in a good mental space. Then I went back to my usual diet and gained all the weight back.

In 2021, I got molested in the bus by this Gray Hoodie Ah Pek. He sat beside me, pretended to fall asleep and circled his thumb on my thigh. He then alighted the bus and looked back at me with a smirk. I swear I was beyond disgusted.

Due to genetics, I have a heavier bottom and the yoga pants and bicycle shorts that I buy online are not squat-proof (very transparent at the butt area) so most of the time when I head out for training I would need to double wear my yoga/bicycle pants with shorts. But that day, I was in a cover-up dress that showed nothing and was feeling disgusted and fat. I reported him to the police anyway.

Later, I released myself from a very toxic situation when I was constantly seeking for acceptance and at the same time, I received news that Gray Hoodie Ah Pek was sentenced to 2 counts with 4 months imprisonment.

At that point of time, it was very dark and I questioned myself frequently, “Is it because I am not good enough?”, “Confused, I was fat but why did that ah pek still touch me?”, “Guilty, because I was one of the reasons that sent him to imprisonment and he might have a family to feed.”, “Why me?”.

To cope, I went back to doing yoga and also started Muay Thai. I felt more balance, love and acceptance towards myself; learned self-defence, resilience, discipline and how to stay grounded.

Definitely, there will still be days when I question myself with my own self-acceptance, but I made a promise to myself to continue to learn and grow mentally and never stop.

Thank you for reading my story. Namaste.

- Val (@soundslikehokkienmee)

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Came across this photo taken in 2010 and I had posted it on Facebook with a caption “omg I look so fat here”.

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How was this fat?! I clearly was struggling with my body, with my self-worth, with my confidence. And this lack of self-confidence showed in many different ways.

For example, I was constantly in relationships or dating because I needed attention for validation. I would stay in toxic relationships even though I know it’s bad, and I would enable it further, because at the back of my mind I just want to feel loved.

It took me over a decade to reach where I am now and it hasn’t been easy at all. There are days when some of these past demons rear their ugly heads but I am able to better deal with them now.

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