Pick Up the Weight

Scrolling through social media, looking at other girls, and admiring their bodies was something I was guilty of doing all the time. I never took the time to actually understand how women had such amazing bodies. “How to get an hourglass” and “how to get abs” was something that came up often in my search history. I convinced myself that nothing was working because I wasn't able to see the lines across my stomach.

However, as soon as I was old enough to go to the gym, I didn’t hesitate. When I was 13, I signed up for my first gym. I started getting familiar with the way things worked. First I used the treadmill and elliptical. I looked up workouts to burn the most calories and shred the most fat. But something still didn’t feel right. An hour-long treadmill walk turned into a 30-minute incline walk with a 10-minute ab workout and 20-minute HIIT workout. Something like this was a normal gym session for me. I left the gym everyday drained and tired. This process was something I dreaded every single day.

During this process, I kept noticing the same girls in my gym who looked so good while lifting weights. But I could never convince myself to pick up a weight because of the fear of getting too bulky.

My older brother was the first to encourage me to lift. After he offered me his cool belt and blue clasps, I began getting more curious and felt that the notions around women’s lifting were misleading. Women can be just as strong and muscular as men. There should be no reason that a woman has to worry about being too strong. Due to the male-dominated weight rooms in gyms, we have been encouraged to believe that weightlifting would result in being "bulky" and that it was something we should fear. But one year later, being able to squat a plate is still something I take pride in.

Lifting has changed my body in ways I could have never imagined. It has built my confidence and going to the gym is something I look forward to everyday. Lifting can accomplish so many different goals. It doesn’t always have to correlate to getting big. It is a way to tone your body, lose fat, burn calories, and gain confidence. Next time you go to the gym, I encourage you to pick up the weight.