My prescription for Body Insecurity: Barbells

I have been insecure about my body for as long as I can remember. I was on a swim team from middle school to about high school, and there is nothing more revealing and unflattering than a one piece swimsuit on a pre teen. I remember walking on the pool deck going into practice feeling so insecure and uneasy about my body. I always kept a towel draped in front of my stomach and was swept with anxiety the days when I realized I left it at home. The first jump into the water would bring some relief, as most of my body was hidden in the chlorine. For the next hour and a half I was consumed by the adrenaline rush of pushing my body through the water, a feeling I can only equate to flying. This was my favorite time because it didn’t matter what I looked like, only how fast I was and how hard I could push myself. But the anxiety would always return on the walk back to the locker room after practice. And this would be my experience twice a week for years. 

This body insecurity crept in from other places as well and from a young age I learned that my body wasn’t adequate and I should strive to change it. When I was leaving high school and going into college I started a very inconsistent workout routine. I didn’t really know what I was doing and every session was started by 30 minutes of cardio and some light weightlifting. I pretty much always dreaded the experience but felt better when the work was done. I lost about 15 lbs freshman year of college, simply by adjusting to life as an “adult”. Basically I was broke and didn’t know how to effectively grocery shop, leading me to consume less than 1600 calories a day. This period of my life was marked by an almost constant feeling of hunger. But I loved the way I looked! For the first time in my life tight fitting clothes felt good and when I looked in the mirror I loved what I saw!

But going into sophomore year the real work began. I fell into the pattern of a busy college student trying to juggle a part time job, classes, homework, exercise and conscious eating. The latter were the first to go. I gained about 20 lbs and I have a very distinct memory of looking back at a picture of myself from my month abroad in Spain (where my diet consisted of various forms of potatoes and alcohol everyday) and being completely horrified by what I saw. Obviously little sleep, alcohol daily, and little to no exercise outside of the one soccer match I played clearly didn’t bode well in my eyes. I knew I had big work to do and by senior year I wasn’t messing around.

I made some serious changes and I finally committed to weightlifting 3x5 times a week. I graduated from Brooklyn College in 2018 and I have had a consistent workout routine for 4 years now. I’m not going to say I love my body everyday. I certainly wake up some days feeling insecure but weightlifting has given me a feeling I have never felt until this point in my life. Strength. I’ve felt fat, skinny, but never strong. And that change didn’t come from crash diets or more cardio, it came from picking up a barbell, from pushing my body to do things I could never imagine. Freshman year Rachel could never have imagined deadlifting more than her bodyweight. Or doing unassisted pull ups. The gym has been a place for me to continually show up for me and surprise myself about what I thought was possible. THIS was the biggest thing that has led me to love and appreciate my body. Shifting the focus on how my body looks to what it can DO. Placing my body in a state of hunger or exhaustion maybe made me feel good when I looked skinny but the only thing that made me feel good about my skin was feeling strong. And that is why I encourage any one who has any kind of insecurity about what they look like to pick up something heavy in a gym and never look back.