About five months ago I started my “great lock-in” aka me starting my weightless journey Again!! I was tired of how I looked and wanted better for myself physically and mentally, so I decided to get my lazy butt up and go to the gym after not being consistent for a few years. I didn’t expect to feel so envious and self-conscious while working out for the first time in a while. I was looking around at others that were working out and comparing my body to them, or comparing how I was working out versus how they were. I felt like I wasn’t doing things correctly, simply because I was getting my workouts from TikTok and Instagram and just trying to copy what the “gym influencers” were doing.

Even though I was feeling like this I tried to keep pushing and put those thoughts to the back of my mind. I wanted to focus on making myself better, and I knew that was gonna be part of the process fighting through the stigma and shame of being judged, and reminding myself that I do belong there and that I actually can succeed.
When I first started attending the gym, I would wear baggy clothing to try to hide my appearance, to take some of the attention off me. Even though people probably weren’t staring at me, I felt like they were. That ties into the idea of the panopticon the feeling that somebody is watching you even if you don’t know if they are. But wearing those clothes wasn’t comfortable, especially the hoodies. I started noticing my body overheating when I wore them. I knew I needed to make changes to what I was wearing, and that ended up putting me one step closer to the confidence I have now. Being able to wear clothes that I’m comfortable in made me realize that just because I’m larger and have more meat on my bones doesn’t mean I can’t wear what smaller people are wearing.
After switching the kinds of clothes I wear, I started gaining more confidence in the exercises I was doing, and I began to see improvement after a while. I noticed that I was losing a couple pounds after a couple months of nothing major. But my body started looking different, my face looking slimmer. And I was like, “Hey, this hard work I’m putting in is paying off.” Seeing those small improvements took me to another level because I was like, “Oh, I am doing this. I can do this.” Nobody was in my way but me.

Over time, my confidence just kept building. Now when I go to the gym, I don’t care what people think. I do the exercises I want to do, no matter if I look crazy. I’m still gonna try them and perfect them the best I can. Nobody else is gonna do the work for me. Nobody else is gonna boost my confidence. And honestly, nobody is even shaming me, no one has ever come up to me and said I don’t belong there. It was really me having this internal battle with myself, getting in my own way with that little voice in my head telling me I shouldn’t be there.