Fitness in Women’s Lives

“I am allowed to look sexy, feel sexy, and be in love. I am worthy of all of those things. And so are you.” -Mary Lambert

This story is very personal to me. As a woman, I’ve always been body shamed by lots of people around me including my parents, family and friends. I am sure as a woman many of you can relate. How people around us want you to look in a certain way and sometimes jokingly or mockingly say things that put us to hate our body even more.

I feel better about my body when I work out. And as a body-positive feminist, I have a hard time admitting that this is a reality for me, in part because I don’t want to be judged as a bad body-positive feminist, and also because weight loss is not an important part of everyone’s journey to self-love.

Many people, especially those of us socialized as women, have been at war with our bodies for a very long time, for some of us for as long as we can remember.

Women are taught from a young age that our bodies are inherently not good enough as they are. We see this in advertising, in the way our mothers criticize their own bodies, in the countless frequently unrealistic portrayals of the female body on television or in movies.

It’s a vicious cycle that exists in all realms of our life. Just like it’s big news when a celebrity or character loses weight.

Few months back, Adele ( Laurie Blue Adkins — English Singer) posted her pictures on social media and all the people started writing and posting stories, how she has lost weight in the last 2–3 months and her before and after pictures.

I am no way saying is it not inspiring, certainly it is; but sometimes it really makes you feel bad about your own body. If you are on a weight loss journey and not able to achieve your goals, you start judging yourself and criticizing your body for not losing the weight. I hate to say it, but we all have thought at some point in our life, I certainly did that.

Regular physical activity has important health benefits for both men and women. When we think about fitness or exercises or going to gym, we always imagine men doing the workout or lifting heavy weights.

“I finally realized that being grateful to my body was key to giving more love to myself” ~ Oprah

Body image and weight often go hand in hand with external pressures from family, peers, and media influencing how an individual views him or herself.

Couple of weeks back, I was listening to a podcast on body image issues among women and in society over all. There is much research where women tend to be more likely to have negative body image perceptions than males.

This could come from social pressures to look in a certain way, pressures that are more commonly directed at women. The data collected in research was consistent with past research as it showed the majority of participants with a negative body image were female.

Women are typically shamed or thought to be less desirable or traditionally attractive if they do not fit the mainstream standard of beauty.

When people think about workouts or exercises, it mostly means lifting heavy weights, working with machines and big equipment at the gym. It’s not the case in today’s time. This year, things have changed drastically and we have to be socially distanced to prevent corona virus from spreading.

With the ongoing pandemic, we are staying at home more than ever. Our office has been shifted to home and now our gym is also moved to our home.

Everything has felt so off, so chaotic, so uncertain for so many of us for months now and I find that when the world feels unsettled, it can infiltrate into all areas of my life and can shake my confidence right across the board.

Can we actually love our inner selves and still want to lose weight or make our bodies look a certain way?

So, hey if you’re feeling some uncertainty right now, I totally get it. If you’ve been thinking of ways to improve your mental health and overall outlook on life and build your confidence, maybe you’ve considered exercise, which can be a great way to do those things.

But for some people, just getting started comes with so much apprehension that you avoid it all together. Feeling uncertain or self-conscious around exercise, especially right now is normal for so many people including me.

What if you could rewrite your fitness story? What if exercise was fun? What if it was joyful and rewarding and had nothing to do with how we looked or our body size?

What if we could let go of all the harsh expectations we have for ourselves and stopped caring about the expectations of others, or at least stopped giving them so much primacy in our own thoughts and decisions? Well, we can.

That’s what I am trying to help all of us to re-frame our relationship with fitness and rewrite the story so you can make it a joyful part of your lives for the long term.

I am glad, now there are enough platform available to support and encourage women all around the globe.

With the rise of social media and fitness inspiration, there is a new type of pressure advocating that the best way to “find yourself” will probably involve changing your body, and that a good body and the accompanying happiness is something we should all try to “earn.”

I think it’s completely true that anyone can be healthy at whatever size they are.

Here are some things to remember when you are approaching exercise after a long time or for the first time that might help you transition to movement.

I am going to give simple and very easy tips and tricks to set up a home gym.

Fitness is for everybody, including you — The weird thing is, I don’t need any special powers to make this happen.

As we’re investing time and money to set up home offices, it’s a good idea to start thinking about setting up a home gym. it doesn’t mean you need fancy equipment for a separate room for it.

Choose a corner in your house to keep your gym gears — Find a little corner in your house to keep your gym equipment so you don’t need to rush anywhere to find them or to reach out to your dumbbells, yoga mat or stretching bands etc.

You can do it anywhere in your house. Your patio, living room space or even in your bedroom. Wherever you feel motivated to spend 30 mins of your time to work out. There are plenty of exercises you can do anywhere without any gym equipment.

Start investing in these things — You don’t need to invest highly on your fitness equipment. Just a yoga mat is more than enough to start your training.

If you’re looking for some strength or core building exercises, best to invest in some home gym equipment — you don’t need a huge place to keep your gym equipment.

It’s wise to invest in a yoga mat, few resistance or flex bands , a couple sets of dumbbells based on your strength, a foam roller for recovery days. That’s it and you’re set for your workout routine. Slowly you can add up things based on your need and requirement.

No equipment workouts- There are plenty of no equipment workouts available, where you don’t need anything other than a yoga mat. If you have a time limit or you’re occupied with different things in your life, high intensity ( HIIT- High Intensity Interval training ) workouts are your answer.

You just need 15–20 mins of your time and do high intensity workouts or cardio exercises to pump up your heart rate.

Exercises that you can start with. There are a few easy exercises. Work on your form and add speed to it. You can set a 20 secs timer initially and see how many reps you can complete. Take 15 secs of rest and do it again for 20 secs. Add 2–3 circuits with each exercise.

You can increase your timer once you have built the core and leg strength. These workouts help you out with your full body building. If you have any focus area, you can have variations in your exercise routine.

Some workouts are holding plank, jumping jacks, star jumps, burpees, reverse lunges, mountain climber, push ups, squats, jump squats, oblique crunch etc.

I am going to talk more about each work out in my next story. Stay tuned:)

Recovery — Always remember recovery is as much as important as your workouts. Your muscles and body need time to recover and build strength.

Instead of working out 6–7 days a week, try to have HIIT work out 2–3 days in a week ( not more than a day gap) and add low intensity work outs ( LISS- Low-Intensity Steady-State) for another 2–3 days.

Few examples are, add yoga stretching, yin yoga poses or a light walk around your block. This is called active recovery day. You are giving your body to heal and come back with more energy and strength. So never miss your recovery days.

Have 2–3 days of active recovery including with your HIIT and strength training workouts. If you’re not sure of routine, let me give a simple example to start with.

Monday — HIIT, Tuesday — Yoga stretching, Wednesday — HIIT, Thursday — LISS ( light cardio or a walk), Friday — HIIT, Saturday — Yoga Stretching or add muscle flexibility workout, Sunday Rest or just do a light walk.

Add your friends in your work routine- It’s always good to have a partner or a companion in your workout routine. Ask your partner, friends, friendly neighbor to join in your fitness journey. This way you all can motivate each other and share tips and ideas to do better everyday. It’s more fun to have support around. Take a class with someone who resonates with you.

Add your favorite podcast for when you exercise, or only allow yourself to watch your favorite show or listen to your favorite album when you’re on the yoga mat.

You might find yourself exercising just to listen to music, your favorite podcast, or to watch your favorite show.

Practice Meditation and Yoga — Health is not only restricted to your physical aspect, you need to focus on mind and emotional health too. Add a few mins of meditating, yin yoga in your schedule.

If you’re already in your fitness journey, try Mobility and Flexibility training — I recently learned about flexibility and mobility training to move body muscle and activate your body.

It’s good for physical fitness and has many positive effects on the body. For instance, it improves posture, muscle coordination, muscle flexibility reduces the risk of injuries and muscle soreness. It even leads to a better overall body shape.

You are the master of your body and you get to decide what works for you and what doesn’t. You can take your time establishing relationships, asking questions, choosing workouts and instructors.

If you love your body and love to exercise, that’s great, too. But if you’re like me, and you want to change your body, you need to start thinking of exercise as more than just a tool to change your body, it’s also about changing your mind and how it views your body.

Of course change is slow. The best thing you can do for yourself is set realistic goals for what you would like to achieve. Nothing is worse than being too hard on yourself and thinking you’re not making progress when you’re busting your ass. Progress takes many different shapes and forms , just like our bodies.

If you are thinking about getting back in the game, your time is now.

Check out my Instagram to see my workouts and progress. Hey! why wait, start hitting your home gym now and show how it’s improving your over all health and fitness.

You can do this!

Be Bold

Be Courageous

Be Your Best