“I enjoy working out but I don’t *look* like I enjoy working out…what do I do?”

I have heard this from both athletes (current and retired) and non-athletes alike. Whether this refers to being shredded or being thin, it underscores the obsession our culture has with appearance and how what our bodies can actually do comes second to what they look like. It is also a direct result of the myth that how you eat and exercise determines what your body looks like. After all, if we weren’t fed that message as truth, how else would an industry worth more than $160 billion maintain its profit margins?

When I was a collegiate athlete, I remember being dumbstruck when I realized that most of my teammates had almost identical eating patterns and workouts to each other, yet still looked very different. (I’m not including myself or all teammates in that assessment because I and a few other girls were in the pits of our own eating disorders which, as you can probably guess, was a total shitshow…but that’s a story for another day.)

This awareness forced me to recognize that either 1) my friends were lying about EVERYTHING they were doing and eating when we weren’t around each other (and we spent at least 50% of the day, almost every day, around each other), orrrrr 2) what I’d been told about bodies and exercise is just. Plain. Wrong.

The latter was reinforced every time I toed the line and either dusted someone I was convinced was going to do the dusting, or vice versa. I had quite a bit of evidence that proved someone’s body weight, shape, size, body comp, whether or not they had visible abs, etc. had way less to do with their physical fitness than I was led to believe.

But I kept clinging on to that notion because it felt like it gave me…hope.

Hope that if I “could just look like them,” all my problems would feel a bit less problematic.

Hope that if I just had the “discipline” to do an extra workout here or there without telling anyone, teammates and coaches would notice a slightly leaner physique and I would be respected slightly more.

Hope that if I looked the way I thought I “should” look, like some of my other teammates, my worth and identity as a runner would be even more justified and solidified.

In short, hope that my body would finally prove how much I mattered - in my sport, to my team, and to myself.

It really sucks that so many of us cling to this belief that our bodies are our business cards and a direct reflection of what we eat, how we exercise, what we value, if we matter to someone, etc. It really sucks because you’re not actually holding on to it - it’s holding on to you, and it’s holding you back.

Your body is not the battleground where you prove your worth (or ability).

Your body is not responsible for what happens to you (or it).

Your body is not responsible for the way people treat you.

And your body is not responsible for you.

You know who is responsible for you?

You.

Just you.

Not for choosing how to prove your worth - but why you feel the need to prove your worth to begin with.

Not for what happens to you (or it) - but how you respond to it.

Not for the way people treat you - but how you tolerate being treated.

So what do you do when you like working out, which may mean you do it fairly often, but you don’t “look like it”? You start here:

1. Recognize what your baseline comparison is and if it makes sense/is realistic. Are you comparing yourself to pre-pubescent you, a friend from college, a professional athlete, an actor who can afford a personal trainer and 3 hours in the gym 5 days a week, or photoshopped images in media?

2. Understand that we could all eat the exact same things, do the exact same workouts, and we’d all still look radically different! Fitness truly is a feeling, not a look. Reflect on evidence in your own life when the sociocultural body ideal of “fit” has been challenged. If you can’t think of any, go to some local sporting events and notice the wide variety of bodies. This is something to be celebrated, not vilified.

3. Remember your values - and that a golden-dusted turd is still a turd. Even if someone looks “fit,” it doesn’t guarantee they are not a turd. I still have yet to see “visible 6-pack” or someone’s pants size on a tombstone, which tells us everything we need to know about what’s actually important.

4. Remember your intentions for moving your body. Are you moving your body to get outside, challenge yourself, get stronger, go the fuck outside, practice deep breathing, or any other number of reasons not related to aesthetics? Just like you’re allowed to have creative hobbies without turning them into a money-making scheme, you’re allowed to move your body without the end goal of changing it. You can lift heavy things or join a run club purely for the joy of it, to release stress, to make friends, or any other number of reasons without succumbing to society’s ever-moving target of what a physically capable body “should” look like.

5. Focus on living in your body - and not what that looks like to other people. Stop assuming people will notice and care if you attain this Golden Snitch of a physique you have in mind. It doesn't guarantee others’ perceptions of you. You know what is guaranteed? The love people have for you, for you being you.

Your body is not a battleground. Stop treating it like one.