We’ve all heard the saying, “When you look good you feel good and when you feel good you look good.” And we’ve all had experiences in our lives when this phrase has pertained to us. Many have also realized that strength training plays a necessary role in the look good AND feel good part. It’s important in keeping our bodies healthy and helps us develop and maintain a leaner physique. Moving weight is pretty awesome stuff to say the least.
However, for myself, along with two of my good friends, it’s helped us build confidence in ways that we never had before. It’s helped us realize our potential and what we are truly capable of accomplishing.
This is a bit of a personal post for the three of us. It’s been a long road for all of us but we wanted to share our personal struggles and journeys to help inspire other women to realize their true potential as well. The following are the personal stories that Alicia and Paige have shared with me and all convey the capacity in which strength training has helped us physically AND mentally.
Alicia’s story….
I am now a strong and confident woman. I can now walk into a gym, or any room for that matter, and feel those qualities in myself that I used to admire in other women. The strength that I have acquired in the past few years goes far, far beyond the new bulges in my arm muscles and the flatter stomach I have received.
The true strength that I have found is within my mental capacity and the will to keep bettering myself. Yes, now I can throw some real weight around in the gym and reap some real benefits from it, but “results” are not why I strength train. I strength train because of how much it has changed my mind, body, heart and soul.
I looked just fine. That is always how I felt. I was n0t fat, I was not too skinny, I was not anything special and all. I looked just fine but I did not feel fine. I was experiencing some of the worst depression of my life.
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I was living with benign breast tumors that left me with a lot of breast pain and an inability to run (which was the only way I knew how to be in “shape”). I had no self-esteem, no purpose, and an eating disorder. I felt a lack of control in all aspects of my life, and I was going through an endless cycle of binging, purging, eating 500 or less calories a day and over-exercising. I was in the gym or out jogging for sometimes a few hours a day. This left me with a body that was storing body fat like nobody’s business.
I was in a state of extreme exhaustion, both physically and mentally.
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Slowly I transitioned from sticking to the stereotypical “girl on treadmill” to the girl weeding through the sea of testosterone and journeying into the free weight section of Purdue’s Co-Rec. I was intimidated as hell even though I was in a health and fitness major at school. I still only squatted the barbell and benched 8 lb. dumbbells. But hey, I had to start somewhere, right?
It was really not until I found a great group of friends, a great coach, and endured an injury that I developed the confidence to not only do the exercises that other people did at the gym, but to do them well, without fear, and with more weight than the average female (and some of the guys, too). Those made me feel awesome!
The next thing to change was the implementation of corrective exercises to strengthen my core and get my hips back under control and in alignment. Working to fix these issues included all sorts of unusual exercises from which I would get all kinds of weird looks.
If you have ever super-set dead lifts with a method like lying face down on the floor and crocodile breathing to reset your ribs, then you know what I’m talking about. I felt like a crazy person and the looks that I am sure I was getting would have cemented that. The real crazy thing was that I did not care! I liked doing things differently and I loved that I had the confidence to do them. Here I am now. From runner to powerlifter, I became strong, confident and finally felt beautiful and comfortable in my own skin!
My body had become a body that I did not realize I wanted.
I did not know I wanted my back to look defined in a tank top or legs that you could see definable quads but I had that and I felt amazing. I weighed significantly more than I did back in my “running and sick” days, but I looked and felt so healthy, strong and finally beautiful.
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You take your body with you everywhere you go, every minute of every day and it’s hard to understand how much low self-confidence and a skewed body image can affect all of that. One of my favorite pastimes used to be people watching, but now it’s talking with people and getting to know them. I love going to the grocery and striking up a conversation with the nearest person. That never would have happened before because I did not feel like I had anything important to say.
My mentality has changed so much since I have found powerlifting and strength training.
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The confidence that I have gained has made me a better lifter, a happier woman, and a stronger person. I am not easily intimidated. I am much more motivated across the board. Of course there are days I feel like crap. Some days I feel tired and bloated and sometimes at the gym I even feel weak but what I don’t feel is small, insignificant or limited. That is the woman I was, and I won’t ever be her again simply because of how much strength training has changed me.
Alicia just graduated from Purdue University and is currently pursuing here career at Metamorphic fitness in West Lafayette, IN. She works to empower women through educating them how to lead healthier lives. She has used her personal experiences to teach other women how they can love themselves and accept their body for the way it is. Next, we will hear from Paige.
Paige’s story…
As an Irish dancer at the age of 9, I was told that despite my talent and skill, I could not be on the best competition teams because I did not look like the other girls. It does not take a genius, even at the age of 9, to figure out that they were referring to my build. But let’s be clear: despite being a dancer for 11 years, I certainly never resembled one.
Now at 5’6” and between 160 and 170 lbs depending on the day, I have nothing close to a ballerina body, and I never have. I have been described as stocky, solid, trim, and a whole lot of other politically correct terms that don’t mean skinny, but for a long time that was all I wanted to be.
At some point in high school, after plenty of skipped meals and “calorie counting”, I learned to accept my build. I was stronger than a lot of girls in my age group. Competing at the National and International level, I could jump a little higher and hang a little longer in the air, so what I may have lacked in a petite build, I made up for with power. This translated to track and field as well.
I learned that despite my larger size (I often think of my coach referring to my legs as “tree trunks”) I could still end up where I wanted to be. Both in dance and track, I was able to make it to the top of the podium, on the school record board and to the state meet.
It wasn’t until college that I really discovered weight training.
Starting freshman year, I experienced the freshman negative 10, a relatively uncommon phenomenon, and started to notice some tone in my arms. I continued with a little guidance, lifting some dumbbells and using some weight machines until my senior year when I registered for a weightlifting course.
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My world was turned upside down.
Despite gaining a few pounds that first semester, my clothes got looser. At the challenge of my charming course instructor, I was lifting heavy and noticing more tone. And something else happened: I felt strong. It was so empowering to know that I could squat 265 lbs or bench 155 lbs. With each new PR, I was setting new goals.
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I always wanted to push myself to get 5 or 10 more pounds. I learned that my “tree trunk” legs were wonderful and that they could do unbelievably amazing things, things I never imagined they could.
It wasn’t until this point that I truly started to embrace my body. Accepting the way I looked was one thing, but I can honestly say I now love myself more because I embrace the way I am. I am so much more confident and I care so much less about what other people may think or see now that I am truly embracing my strength.
I’m not a size zero, and I probably never will be. And you know what? I really don’t want to be. Strong is beautiful. I feel happy, healthy, and ready to take on the challenges of the “real world”.
I’m not worried about whatever gets thrown my way. I can probably pick it up.
Paige has just graduated from Purdue University and will be headed to the east coast next month to pursue a job in Boston. She plans to continue making PRs and competing in a power lifting competition in the near future. Next, I share my personal story.
Melissa’s story…..
My journey has been a long way in the making and I still have a ways to go, but I love looking back on my progress and how far I’ve come since my early high school years.
My excitement and enthusiasm for fitness didn’t really start until I became involved in high school sports, but my obsession with it also began during this time too. Freshmen and sophomore year it was a means to be competitive and I truly enjoyed doing sports with my friends. It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I developed an obsession with exercise and lacked a true balance with it and everything else in my life.
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I was involved in soccer my first two years and then decided cross country and track were more fit for my interests at the time. My best friends in high school were those girls and guys who ran on the team, and we ran for fun while hanging out on weekends and on breaks. We rarely missed a day and if we did I felt guilty about it.
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During the first summer of my cross country season, I had run over 300 miles in eight weeks. Although I was fairly conditioned from the track season prior to it, my body was over-trained and undernourished. From the stress of all this running, my body reacted negatively to it. I developed hyperthyroidism and anemia which left me exhausted and slow. I had lost about 20-25 pounds in a very short period of time. This all happened as a result of my overactive thyroid.
I began to really love how lean I had become. I ignored how poorly I felt because I loved how much more attractive I felt. Everyone noticed my thinness and I was getting a lot of attention as a result. This is about the time things started to go downhill for me.
I started to combine my enjoyment in running with my obsession to stay really lean. Running wasn’t just a fun, extracurricular activity for me anymore, it was a means for me to maintain a low body fat percent in order to look more attractive to other people.
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I continued to run obsessively for the next few months and worked hard to keep myself under 130 pounds. I was probably about 5’9″ at that time and clearly from the pictures above I didn’t look healthy.
Fast forward a few months to my next track season…
During this season I put on healthy weight. I was more accepting of feeling better and looking healthy despite weighing more than I ideally wanted. I began to see that if I wanted to run better I needed more body fat. The feelings of needing to exercise every single day still continued though and I was still conscious of what I ate. I just accepted that I needed to eat more.
During my first year of college I continued racking up some big miles because I truly enjoyed it, but also because I wouldn’t let myself miss a day of running. I had little balance to my life. Everything revolved around my running schedule. I forced myself to exercise and felt guilty when I didn’t.
It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that I started to relax a bit. I developed a close knit group of friends that whether they realize it or not have truly helped me change my life. After realizing how annoyed they were getting of my constant negative talk towards myself, I realized I needed to change. And I needed to exercise less and enjoy life more. I saw how happy they were even when they had a cookie or a piece of cake when they wanted. I wanted to be happy with myself and be able to indulge every once in a while too.
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I learned how to be healthy but also relax with good friends and how to enjoy life with them. I was such an upbeat person to everyone else but towards myself I was harsh and never took a break. My college friends have helped me through so many things and I wouldn’t be the person I am without them.
Even further, I’ve changed so much more this past year. I no longer run and have found a true passion in strength training. I also have learned that days off are extremely important and I don’t have to work out every day in order to get the results that I want.
Strength training has helped me during my journey to develop a positive relationship with exercise. The strength training culture has helped me develop a more positive body image and relationship with exercise. I’ve gone from beating myself up everyday to learning how to take care of myself.
I love strength training and everything I have gained from it. I love the challenge, how it keeps my body healthy, but most of all I love how it keeps my mind strong.
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I’m certainly not as lean I was once was, but I’m happier and a whole lot healthier. Of course there are days that I still struggle with body image and being confident with who I am. But each day I train to make myself mentally and physically stronger. Changing this mindset doesn’t occur overnight and it takes a support system to do so. I’m thankful I’ve found this.
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Learning to accept ourselves for who we are has been a long journey for myself, Paige and Alicia. We’ve dealt with all types of issues that stemmed from various occurrences. All three of us have found a strong passion in strength training.
Although this process wasn’t easy to go through, it’s taught us how to help other women who go through these same things. It’s now our opportunity to share our story with other women so that we can help them through their journeys too.
Thanks so much to Alicia and Paige for sharing their stories with me. They are both amazing women and great friends!
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And I know they will both agree with me when I say this……
Live Light, Lift Heavy
Melissa
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