Yesterday someone asked me (stories still up if reading today) how to deal with being at your strongest but also heaviest body weight.

To which I say — same. Me too.

A follower messaged me and reminded me of these words I once said and wanted to make them a permanent home for you too….

“I will not resent my body for doing what I asked it to do”.

I don’t go to the gym to shrink my self. I go to the gym to get strong. More athletic. More capable. More powerful. I go to train and ask my muscles to contract harder, faster, better.

& in the pursuit of strength my has grown. My tiny 5’1” body is 20 lbs heavier than it was years ago before I got strong. And it’s been this heavy before. My body changes in response to how I train and I don’t get mad at it for it.

When I ask my body to be strong, I celebrate her strength.

When I ask my body to grow, I celebrate her growth.

I do not resent my body for doing what I asked it to do.

It’s a betrayal of my own self trust. It tells my brain that her strength is never worth more than her metric of gravity.

That “what people might think” holds more value to the actions we (me and my body) take than what I’ve asked it to do.

I lift.
I lift heavy.
I have asked my body to get stronger.
I ate in a way to support that strength so it would also grow.

I don’t get mad at her for growing.

While the relationship between muscle size and strength is not always 1:1 (meaning you can get stronger without always getting bigger). For the majority of women with minimal lifting or athletic history — when you start lifting your body will gain muscle. And that muscle weighs something. Most women will gain weight when they lift. That is, not just okay, but what we’re asking our bodies to do.

The magnitude of this may be small. And if we want to we can recomp in a way we can look or be build different at the same exact weight. Because the number was never the metric to go by.

If you’re at your heaviest weight because you started lifting and my god especially if it’s because of that and you gained muscle? Good. That’s the whole point.

& we do not get mad at our bodies for doing what we asked them to do 🤍🙌🏻