Fitness motivation (Part 1): It's all about self-image

Do you see yourself as unfit? Do you want to adopt a fitness lifestyle, but don’t know how? This one is for you.

When I was a child, my parents forbade sports and working out. They felt that anything fitness-related would take away from my focus on studying for generic government-curriculum schooling. Regardless, I still liked the idea of me becoming good at sports, and becoming fit.

Because I wasn’t fit already, I felt that I didn’t have the drive to work out. I needed to already see myself as someone fit before I began to work towards getting fit. I would see all the other kids who were mostly athletic and sporty, and I just couldn’t figure out how they acquired the drive to get there. I understood that they were playing sports from a very young age, before they even solidified their identity. But at age 13, I had already formed my rigid self-image as someone who didn’t know how to play sports, someone who was chubby, and someone with whom other kids didn’t want to play, because I couldn’t play. The idea of picking up my mom’s dumbbells (which she never used) to do a few biceps curls, like I saw in Rocky 4, felt alien, disingenuous and terrifying to me.

But one day, at the age of 13, I decided that I didn’t have to see myself as someone fit before starting to work out. All I needed was to see myself as the underdog, the audacious rookie, the weak one who, just like Rocky, struggled through and refused to give up, even when everything was against him. So I began working out in secret when my parents were away. I did biceps curls, crunches, push-ups, pull-ups, shoulder flies, hyperextensions, and anything I saw on TV.

I was the underdog who kept working out against all odds. But it would take years of struggle before I could actually self-identify as someone fit.

(Continued in Part 2)