How strength training changed my body image
A guest column, including MSc Psychology dissertation findings on a group of women
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Welcome to guest writer season here on A Day Well Spent — For a few weeks while I’m on the road, I am publishing some brilliant columns from guest writers and I’m so excited to share their voices with you.
I will still be in the comments and hope to see you there.
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— Leyla.
is a British writer, educator and psychologist based in Hong Kong. She holds a MSc in Psychology and her research interests include health and fitness. Her strength workouts have recently expanded to include more conditioning ahead of an upcoming 10k race. She writes at
.How strength training changed my body image
Including MSc Psychology dissertation findings on a group of women
by Sarah Best
The image below was taken in 2018 during my first strength training session where I live in Hong Kong. I wasn’t aware the photo was being taken as I was busy trying to regulate my breathing as well as complete the movements.
After the session, I remember limping down the hill where the gym was located, to head home on the train, swearing to myself that I wasn’t going back.
Weights were horrible, the trainer was horrible, strength training was horrible!
But I reminded myself that I had paid for a pack of trial sessions in advance. So, on my commute home the following week, I would get off the train and head to the gym. Sometimes money can be a great external motivator because climbing that hill before each session certainly wasn’t!
I can’t say that I paid much attention to my thoughts towards strength training or exercise generally during those sessions, beyond simply getting through each workout.
But something did begin to shift in my mind. Because by the end of the trial, not only had I signed a six month contract, but the trial helped to kickstart a more meaningful change regarding my relationship with exercise and with my body.
Why I dislike change presented as a before and after story
I experience some discomfort when reading about health and fitness journeys.
I am referring to the highly stylised/edited gym advertisements on social media that are usually accompanied with before and after shots of clients looking happier and often slimmer (and with abs, there always seem to be abs involved).
It’s not that I am entirely opposed to the message about change being presented in this way, but I do have an issue with the narrative that there is a clear trajectory: before then after.
This message is not just misleading, it feels jarring.
For decades I found myself endlessly striving for my version of the after when it came to health and fitness. So I know that my discomfort arises because the message hits a nerve.
If I just changed my body and made myself slimmer, then surely, I would be happier, right?
My husband had a suggestion based on his own experiences
It wasn’t always this way. I was an active child and participated in many forms of exercise including dance, athletics and even golf. I enjoyed moving my body, but was less aware of my body.
Yet thoughts about my appearance began to consume me from my late teens onwards, to the point where I pretty much stopped exercising altogether.
In my case, the after became associated with a negative body image where I never felt happy in my skin no matter what I did. I thought that by rejecting exercise, I could conceal my body to the world.
In 2017, I moved to Hong Kong. There was a lot of excitement about the move but I found the first year difficult.
I was struggling to make friends and I had a demanding job. Combined with poor habits like drinking too much and relying on takeaways for my main form of subsistence, I was not just unhealthy in a physical sense, I was psychologically unwell too.
It was my now-husband who suggested I try out strength training. A suggestion that I initially dismissed because I was concerned about the cost and having the time to go.
He had been strength training for several years and enjoyed how weightlifting helped him not only get stronger but also supported his mental health.
The moment I began to notice a change in myself
I had been training for around two years when I recognised that a more meaningful change had occurred besides building a regular habit of exercising, as I can remember my reaction to the following question from a friend:
‘Are you comfortable getting bigger?’
My friend was right. I was bigger, particularly in my upper back and shoulders (the barbell bench press is one of my favourite movements).
Still, the question left me curious because it appeared to lay bare some of the complexities about body image, the purpose of exercise and the connections between these themes.
Subsequently, these themes were something I explored last year in my MSc Psychology dissertation.
I interviewed a group of females about their body image, and whether and how, this had been affected by strength training. All the participants had strength training experience, whether that was a matter of months or decades.
A few things struck me about the findings
For instance, several participants shared a desire to reduce their chances of developing age-related impairments that are more common in females, such as osteoporosis.