“People judge you by how you look, not by how much you lift in the gym.”
That’s what a friend told me last weekend, during a conversation spurred by my apparent weight gain. Yes, it’s true I put on about 5kgs since I last stopped dieting. While I know some of that is lean mass, I also know I’ve put on some body fat too! I used to be slimmer, but that was it. I wasn’t strong, I wasn’t going anywhere in my training. I was unmotivated.
Some of you may know of the story of how I started my fitness journey – I wanted to lose weight, get fit, yada-yada, so I exercised, dieted, and did all that, and I lost 15kgs in under 5 months. But so what? Losing weight isn’t exactly rocket science. I could tell you how to achieve that. But it also wasn’t the best method. What you lose in a short period of time, you could gain back in an equally short period of time.
So anyway, what my friend said got me thinking. Is being slim really all that great?
1. What are my goals? Mine is to get stronger. Looking aesthetically pleasing is secondary.
2. Can I get stronger and still lose weight/fat? So far, what I’ve been reading and experiencing shows that without some fat, you can’t really put on lean mass and grow stronger. Amongst people who lift, there is a term called ‘cutting’. This loosely means to restrict your diet or lower the amount of total calories consumed. This will invariably result in some muscle loss (the key is to keep it minimal) but with this muscle loss, you will definitely experience some loss in strength.
3. Okay, if I were slim… Then what? I don’t know about you, but this is hardly something I could be proud of for long. There are so many slim girls around, so that hardly seems like an achievement! I’d just be one of the many slim bodies in the gym. And besides, I mentioned that it’s hardly rocket science. But to aspire to squat 1.5x my bodyweight, or deadlift 2x my bodyweight, or bench press 1x my bodyweight, that does seem like real goals and achievements to me. And that’s what I want!
4. Will I ever want to ‘cut’ again? Sure. One day. Today is not the day. I want to put on shitloads of muscle mass first, before I start cutting.
Since putting on 5kgs (disclaimer: and changing trainers), here are some of my strength training achievements for the last 4 months:
Squats: from struggling with a 20kg empty bar to squatting 60kg now
Deadlifts: from performing a 50kg deadlift with bad form to deadlifting 80kg now
Bench presses: from struggling with 18kg to benching 40kg now.
Is the 5kg additional weight worth it? If you ask me, Yes, simply because my goal is to get stronger!
I’d like to just share this from a Tumblr blog I follow, seemerunliftlive:
Work for your goals, pursue your fitness and health dreams, but don’t let your goals be dictated by someone else.
Another quote, from female bodybuilder Melissa Sarah Wee’s Instagram:
The people who really care and love you will always support you and be there for you even if they don’t always agree with your choices. So whatever you do, you need to know that you’re doing it for yourself because if YOU are not the main reason for your choice, you need to sit back and re-evaluate yourself.
To wrap this post up, a final quote from above-mentioned friend: “… But strength is useless!” That is the most epic bodoh thing I’ve heard in a long time. You’re wrong, my friend. Strength is functional. Think about it. I have no issues with people wanting to be slim – by all means, go ahead. I am not gonna knock on your goals and say that it is useless, so don’t tell me that mine is.
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