How The Gym Helped Me

There are many different hobbies and activities that help people relieve stress and that help them find happiness or peace in their life. What helped me find that inner peace and relieve stress was the gym. I never had a healthy diet nor did I ever include the idea of a simple exercise in my daily life. I always felt tired, I always felt bad about myself, my image, and I despised the way that I looked. I never liked taking pictures of myself, nor with anyone else, that being friends, family, or anyone else at all. My self esteem was so low that all I would put my focus on was work and school, nothing else, not even myself. I didn’t know how to love myself, how to put myself first and give myself the time and love that I needed to make myself feel better about myself. One day, I came across this girls Instagram page. She was all about fitness and helping women feel good about themselves no matter what size. I had followed her for so long until I finally decided to take a chance and ask her to be my fitness coach. That’s when, thanks to her, I realized that my love and passion for the gym is what I needed to help me learn how to love myself.

Let me tell you, it was such hard work during the beginning. It took a lot of self discipline and self control on a lot of things. Having a healthier diet, going to the gym every day, doing the exercises that I needed to do. I needed to do so much research as well. Yes, I had my coach helping me and guiding me through my workouts and my healthy eating habits, but it wasn’t just about listening to her and her advice. Yes, she gave me advice on what to eat, but she also knew that we all have our different taste in food and different likings in food too. So I did research to make sure that what I wanted to eat, I could eat, and also research on how to replace certain foods with something equivalent to what I needed to eat. I needed to learn to keep my discipline good and learn how to keep my focus on eating good and going to the gym when I needed to. Thankfully, I got a lot of help and push from my coach. Our weekly check ups and having access to her whenever I needed to ask for her advise or for help with something, really helped a lot too.

Slowly and surely, I began to learn how to love myself and appreciate the way that I looked. I began to learn that no matter what size we are, we need to learn how to love ourselves. I began to gain confidence in myself and in who I was, and what I was capable of and how far I could go. It helped me relieve so much stress too. I had been working two jobs, going to school, paying off debt, and it felt like my world was nothing but school and work, and it never included time for myself at all. With the gym, it gave me the push that I needed to realize that I needed to dedicate time to myself. The more time I spent at the gym, the more I was happy with who I was and who I was becoming. Not only was my esteem getting better, but the way I was feeling was getting better too. I didn’t feel drowsy or tired, or even bloated at all times or random times of the day. I would wake up with a lot of energy and ready for the day as soon as I was done with my workout. I would wake up every day ready to start the day no matter how bad times would get.

I know that the gym isn’t for everyone, and this is not me pushing everyone to start join the gym nor stating that the gym is necessary to help you learn how to love yourself. I’m just saying that the gym is something that helped me specifically. But what I will say, is that eating better and taking care of myself, and putting myself before anything, definitely helped me learn how to love myself more and how to appreciate the body that I am in today. I’ve seen a lot of women out there struggling with loving themselves and the body that they’re in, but I’m here to tell you, that no matter what size of jeans you are, no matter how many kids you’ve had, no matter how many doughnuts you decide to eat - because let me tell you, I have the entire box to myself lol - you are beautiful inside and out. Find what works for you and what makes you feel better. Find what activity it is that will help you learn how to love yourself. Whether that’s the gym, reading, or even spending time by yourself. I promise you that once you find that one thing that will help you learn more about yourself and teach you how to love yourself, you will never want to stop. Of course, I hope that a lot of people find the gym helpful the same way that I did, but in all honesty, I just hope you find something that helps you, the same way that the gym helped me.