Gaining confidence with your body & in the gym

"Self-love is the biggest middle finger of all time."

I wasn't always confident in the gym, I wouldn't even say I'm currently at 75% confident in my abilities at the gym nor am I confident in my body. I have always been very, very self-conscious which seems incredibly strange for someone who loves performing and has more than enough confidence to get into conversations with people I've just met.

The issue probably stems from all different kinds of things but mainly the relationship I have had with my body for years. I treated my body terribly whilst I was younger, I used to go through phases of binge eating and forcing myself to be sick and it was incredibly unhealthy, I was always the smallest at school which meant being surrounded by taller, leaner girls, My body was different to theirs and I couldn't accept it no matter how hard I tried. I felt like my curvier frame meant that I was ugly and grotesque. The media doesn't help either, whilst I was younger the media was very driven to glorifying one body type-the type of body I didn't have and never would be able to achieve because it just isn't the way my body is built.

I think over the years the media has begun to see curvier body types as beautiful as someone with a smaller frame but I still think the obsession with bodies that is instilled on us all is just unhealthy. Magazines raging about diets and which celebrity has dared to gain 10 pounds following their pregnancy and which celebrity is deemed the sexiest because they cut carbs. The media feeds us things like this daily and it is so so wrong that so many people have such awful issues with their body. Nobody is taught to love their body. We are taught to hate our bodies and the diet industry absolutely thrives off it.

When I first began going to the gym it was partly because I had gained a lot of weight because I ate unhealthy foods and I never did exercise but it was also partly to impress my first boyfriend who was kinda obsessed with himself (my naive 16 year old self was completely besotted with him and didn't see this). He was older than I was and I was new to relationships and I completely admired his obsession with going to the gym and working out so many times a week, now when I look back I realise he loved himself in all the wrong ways and throughout our three year relationship this had a totally negative impact on me. I'm never going to say I regret that relationship because everything is an experience that we learn from but now I know I will never allow a man to make decisions on what I get to do and don't eat again nor will I allow someone to make me feel as though I'm unworthy because my body doesn't fit their standards. I have learnt to embrace my body now and I actually have the gym to thank for that.

Once I escaped that relationship I started to go the gym on my own terms, I loved exercise and I loved how I felt from it. I felt stronger, I didn't feel like I was about to have a heart attack if I ran for more than 10 minutes and I CRAVED healthier foods, yes CRAVED. I wanted to feed my body in the right way so that I would be able to push harder during work-outs which I would have never been able to do back when I used to go between days of living off one bottle of lucozade to days when all I would stuff my face with is junk.

Not only did the gym make me physically stronger but it also helped me an immense amount mentally, I can have bad mood swings but I have found that whenever I train I feel much happier, this is scientific because of the endorphins we release when we exercise and exercise has become a major stress release for me.

One of the things I hear often is that people are afraid of the way people will look at them in the gym, now I have been going the gym for quite a few years now and I'm still terrified of the way others might be looking at me but as I have spoken to more PTs and more members at the gym I have found that actually everyone is in the same boat. I know PTs that are obviously fully qualified and yet there are still things they are learning, I still see some of them seeking help and being shown correct techniques and so on. Just like every aspect in our lives we are all always learning so there is no point in worrying about what someone thinks, if someone thinks you're doing something wrong they will usually help you, if they are going to stand there and laugh at you about it instead then the issue is with them not you.

If you struggle in the gym or you need motivation here are some things that helped me.

- Find a partner

I was going the gym way before I met Jess but she is who I have to thank for being so confident strength training. I am still not 100% confident weight training on my own but she really has helped me. We motivate each other, we have the best, sassy workout playlists, we are always switching our workouts up and we have good competition between us both. Gym sessions our way more fun when you're training with a friend. If you don't have a partner, try going to classes. I literally met Jess at the classes at the gym and planned one training session with her and now we train together all the freaking time.

- Go to classes

I personally hate training alone, sometimes I love putting my headphones in and doing a run but generally I hate training anything else alone. I love going to hardcore classes like Bootcamps and circuit training and boxing because they are all the kind of classes that push me to my limit and let me see my capabilities. 

-Get a personal trainer

I have had the same PT now for almost three years and he is my friend now too. He's helped me learn A LOT in the gym and luckily he began training me towards the end of my toxic relationship so he is actually to thank for boosting the confidence I have about my body and about my capabilities in my training. Obviously not everyone wants a personal trainer but I would advise anyone that is unsure of what they are doing in the gym to at least have a consultation with one. 

- Don't be afraid to ask for help

If you don't know how to use a machine or set up a machine then ask someone working in the gym, that is their job and they are usually more than happy to help you. Follow fitness accounts on instagram, google workouts, don't be afraid to try other people's workouts and seek advice for what to do- it is how everyone learns. You will be able to figure out what does and doesn't work for you and get some really helpful tips.

-Switch up your workouts

You are never going to motivate yourself if you hate the work-outs you are doing. If you don't like running, don't run. If you don't like going alone, go to classes or find someone that will train with you. Find something that you personally love doing and don't be afraid of trying new things. Boxing is an incredible stress release for me and it is one of my favourite work-outs. If you don't want to sign up to a gym there are always hundreds of places that run random open classes that you are more than welcome to attend. 

More than anything- love yourself!!!!!!!!!

Your body is your home, give it the love it needs. Embrace the body you were given and know that comparison is the thief of joy. You are never going to look exactly like anyone else, the beauty is in our differences and just because your body doesn't look like this person or that person, doesn't mean that it isn't just as worthy. 

I am still working on myself every day and as long as I am healthy and happy that is what matters most.

Hope you enjoyed reading. H x

'Asking for it'

"We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: you can have ambition but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man." - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

One of my favourite blogs is by a girl called Michelle Monroe, she often does 'Book club' posts and posts the books she's currently reading. In one of her posts she talked about this book and the importance of reading up on things like this. Now I'm quite dubious about books like this and the same with films, if I think something is going to haunt me or play on my mind in a negative way I can't motivate myself to read/watch it. However, I think it is the world that has moulded us this way and it has to stop. We have to be more open minded and become comfortable with talking about subjects that make us uncomfortable. This book for instance, needs to be read again and again by women and men, by young girls and boys, by everyone. At first it seems like a book about a spoilt brat, the book is written to make you feel inclined to perceive this young girl as a rich, annoying bitch. It is so cleverly done that by the end you feel as an audience to this book just as guilty as the characters that you grow to hate. The ending to this book was kept true to reality and it absolutely infuriated me.

The book is told from the perspective of Emma O'Donovan, an eighteen-year-old girl living in a small town in Ireland. In the beginning of the book she is going about her day to day life, think a young Regina George, she is the leader of her friendship group, she attracts a lot of male attention and at first you believe she loves it, basks in it even. But gradually you come to realise that she is actually a very miserable young girl that craves this attention, her mother has brought her up to believe that outer beauty is an important asset to have, her father has spoilt her but you also notice that he treats her mother with very little respect. In my opinion, she is brought up to believe that men have the upper hand and that all she has to offer in this world are her looks. Now this book took me a couple of months to read because I kept putting it down as I get very irritated by bitchy, nasty girls and to me this character seemed just that, however the more I went back to it, the quicker I began to read it.

Emma goes to a house party one evening with her friends and gets very drunk, she starts flirting with guys and one offers her drugs or rather seduces her and then puts the drug into her mouth, she then completely loses control of herself and ends up unconscious outside of her house. She is woken by her hysterical parents who rather than asking how she has got into this state, are more concerned with getting her inside and getting her covered up, being mortified that the neighbours might see them any less than perfect. As the book continues it becomes apparent that Emma was raped at the party by not just one but a couple of guys who not only did this but took hundreds of explicit pictures of her and uploaded them to social media, she is then bullied for months, the case goes viral, she doesn't attend school, she loses her friends and her family life falls apart. The girl you initially hated becomes the girl that breaks your heart. As a reader you feel as though you are suffering the brutality the victim is exposed to and it induces absolute rage. I felt furious as a reader that as this girl was young, popular and beautiful that she was immediately considered a 'slut' and that she was to blame. 

I would love to say how this book ends but I want people to read it but what I will say is that it is absolutely not the ending you are so hopeful for. I want more people to read this book because rape culture absolutely needs to be eradicated. I am the oldest of four sisters and I want nothing more than for my sisters to grow up in a world where they feel comfortable in themselves, in their bodies, that they realise that having good qualities on the inside are much more important than anything you show on the outside, that they can grow up in a world where they see the opposite sex as equals and are treated with the same respect and that they never have to fear that decisions regarding their bodies will be made for them. 

If you think I'm just on a "feminist rant" then have a look at the statistics: 

• Approximately 85,000 women and 12,000 men are raped in England and Wales alone every year; that's roughly 11 rapes (of adults alone) every hour. These figures include assaults by penetration and attempts. 
• Nearly half a million adults are sexually assaulted in England and Wales each year

• 1 in 5 women aged 16 - 59 has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16
• Only around 15% of those who experience sexual violence choose to report to the police
• Approximately 90% of those who are raped know the perpetrator prior to the offence

I don't feel that we are living in an equal world, I feel like I far too often hear girls being degraded and spoken about in a vulgar manner. Not only with guys bragging about sex and talking about the women they have had sex with in an insulting way but also with girls naming other girls 'sluts' and 'slags' and other offensive names regarding their body or choices. Something that majorly upset me about this book was the Afterword by the author Louise O'Neill she talks about her research for the book and how so many of her friends had opened up to her about a time when something similar had happened to them but they were too afraid to report it because they felt they were somewhat to blame. These women had SHAME, how do we live in a world where a woman feels more ashamed of themselves for being forced into a sexual act than a man does for inflicting this? 

"We need to talk about rape. We need to talk about consent. We need to talk about victim-blaming and slut-shaming and the double standards we place upon our young men and women. We need to talk and talk and talk until the Emmas of this world feel supported and understood. Until they feel like they are believed." - (Louise O'Neill)