So I did it again. I started yet another Chloe Ting workout, the ’35 day summer shred challenge’. It was going well, full speed ahead, I was feeling strong and sure and then one day not at all. It was a Saturday, so I wanted to drink a little, have some dessert and then I felt bloated and full, which was definitely worth it in hindsight but at the time I felt fat again. Naturally and definitely okay to feel like that sometimes right? But I got on the scales on that Sunday afternoon and had put on the 1.5kg I had spent 2 months losing. Honestly, shattered my confidence completely. I was thinking what the F*** Chloe Ting aren’t your workouts supposed to make me shredded?? To give me that 11 ab line definition, isn’t that what you said??
So I started watching some other youtubers explain the other side of Chloe Ting that I hadn’t been seeing. It made me realise how caught up I was getting into imagining myself with the perfect defined stomach and toned arms; the whole lot you know. The language used is so deceiving that the ‘ideals' become so engrained in your mind the more you do it. And especially the more you do it without ever taking a step back and realising what its actually doing to you.
Now, I’m not trying to call her out and say she’s terrible because I feel so much stronger after doing her workouts. But, on the other end of that, what she’s doing isn’t very different to what many other fitness youtubers are doing. What she’s doing isn’t ground-breaking, it’s just another workout with a different name. Any workout you do will be good for you in some way, I guess it’s just the unrealistic expectations you want from them need to change.
I wish I could have told myself at the beginning that its okay to rest and take off days because it’s healthy for your body and you are also not obliged to workout everyday if you don’t want to. And after 2 months of working out pretty much every single day, I stopped today. I gave myself a rest. I feel bloated but I feel more in control of my body than I have for a while. I was just getting so trapped in this Chloe Ting cycle, arguing with myself that if I didn’t finish the challenge, I was giving up and that I was never going to get that ab definition that she promises you. But today I just didn’t want to do it and that is GOOD! Because I am taking back that assertive control of my body.
So who cares if I gained 1.5kg because that shit isn’t actually real. What’s real is the human body. A body that changes throughout the day, every day, for your whole life. It can grow stronger, it can become more knowledgeable, more experienced, see more, do more, our body is more than that hate we give it. I know it’s so easy to say that, but we do have to start acting upon the way we bully ourselves because it is EXHAUSTING to actively hate your body.
I’m just so happy I came to this point of realisation where I don’t feel trapped in a fitness regime that wasn’t always making me happy and made me doubt the beauty in my body. I felt like I was failing. I felt like I wasn’t achieving the results everyone else was. But if you think about it, all the people that Chloe Ting shares are going to be people who have made the most progress. While they are real people yes, with no photoshop etc, you don’t know what they’ve been eating and what else they’ve been doing to get these results. It’s also so much easier to see progress in other people. You look at yourself in the mirror in so much more detail than you do anyone else, so any change becomes very difficult to see.
I hope this brings light to people feeling sad about their bodies because know that you’re not alone in that feeling. But you also have to take things in perspective. While you look at the things you would love to change about your body, is there also something you would never change? Think about those parts too, the parts that you love and bring those to light a bit more. It’s all a journey and there is no rush in it at all. I wish I said this to myself when I first started
Commentaires