Women are trained to value themselves by their appearance and simultaneously hate it. We’re too fat, legs too short, wrong shape, stretch marks from childbirth etc etc. And it’s so much worse if you’re trans, non white and so on. What do you like about your body?
I started lifting in October '23 after a former student of mine opened a small gym and invited me to train with him. I entered it thinking “my sport involves lifting heavy objects and putting them back down again” and now think “wow, there’s so much technique and knowledge needed to do this effectively and safely”.
And I can squat and deadlift about 60% more than my body weight (as my trainer put it: I was gifted with “sturdy peasant legs”, the bastard!) I can do rows of various forms with about 60% of my body weight (thought I hate my life for a few days after back day), but I can’t crack 80% of my body weight with bench presses. 😥 I’m at about where I want to comfortably be so now I just maintain, not build.
So if you’re lifting, good on you. It’s one of those things you can do to look and feel better both that doesn’t take a huge amount of time compared to doing cardio (which by definition needs huge chunks of time: I hate cardio day!).
That’s really impressive mate well done! I’m the other way, weights bores me to tears but cardio I love.