As the pandemic eases, the hobbies and interests many of us developed during lockdown start to be forgotten. Half-finished crochet sweaters languish at the back of closets, while Zoom quiz nights have been shelved for in-person quiz nights, and who is still remembering to feed their sourdough starter (RIP my very own Barack O’Starter)? I – unexpectedly – started to exercise during the pandemic, but even more surprisingly, I’ve kept it up. For about a year now, I’ve been going on daily walks, riding my bike instead of taking the bus and heading to the gym to lift weights. I’ve even started to use the flexed bicep emoji without irony. Who even am I these days?
For context, I’m 34, have weak ankles and always thought of exercise as something you tried to get out of doing at school by telling your male PE teacher you were on your period, just like in a sitcom. It was a punishment you endured in order to achieve a version of happiness categorised by being “healthy”. People often say you should treat your body like a temple – and I did! One of those old, forgotten hilltop temples that fall to ruins because of neglect.
As a Chinese-immigrant kid in Sweden, growing up among public housing estates, this version of happiness seemed unachievable to me. My parents didn’t look after their bodies like that. They used their bodies as tools in their work, lifting 10kg of sauce in kitchens, moving deliveries in factories or taking inventories in supermarkets. And when they were home we ate: big dinners, that was our happiness. And boy, were we happy – so happy that my BMI has always been above 27.
This is my witty way of letting you know that I am fat – or, as my GP calls me, “obese” – which, in the health industry, is deemed “bad”. A lifetime of being medically obese led to me having my BMI constantly rammed down my throat by well-meaning healthcare professionals, many of whom did not realise that their moralisation of my body and lifestyle as “bad” simply added to the societal fat-shaming I’d already spent years internalising. At the time, I was “bad” if I didn’t change my fat body; now, in the era of fierce “self-love”, I am bad if I do because – twist – I’m incapable of loving it the way it is. We big girls really can’t win.
Of course, nobody else’s opinion should matter, but like many women, my body has always felt like public property, subject to everyone else’s opinion except mine. I simply happen to be the person living in it. In an attempt to block out the never-ending judgment, I told myself that I was “body-neutral” – I felt nothing about my body – and that was that. Except, feeling “nothing” about my body led to me not caring for it in any way. As a result, I became prediabetic and developed hypertension and gout (Henry VIII would be proud). I felt that if my body was inherently “bad”, it didn’t deserve to be cared for and that I didn’t deserve better because I was “bad”, too. Oh, the wonderful mindfuck of fat-shaming.
So how have I ended up maintaining an exercise regime for more than a year now? Short answer: therapy. Long answer: therapy. I ended up exercising my body and exorcising my demons (if that didn’t make you smirk, you’re dead inside). As you might expect, my body has started to change. I’m fitter than ever and I’ve managed to reverse all my health issues, including the gout (sorry, Henry). What I did not expect was the emotions this would unearth (or the yeast infection I would get from being in activewear for too long). I was forced to confront my “body-neutrality” and work through the complicated feelings I had suppressed.
Exercise is no longer a punishment for what my body isn’t, but a celebration of what my body is and what it can accomplish (120kg in leg press and a “very strong core” according to my personal trainer, whatever that means). My relationship with my body is still complex, but at least it exists. The sourdough starter, on the other hand, is beyond redemption.
Evelyn Mok is an actor and comedian
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