The more time I spend lifting, the more passionate I become. It’s my entire personality these days. (That’s a topic for another day.) Ever since I lost weight, people started asking me for workout advice and others finally recognize working out as my hobby. I post more pictures of fitness related activities now too that I feel like I deserve to talk about it. There are a few possible reasons for the increased recognition: 1. People are more aware because I post more; 2. I’ve been working out consistently for long enough that people are finally starting to recognize it and trust my advice; 3. Now that I look the way society wants me to look, people perceive that I'm credible.
I always take it as a compliment when people ask for my workouts or want my opinion. I’m happy to help people because it’s what I love. I’ll take any excuse to talk about it. Most of the time, I don't even have a reason to talk about it but I do anyway which is why the blog is called "Unsolicited Fitness." However, my results do not make me credible. I don’t have a formal fitness education nor have my strategies been proven to produce results for anyone else. The fitness industry has so much incorrect information that I can’t even fact check myself. I can read research study after research study, but many of them directly conflict with each other or have a biased sponsor. My methods work for me because I developed them for myself and myself only. I love sharing information when I can, but it hurts that more than one person only wants to talk to me for homework answers and workout advice.
There are millions of fitness influencers. Some of them have an education and give good advice or support, but others just want to sell products and gain followers. Many of these influencers use their looks to sell products that claim to provide a shortcut, or a path to losing weight and building muscle (mostly a bigger ass). I give credit to fitness influencers for being in great shape and building a business around it, but many of them aren’t credible and their products are BS.
Many people believe that you can look a certain way just from working out. If people ask or advice because they want to look like me, I should be giving them diet advice rather than lifting advice. Getting to the gym every day is hard work, but losing and maintaining my weight is much harder (and yields more results). My muscle might not have been visible before, but now that I’ve lost weight, I look the way that I do because of 3 years of progress.
I’ll never be able to know for sure, but I suspect that the main reason more people reach out to me now is because of my new appearance. (Although this does NOT apply to everyone.) I'm approached more often on the street, too. This could be due to my appearance or higher confidence. It hurts that no one cared what I was doing when I was 25lbs-35lbs heavier. I was doing just as much then too. I'm empowered to speak about this now, but I didn't have the confidence before when I was heavier and will probably feel worse about myself if I become heavier again.
If you’re reading this and want my advice, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way: As I said before, I’m still grateful for any excuse to talk about fitness and it is flattering. But I hope that you can understand that I’m not an expert and never will be. There is no magic fix. If you want to ask for my advice but not hangout with me because this is my entire personality, then please know that that’s what I sacrificed for these results.
