Do you know what feels so cool?
It’s something that I have always feared, and something that I didn’t know if I had the mental strength to actually achieve.
For me, the coolest feeling in the world is feeling my body grow and building muscle.
Seriously, for so many years I have tried to stay as little as possible. I was focused on being and remaining as small and skinny as I could possibly be instead of being strong and muscular. The way I saw it in my mind, growing strong and building muscle entailed my body getting bigger, and if my body was getting bigger, then that meant that I was going to gain weight.
It didn’t matter to me if it was a healthy weight that I was gaining, I was petrified of any weight gain or increase in body size.
A New & Improved Mindset
Recently, though, I have been challenging myself. I have tried to shift my focus away from my fear of gaining weight, and instead, I have started shifting it towards being able to lift more weight. I have been going into the gym with a plan. That plan is to simply lift more weight or be able to do one more rep of the same weight than I had the time prior.
This mental shift has been working for me. When I get done in the gym, I have felt like a whole new person. It’s weird to describe, but it’s almost as if I can feel my body getting bigger and stronger by the minute.
My arms are getting larger, my chest is starting to feel fuller, and my legs are stronger than they have ever been.
Find A Purpose
For me, going into the gym with a purpose of lifting heavier weight and becoming stronger has helped me to combat my fears of gaining weight. No longer do I see the gym as a place to go to torture myself or to get as small as possible. I have actually started to see it as the complete opposite: a place to go to challenge myself in a way that used to petrify me, and a place to grow my body.
Now, mind you I am not the most muscular person by any means, but feeling my body getting bigger has brought out a whole new level of self-confidence that I never even knew existed.
Back when I used to be heavier and first started exercising to lose weight, one of my goals was to be able to go outside and feel comfortable taking my shirt off. I know it sounds silly to think about, but what guy in their early twenties doesn’t want to be able to go to the beach with washboard abs?
After a while, though, I will admit that I got too skinny. I might still be too skinny, but from where I was at, I feel like a completely new person. To me, that is what matters more than anything. I don’t really care how others perceive me anymore because I have ever been more comfortable inside of the body that I am in.
Move Past Your Fears
A lot of the fear that I had about gaining weight stemmed from the fact that I had been bullied and teased in the past for my weight. Because of that, I viewed any amount of weight gain as a bad thing. If I gained weight, then I was going to be fat again. If I gained weight, then I was going to be judged again. And if I gained weight, then I was going to be miserable again.
As far as I was concerned, gaining any amount of weight was not an option.
But the thing is, once I reached a certain point, I never allowed myself to gain wait to see if I was comfortable in the first place. So for the last five years of my life, I feared the idea of gaining weight without even knowing what it felt like to gain weight in the first place.
A Final Note
The point is, do something today that is going to challenge you. Do something where you are going to have to challenge yourself, and something that is going to require you to break out of your comfort zone. If you never at least try, you will never know what could have been. Who knows, it might be the coolest feeling in the world.
Whether it is gaining weight, losing weight, going for a walk or a run, getting into the gym for the first time, asking your boss for a raise, anything, just give yourself the opportunity. Without giving yourself the opportunity, you will never know the possibilities.
For one of the first times in my life, I am actually okay with gaining weight. I am okay with getting stronger, growing my body, and gaining some extra weight. Actually, it’s now a goal of mine. Feeling my body grow has not only been the coolest feeling in the world for me, but it’s one that I want to keep on feeling. And it’s all because I moved past my fears and actually tried. Without trying, I would never have known what I was missing out on.
Michael Bonnell
7/31/2019
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