I Am Not a Clothes Hanger

I've been reading reactions to "strong is the new skinny" and "strong is the new sexy" and how both are exclusive to people who are not physically strong. Strong doesn't mean you have to look like Camille Leblanc-Bazinet, although you should probably want to. It means you can actually pick up something heavy (whatever heavy is to you) because you haven't spent all day starving yourself to look like a clothes hanger.

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I have starved myself to look like a clothes hanger. I know what I'm talking about.

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Your shoulders are not supposed to look like this.

Strong is beautiful. Strong is working to be better than yesterday. Strong is looking in the mirror to admire your growing muscles, not to berate yourself about your touching thighs. 

My box is located on a reasonably busy street in Manhattan near Penn Station. We have a large hotel on the same block. Since we WOD on the ground floor and the door is often open, people stop to watch. I find it motivating.

Whenever I see a young girl watching from the door, I make sure that there is a huge smile on my face. I want them to see that lifting barbells is fun and that girls are more than capable of playing with the big boys. I'm not the strongest person in the box by any means - hey, I'm now capable of Rxing Varsity CrossFit Kids! - but I am strong because I show up and work hard. Maybe if I had seen women beasting it in a box when I was younger I could have avoided the years of fat-free yogurt, diet pills, and obsessive calorie counting. Maybe I would have treated myself better.

I don't believe in making people feel badly about themselves but I also don't believe in encouraging people to continue mediocre behavior by lying to themselves. It's like fat girls calling themselves curvy. You should love yourself, period. You can really love yourself by caring about your wellbeing and if you're obese or starved, you are not caring about yourself very well.