Make your workout motivation about socialising and support, writes Rafa Sales Ross, not harmful diet culture tropes.
Every Saturday morning, a group of around 10 to 15 people would leave a shabby warehouse-like unit in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro, to drink out of glasses as sweaty as their bodies.
This group, which I was proud to be a part of, was made up of CrossFit regulars, who met every week to work out together, and once (or more) a week to have a chat afterwards.
For three years, my husband and I were a part of that lovely group in Rio, up until the day we packed our bags and moved to his home country of Scotland.
Before getting on the plane, already missing our friends, we vowed to keep the habit overseas – to start again, to find a new gym. Alas, life got in the way, as it tends to do whenever we make promises we believe to be unshakeable.
It took us three years to take up CrossFit once more, but we eventually did, at the end of 2021. Now, at least five times a week, I’m at a warehouse-like unit again, this time in grey Aberdeen (although the bright orange walls of the gym often make me think back to my sunny home).
Friendship, not diet culture, motivates my gym sessions
As we enter a new year, maintaining a regular exercise routine becomes number one in many people’s resolutions, with a flood of articles full of terms such as “beach body” and “goal weight” filling screens, newspapers and magazines all over the world.
Long associated with the most harmful traits of diet culture, exercise is often seen as the chore that will lead one to whichever body type is considered the ideal by society this season. Group activities like CrossFit, on the other hand, place wellbeing above aesthetics, with community and peer support taking centre stage.
Perhaps this is why I keep coming back to it; exercising in a social setting makes me feel not only physically stronger but mentally stronger, too. Knowing the people in my corner will be rooting for me as fiercely as I will be rooting for them makes their accomplishments feel just as sweet as mine, endorphins released not only through exercise, but also through the joy of camaraderie.
Above all, joining an exercise group helped me to battle social isolation, allowing me to find a much-needed community where I once had none. As a foreigner in a city that couldn’t be further from home – culturally and geographically – friendships proved to be few and far between, requiring much more effort than lifting heavy weights.
So, as I enter 2023, my New Year’s resolution will take me to a gym, but a beach body has nothing to do with it. Maybe I’ll see you there.
Rafa Sales Ross is a writer from Aberdeen
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