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Gym-uary. That’s what this month should be called. I don’t know why we get ourselves so motivated in January – It’s not like anyone sees you in February. (Unless you can be bothered to clip a suspender belt around your waist for Valentine’s Day).
But here we all are again, posting photos of dumbbells with captions like, ‘Let’s go.’ The Christmas jumper is now stuffed in the back of the wardrobe. And the Sweaty Betty sports bra is back to work. My friends are all at it; Hermione and her boyfriend Sam, told me they’ve signed up for a class every single day.
“Yelly lady yelled at me in boxercise. Then, in spin class. And now she’s going to yell at me in abs,” Sam said, resigned to his fate.
“It’s also heaving,” Hermione said, then straight after. “You should come.”
“As appealing as that all sounds,” I said. “I don’t like gyms at the best of times, so I’m certainly not going to go now, whilst everyone is there sweating out their mince pies. Besides, yelly instructors make me cry.”
“It’s important to build muscle, though,” Hermione nagged. She then mimed her workout in the middle of my kitchen. “I do this,” she said, opening an arm out one at a time like a very slow cheerleader. “And this.” Her arms curled up and down.
It brought back haunting memories of when I tried to do the gym in my twenties. I would sit on metal machines sprayed in Dettol to disguise the stench of humans. And I’d push the heaviest weight I could to try and get Rachel Green’s perky boobs. I must have been doing something wrong though, as all I got was robust armpits.
So, no gym for me, but that’s not to say I’m not doing anything. I’m just doing it out of public view. It was only yesterday that I used Sian’s Peloton login and did a 30-minute Pilates video in my living room, with an enthusiastic Californian instructor. I’m sure she wouldn’t have been as enthusiastic if she could have seen me.
“Well doooooone!” she encouraged from 5,000 miles away, as I wobbled in my side plank.
“Thank you,” I said through a tight breath.
“Work that core!” She cheered.
“What core?” I cried.
When I was a teenager in the early 2000s, the core was only something in the earth’s centre or the stick in the apple that weirdos would eat. Those were simpler days – when muscle was not required.
Size 0 was the trend back then. A quick flick through Heat magazine, and you were met with photos of celebrities with arrows pointing at ripples on their thighs. CELLULITE. It was claimed that Victoria Beckham was living off Nobu’s Edamame Beans. The teeny-tiny Olsen Twins were pictured in Manhattan holding black-americanos-Starbucks the size of their heads. It was accepted they had eating disorders, along with Nicole Richie… but they looked so cool in their boho clothes, so it didn’t matter. And there were also the shiny, tanned, lean magical creatures called Victoria’s Secret Angels, who strutted down the catwalk in lingerie as one of their rockstar boyfriends cheered them on from the sidelines.
As a teenager, I absorbed it all as I tried to learn what the world required of me as a woman. In my copious eyeliner and Abercrombie & Fitch hoodie, I researched the Victoria’s Secret model’s diet and believed that if I lived on steamed spinach and white fish, my body would be just like theirs. Maybe my legs would even grow ten inches.
At the age of 13, I began recording the food I ate and my weight. Once I learnt what calories were, food became a very unfun game: the fewer calories, the more points. An egg had 70 calories, even less without the yolk. Score.
There was little out there about exercise. The one workout I heard about was Britney Spears doing a zillion crunches a day. Apart from that, the sole purpose of a woman exercising was to burn the calories she had so naughtily consumed.
Despite all my efforts to steam vegetables, count calories and burn them off on a treadmill like a lab rat, at 16, I still wasn’t even close to a Size 0. I was short and hippy – and not in the cool Nicole Richie way.
“It’s easy to be a woman and lose weight because all you have to do is not eat,” a date told me once. In theory, he was correct. In practice, it’s harder than it looks. Once, I fasted for a day, and by 5 pm, I was such a hangry goblin that I could have jumped on someone’s shoulders and ripped their head off like the vampire in Twilight. I realised if I were to continue this fasting method, I would end up being skinny but lonely…because I would have murdered everyone.
And so, I would watch the Victoria’s Secret fashion shows and grab my hip fat, twisting it, wishing I could tear it off. On nights out, I would use every suck in clothing I could find and wobble in heels in an attempt to trick the world into thinking I was a tall Scandinavian model. I painted my body in biscuit-smelling-sheet-staining-St Tropez, disguising any dips in the skin. And I would crop photos before I uploaded them on Facebook – my friends and I standing in a group without our legs. It may seem obsessive, but that’s what you are when you’re a teenage girl. Throw in a trend like Size 0, and it all becomes a little sad.
So, as much as I groan about gym-uary, I appreciate the body-positive era. The emphasis is on health and strength…. rather than how many bones we can count. I like that Victoria’s Secret returned last year, and the Angels varied in shape. I like that Hermione showed me ways she’s pulled weights rather than telling me how many calories she had eaten that day. I’m glad the Size 0 days are gone.
– Or are they?
“Good evening, and welcome to the 82nd Golden Globes—Ozempic’s biggest night,” joked Nikki Glaser, the host of this year’s Golden Globes.
Ozempic was initially designed to treat diabetes but is now being used as a weight loss drug by Hollywood stars, Influencers, and anyone who can afford it. In the last year, we have seen celebrities shrink before our eyes. Ariana Grande, an icon to Gen Z, sparked concern when she turned up at the ‘Wicked’ premiere with a visibly thinner frame. Fashion experts have commented on the rise of extremely thin models. In their spring/summer ‘25 size inclusivity report, Vogue Business commented, “We are facing a worrying return to using skinny models.”
Trends recycle. In my lifetime alone, I’ve seen baggy jeans, crop tops, and bushy eyebrows come and go and come again. But I really do hope, for the sake of teenage girls absorbing the world right now, that the Size 0 trend is not making its comeback.
As for me, I’ll be on my mat, alone in my living room, trying to locate my core with help from my Californian Peloton friend.
(Thank Sian for the logins).
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