5 Personal Trainers Share Why They'd Rather Be Strong Than Skinny
I’ll never forget the day my dance teacher told me I’d be able to jump higher if I were lighter. I was a senior in high school, and yeah, I had gained some noticeable weight on my 5’5” frame over the course of the year. I didn’t fit the petite dancer mold that the industry so often favored—but I was happy. I had a good life, a love for food, and straight As in school. But 15 years later, I still remember that comment.
It took me a long, long time (um, 13 years) to learn to love my body the way it was, and to accept that I would never look like my ultra lean 5’10” dance BFF who ate more than I did and never seemed to gain a pound. I spent years trying to look a certain way, constantly taking for granted how I actually felt.
“Rail-thin doesn’t always equal healthy,” Katy Homyk, owner of Pure Barre Carlsbad (and a fellow former dancer) recently told me. “Don’t compare yourself to that super skinny girl in class. You have no idea what’s going on in her body or mind. Some people have a small frame or fast metabolism. But at the end of the day, it’s your life and health you have to worry about.”
Here are five fitness pros who love, respect, appreciate, and celebrate their bodies, too—women I wish I had known when I was a 17-year-old dancer.
“My body just wasn’t built to be skinny. Genetics play a very important part in how we look, and I think we all deserve to embrace our biology and accept that we come in all shapes and sizes—and that a very, very small percentage of all women in the world actually fall into that ‘stereotypically thin’ size and shape. My body is naturally muscular. Because I embrace that fact, I can enjoy doing physical things that use and enhance my genetic predisposition. If I pursued ‘skinny,’ I’d be setting myself up to be constantly disappointed, and to deny myself the joy I feel when I’m able to use my body to its fullest potential. Strength is empowering, and health is not about weight. I’ve never felt more empowered in the world than when talking with other women who aspire to feel and be strong—and I’ve never felt healthier than when my body is strong, fit, and flexible, and has great stamina and adaptability. This just isn’t possible if my only goal is skinny.
“I choose to be active. I want to feel capable to do just about anything I want—not just to look a certain way. I want to be able to pick up the heavy boxes when I move. I want to be able to carry all my grocery bags to my third-floor apartment in one trip—like my single mom of four kids did. And if I’m ever hanging off the edge of a cliff, I want to be damn certain that I can pull myself up! I’m happy to look beautiful and feminine, as long as being strong, capable, and fierce are included in that definition.” —Emily Saul, co-leader of November Project Boston
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“I love the way my body feels strong. I love being muscular. I love the way my arms and legs look. I love being athletic! For me, it’s a badge of honor. It says, ‘Look how much I love my body. Look how much commitment and work I’m willing to put into being healthy and strong.’” —Holly Rilinger, Nike Master Trainer and founder and author of LIFTED
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“I love to feel healthy, strong, capable, and ready for anything. Life can be crazy sometimes—my dog is very athletic, outdoor adventures excite me, and my career is quite physically demanding—and I don’t want to second-guess whether or not I can participate in or execute everything I desire. So I have no desire to be ‘thin’ or ‘skinny’ as society may project. Instead, I’m in love with the supple, feminine nature of my powerful being, no matter what the aesthetics may show.” —Karli Alvino, coach at Mile High Run Club
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“I suppose if I had a career in fashion modeling, ‘skinny’ could be an aspiration. But striving to be rail-thin doesn’t appeal to me. I love muscle tone. I love it on other women, and I love when I see my body changing and streamlining with definition. A lean body is a sexy body—just look at Wonder Woman. Plus, I have a 65-pound, 4-year-old son, and I can’t allow him to overpower me physically!” —Nicole Sciacca, Chief Yoga Officer at Playlist Yoga in Los Angeles
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“I struggled most of my life with trying to be stereotypically ‘rail-thin.’ At 31, I have finally become comfortable in my own skin. (And if you ask my husband, I look better at 31 than I did at 21 when we met!) When I stopped focusing on the scale and started focusing on how I felt, things really changed for me. Before, I was doing unhealthy and damaging things to keep the pounds off—quick-fix diets, anorexia, bulimia—and not only did that put a physical toll on my body, I wasn’t in a good place mentally.
"When I started teaching at Pure Barre, I started focusing on becoming a stronger version of myself. After all, you have to practice what you preach! Instead of setting a number on the scale to aspire to, I set different types of goals, like making it through the warm-up with three-pound weights instead of two pounders. Once my mental focus changed, my whole body changed. Now, at 27 weeks pregnant, I can confidently say that there is no way my previous self would have been able to mentally handle the baby-weight gain. But the stronger me is embracing the bump with love. Turns out, the stronger—not skinnier—version of me is a lot happier and healthier.” —Katy Homyk, owner of Pure Barre Carlsbad
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