I Am A Strong Woman

I am a woman in her thirties in the medical field with a lot of responsibilities and significant stress in both my professional and personal life. My entire life over the past three decades was dedicated to building my professional career and fulfilling the American dream of my immigrant parents: to become a doctor. As you can imagine, that journey was not easy. It required many sacrifices, and the one thing that kept me grounded and sane was the gym.

Given the abundant stress and pressure in my life to become a physician, my weight fluctuated from my teenage years to my thirties. As I evolved throughout the years, so did my workout routines. I was told as a teenager by my own primary care physician that I was “too fat” when my BMI was only twenty-five. What was supposed to be a vendetta to show my doctor that I was “not fat” turned into a life-altering mindset which led me to pursue a healthier lifestyle. I decided to run a mile every day for a year which led to me losing thirty pounds. I had never been the athletic one or the first person picked in gym class, so exercising was not something that I was accustomed to. But during that process of running on a daily basis, I realized that I was actually having a lot of fun and movement became therapeutic to me.

As the years went by, I switched from running to joining a gym where I was introduced to my new best friends… weights! Yes running was fun, but lifting weights gave me the confidence boost that I needed. It is the best feeling in the world when lifting ten pound weights used to be difficult, and now every month you feel stronger and can lift heavier. I made a lot of progress in my twenties with being consistent at the gym and combining cardio with lifting weights. However, medical school changed that for me because studying fourteen hours a day locked up in a library made me gain twenty-five pounds. I felt defeated, as if all the hard work that I put in at the gym had gone to waste. I am here to tell you that it is okay. Life happens. Do not be too hard on yourself and give yourself some grace because there will be difficult times in your life where you feel like you do not have the time or energy to show up for yourself, but we are only human. I knew that I was juggling a lot of things in my life, but the best thing that we can do is rest, show ourselves some grace, and then reset.

So how did I reset? I realized that if I was going to get back into working out then I had to do it in a way that would be motivating and fun at the same time so that it would not feel like a chore. I wanted it to be a therapy session to let out all the stress of studying and taking hundreds of exams. This is when I joined Crossfit. The Crossfit community not only gave me the opportunity to exercise, but it also brought an immense sense of happiness, which is what I needed. I looked forward to working out with people of different ages, skills, and fitness levels. I loved every minute of lifting heavy weights, sweating and panting while doing conditioning workouts, which sometimes included my worst enemies… burpees. Although it was hard, I felt extremely accomplished and STRONG at the end of every workout. I told myself that if I could do this then I could do anything. I could go to work every day and be the best physician because I made the time to show up for myself. I could walk into the gym now and do a workout that challenged me physically and mentally. I was not only exercising my body, but also my mind.

At the age of thirty-three, I became a licensed medical physician which came with new responsibilities that required growth and evolution. During this time, I was introduced to the “Strength Embodied” program, which was not only a game changer for me but for others who were new to the gym space. This program taught me so much about the gym and myself, even though I have been working out since age fifteen. I am a female in a male-dominated professional space, but it feels even better to also be a female in the gym showing up for myself with confidence. Women can lift weights because we are strong and we can do anything. I hope that by reading this post you can find the motivation to show up for yourself to strengthen your mind and your body because you are worth it.

About the Author: Tunisha Zaman is a practicing Family Medicine Physician in NY. She loves to lift heavy weights and eat great food. She enjoys spending quality time with family and reading a great psychological thriller or contemporary romance novel.