WHY WE FIND FITGIRLS SO
ANNOYING
Fitgirls. You can't escape them anymore. Everywhere you see them with their bootcamped bodies, sipping on green smoothies, with hashtags like #lovemytightass and #bleakceleryforever! And let's be honest: don't you secretly have a bit of a grudge against them? I mean, they spend two hours in the gym every day and haven't seen a carbohydrate in three years, they must know, but does it have to be so in our face?
My friend Ashkaine Hora Adema is one of them too. Now she is not your average twenty-year-old with an obsession for kettlebells and a phobia of carbohydrates. She suffers from rheumatism, was in a wheelchair for years because of it, and oh yes, she has also passed fifty. Two and a half years ago, she turned her life around. ‘What would really make me happy?’ she wondered. The answer was: getting fit.
Since then, she trains every day. And you can see it. Ashkaine has a body fat percentage of 13% and a six-pack and biceps to be jealous of. She can just wave when she wears a sleeveless top and never has that cozy fat roll above her jeans. She lifts heavy groceries effortlessly. But more importantly: she feels a-ma-zing. She has energy, she doesn't get angry, and she can take on the whole world. And that was different in the past, she says.
‘She can just wave when she wears a sleeveless top and never has that cozy fat roll above her jeans.’
Because she wants to inspire others and because she has a lot of fun exercising, she regularly posts photos and videos on Instagram. She also recently graced the cover of Het Parool and was seen on television in a report about fitness at the Stand van Nederland. Moreover, she is also a total babe with a great wardrobe and good hair. Good for her, you would say. And how hopeful that it is never too late to undergo a total lifestyle change.
Yet Ashkaine also receives negative reactions. Friends who no longer want to go to the beach with her, who unfollow her on Instagram because ‘they get a stomach ache from it.’ One friend even literally said to her: ‘You’re embarrassing us.’
We never get angry at people who are overweight and have poor fitness, but apparently, we find thin and fit people very annoying. Why do fitgirls provoke so much resistance?
I think I know. When someone in your environment trains so much, you automatically start to feel worse about yourself. Because if she can do it, why can't you? Why can she resist that KitKat (Lillian brought a bag today, a bag!) while you don't just eat one, but three? Why can she get up at six to train while you stay in bed long after snooze time? Why does she drink one glass of wine while you immediately take the whole bottle?
‘You’re embarrassing us.’
Because of fitgirls, you can feel like something is dramatically wrong with you. You're lazy! You have no perseverance! You're too fat! And because we simply can't stand every negative thought about ourselves, our ego has found a very good trick for that. No, we are not lazy, they are just completely crazy!
This is unfortunate and unnecessary. Because I have found the trick to come to terms with our fit fellow humans. Compare fitgirls to triathlon participants. Training for a triathlon is incredibly tough, but you could definitely do it if you wanted to. But it doesn't have to, and you're not a loser if you just stick to one round in Vondelpark. That's how I view fitgirls too. They show you a world you can step into, but you can also just see it as a source of inspiration.
And it works. Whenever I see Ashkaine, I always feel like exercising. In fact, sometimes I train with her (she with weights of fifteen, I with three kilos). And yes, it is also strange that we find it completely normal to watch Netflix for two hours every day and think it's ridiculous if someone spends that same time on sports (this quote is from her). And it is also strange that here in the editorial office, I sometimes have to suppress the urge to secretly hide Simone's broccoli snacks to see if she then reaches for the old cheese (the answer is no, by the way).
Fitgirls are not the norm. You can certainly question how healthy it is to have no gram of fat on your bones. Just like I think it's not necessarily good to run a triathlon. But fitgirls do help us to look at our eating and exercise behavior from a different perspective. I often think of Ashkaine when I don't feel like exercising because if she can make time alongside her career and three children, then I can too. I am convinced that thanks to Ashkaine, I live healthier. Although it would make a huge difference if Lilian would take that bag of KitKats away NOW.
