Choosing strong over skinny

For most of my life, my body was a project.

The goal was simple, or so I thought: be smaller.

I counted calories. I tracked steps. I prized discipline, restraint, and the quiet thrill of an empty stomach. I was the woman who knew her “good” number on the scale and orbited her days around staying as close to it as possible.

As long as I could fit into a certain pair of jeans, it felt like everything was broadly under control—even when, in reality, it wasn’t.

I’d always considered myself “health conscious.” I walked. I dabbled in cardio. I knew my way around a diet plan. But the unspoken rule underneath all of it was this: thin equals good. Thin equals safe. Thin equals acceptable.

Then, as my 40th birthday began to glitter on the horizon like a milestone I wasn’t sure I was ready for, something shifted.

It didn’t start in a gym. It started, as so many things do now, in my headphones.

I was listening to Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s podcast, Feel Better, Live More – a familiar comfort at this point – when he interviewed Dr Gabrielle Lyon. I pressed play expecting the usual mix of health tips and gentle encouragement.

Instead, I got a woman talking about skeletal muscle as “the organ of longevity.”

It stopped me in my tracks. I’d spent years worrying about the size of my thighs, the softness of my stomach, the number on the scale. I had never once thought of my muscles as something that could protect me as I aged, that could anchor me through illness, hormones, heartbreak, and everything else life throws at a woman approaching 40.

Listening to Dr Lyon talk, it felt like someone had cracked a window in a very stuffy room.

What if my body wasn’t a project to shrink, but a home to strengthen?What if the goal wasn’t “smaller,” but “stronger”?

I’d like to say I marched straight into a gym, full of conviction. In reality, it was more tentative than that. My husband ordered me a pair of 2kg dumbbells. When they arrived, I looked at them the way you might look at a foreign object: curious, suspicious, slightly intimidated. I had always assumed strength training was for other people – men in vests grunting in weight rooms, or women who already looked strong and seemed to know what they were doing.

I was nearly 40, a mother, an immigrant, someone who had spent most of her adult life chasing “toned” rather than “strong.” I didn’t see myself in that world.

But I also didn’t see myself in the old story anymore. So I rolled out a mat in my living room, picked up the tiny dumbbells, and tried.

It was humbling.

Those 2kg weights felt anything but light. My arms shook. My form was questionable. I felt ridiculous and self-conscious, even though no one was watching.

But something in me had already decided: we are doing this.

I kept listening to Dr Lyon. I searched for her interviews, absorbed everything I could, repeated her words to myself like a mantra: muscle is protective. Strong over skinny. Strong over skinny. Strong over skinny.

Days turned into weeks. I stuck with my little routine. It wasn’t glamorous. There were no before-and-after photos. It was just me, in a corner of my home, slowly teaching my body a new language.

After four weeks, I picked up the 2kg dumbbells one morning and realised they felt…easy.

That was a new feeling.

I ordered 3kg. Then 5kg. The numbers crept up, almost shyly at first. Each time I moved to a heavier weight, my brain protested: This is too much. You can’t. But my body – my muscles – told a different story.

You can. Watch.

The changes were subtle at first. A sense of solidity where there had been only softness. The way I could carry shopping bags without my hands cutting into my fingers. The lift of my son, who is not getting any lighter, feeling less like a strain, more like something my body

was equipped to do.

And then there was the scale. If you’ve ever tied your worth to a number, you’ll know what I mean when I say: this was the hardest part.

Five months into consistent strength training, I was the heaviest I had ever been. If I had only looked at the number, I would have panicked. Old reflexes tugged at me: cut calories, add more cardio, shrink. Do whatever it takes to get back to the “safe” number.

But the mirror told a more complicated story. My clothes fit differently – not tighter in the way I’d always feared, but more filled-out in a way that felt…firm. My legs had shape. My arms had definition. One day, catching my reflection from the side, I noticed the faint outline of ab muscles and almost laughed.

Heavier, yes. But also stronger. More capable. More mine.

I added creatine, following Dr Lyon’s advice, knowing it might nudge the scale up further. It did. The younger version of me would have spiralled. The woman I am now took a deep breath and asked a different question:

How do I feel? The answer surprised me. I was sleeping better. I had more energy. My mood was steadier. I could chase my son without feeling like my lungs were on fire. I wasn’t thinking about food all the time because I was, for the first time, actually fuelling my body with enough protein and calories to match what I was asking it to do.

My body was no longer a problem to solve. It was a partner. Choosing strong over skinny wasn’t just a physical decision. It was emotional and political and deeply personal. It meant rejecting years of conditioning that told me my highest achievement as a woman was to take up as little space as possible.

I am nearly 40 now. I have lived several lives already – as a South African girl in the sun, as a wife, as an immigrant, as the mother of a child whose path doesn’t match the parenting books. My body has been the one constant through all of it, carrying me when my mind and heart were not sure they could keep going.

It deserves more than my criticism. It deserves my care.

Strength training, for me, is not about becoming invincible or sculpted or impressive to anyone else. It is about building a body that can hold the life I actually have. One that can lift my son. One that can weather stress. One that can walk the dog, carry the shopping, and still have enough left at the end of the day for joy.

The scale still lives in my bathroom. Some habits die hard. But its voice is quieter now. The old “good number” has lost its power. These days, I judge progress by different markers: the weight of the dumbbells, the quality of my sleep, the steadiness in my chest when life gets hard.

At 39, I stopped trying to disappear and started learning how to stand my ground – in my life and in my body.

I’d love to know: What would choosing “strong over skinny” look like in your life, whatever strong means for you?