Somewhere along the way, we were sold the idea that fitness lives inside a gym. If you weren’t squatting 200 pounds under fluorescent lights or drinking protein shakes and something green and suspicious, you were simply unfit. Everywhere you turn, someone is selling you waist trainers, slimming teas or that TikTok workout promising you a Victoria’s Secret model tummy in 7 days (plus finding out some of these videos are digitally altered, ahn!)
And let me just say: I want a refund.
Because in real life, fitness is not all Gymshark and macros and performance anxiety disguised as “grind culture.” In real life, fitness looks like dragging yourself out of bed after three consecutive nights of bad sleep, stretching your body like a cat, and counting that as movement. Some of us just want our knees to stop cracking when we climb the stairs. Some of us want to feel strong carrying our babies, or mentally stable enough to survive yet another crumbling Nigerian economy. It’s also drinking water because your soul feels brittle and not because some influencer said “hydration is life.” (It is, but that’s not the point.)
At some point, we’ve confused fitness with aesthetics, a curated performance of wellness that’s all angles and effort and dedication. And look, if that’s your jam, congratulations. But for the rest of us, the ones with full-time jobs, chronic fatigue, anxiety, or a healthy dose of gym-phobia, we need to talk.
Fitness Doesn’t Have to Be Sexy
You know what’s not sexy? Brushing your teeth in a squat position because that’s the only lower body work you have the energy for. And yet that’s fitness. So is walking around the neighbourhood while hate-listening to a podcast, stretching between work calls, or lying on the floor doing absolutely nothing and calling it “nervous system regulation.” (Honestly, it is.)
Fitness doesn’t need to look like a struggle. It doesn’t need to burn or hurt or make you hate yourself into a new version of your body. If your “wellness routine” is built on punishment and shame, that’s not fitness. That’s an unpaid internship in self-loathing.
Who Is Fitness Even For?
Here’s a fun observation: most mainstream fitness content seems to be written for a mythical person who wakes up at 5 a.m., drinks lemon water from a jar, journals about gratitude, and somehow has the time and emotional bandwidth to run five miles before work. That’s most likely unreal. And if they are, they are deeply tired.
The rest of us? We’re doing our best. Some days that means a yoga flow, other days it means walking to the fridge and back. I know people who consider getting out of bed a triumph. I know others who are working through medical trauma, depression, hormonal imbalances, or just a deep, bone-level exhaustion that no amount of squats will solve.
And guess what? They’re allowed to call themselves fit, too.
The Healing is the Workout
If you’ve ever tried to heal your relationship with your body while the world is yelling “do better, be thinner, go harder” — congratulations, you’ve been in a high-stakes mental marathon with no finish line.
Some of us are not trying to be smaller. We’re trying to be kinder to our joints, our energy levels, our past selves who once thought “earning rest” was a personality trait. Some of us are just trying to stay in our bodies without disassociating into the ether every time someone mentions BMI.
So no, I’m not romanticising inactivity. Movement is magic. But it doesn’t need to be militarised. Walking, dancing, flopping on the floor like a starfish — it all counts. You don’t need a structured workout to be “in shape.” You’re already in shape. You exist. The bar is in hell, and I refuse to limbo under it.
Rest Is Not a Weakness
At some point, someone convinced us that if we’re not hustling, we’re wasting time. Enter the guilt spiral of skipping a workout because your body is actually — hear me out — tired. Let’s be clear: listening to your body and choosing rest is the most elite form of fitness. That’s your core strength, baby.
Rest is resistance. Especially in a culture that treats burnout like a badge of honour and constantly demands more from us than we have to give. If you’re sleeping, stretching, saying no, staying hydrated, and trying not to throw your cortisol levels off a cliff, you’re winning.
Final Thought (Because You Didn’t Ask but I’m Saying It Anyway)
Fitness is not a trend. It’s not a hashtag. It’s not a race to shrink yourself into someone else’s idea of “disciplined.” It’s a relationship — one that changes with your season of life, your health, your joy, your pain. And like any real relationship, it requires honesty, patience, and the freedom to evolve.
So if your fitness journey doesn’t involve a gym, a mirror selfie, or a single drop of pre-workout, you’re not failing. You’re just living. You’re doing what you can. And honestly? That’s more than enough.
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