Ever wonder why women struggle with fitness?—No one taught us that our body matters.
For generations, the female body has been a site of contradiction—praised for its beauty, policed for its size, and ignored for its needs. “Cover yourself up,” a mantra my generation of girls and women were raised with. From early childhood, girls are taught—subtly, sometimes blatantly—that their bodies exist for the gaze of others. We’re rewarded for being thin, quiet, polite, and modest. Anyone who breaks the mold is deemed, “Un-sanskari.”
We’re discouraged from taking up space, from sweating too much, from being too loud, too muscular, too assertive, too visible. The messages are layered and confusing: be strong but not bulky, be healthy but don’t eat too much, be attractive but not sexual, but powerful but not like a man. Our bodies are dissected and judged long before we learn to truly inhabit them.
So, it’s no wonder that so many women struggle with fitness. Not because of laziness or lack of discipline, but because we were never truly taught to listen to our bodies. Instead, we were taught to shrink them. So, when women arrive at the doorstep of “fitness,” it’s often through a lens of shame or self-correction. We aren’t taught to move because it feels good or because it strengthens our joints or stabilizes our mood or releases happy hormones. We’re taught to move to compensate for what we ate. To shrink the number on the scale. To conform to an external image of what we should look like.
Pause for a second. This is not fitness. This is self-surveillance.
Women have never been taught to prioritize their own needs. From the time we’re young, girls are subtly—sometimes overtly—conditioned to disconnect from their bodies. I remember talking to so many of my mom’s friends when I was younger and most of them didn’t think they had the permission or need to be fit with age because their bodies had done the job: A man had found it attractive at one point, and they had borne babies.
We’re taught to be polite, not powerful. To be small, not strong. We’re praised for how we look, not how we feel. Fitness, when introduced, often centers around aesthetics: thinness, bikini readiness, or bouncing back after birth. Health and strength are secondary, if mentioned at all. The metrics of value are external, and women learn early on to relate to their bodies from a place of judgment rather than partnership.
We’re handed fitness plans designed for male physiology, applied universally across genders. We’re told to “push through” exhaustion, to glorify hustle, to not create a fuss when there are menstrual cramps, to treat rest as weakness. This leads to burnout, injury, and in many cases, an adversarial relationship with exercise. If you fall sick, you’re trained to pop a pill, so you can take care of others.
What’s missing from the fitness conversation is compassion. And context. And truth.
So, we enter gyms, yoga studios, and bootcamps carrying a silent burden: we are here to fix something broken. Not to celebrate the miracle of our breath or to experience joy in movement—but to compensate for indulgences, to punish cellulite, to disappear a stomach. Fitness becomes a transaction rooted in shame. And when we burn out or fail to meet impossible standards, the narrative of personal failure kicks in: you didn’t try hard enough.
But maybe the truth is that the system failed us.
You are expected to look, feel, and act good so your family’s pride and functionality remains intact. No one tells you that your mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, and financial health matter the most. Health isn’t something you pay attention to after you develop a disease. No one taught us that our body matters—not as an ornament, but as a guide. That our menstrual cycles, stress levels, sleep patterns, and emotional states are not inconveniences to push through, but signals to honor. That we can redefine fitness as embodiment, not endurance. That strength looks different on every woman, and so does healing.
Ayurveda, among other holistic systems, reminds us that wellness isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some women thrive with intense cardio; others need grounding movement like walking or restorative yoga. During certain phases of the cycle, a woman’s body calls for rest—not as weakness, but wisdom. When fitness aligns with internal rhythms rather than external pressure, it becomes sustainable and nourishing. It becomes a way in, not a way out.
So yes, women struggle with fitness—but not because they lack willpower. Because the story they’ve been told about their body is incomplete. Because society never handed them the tools, only the shame. But the good news is that we can reclaim the narrative.
We must rewrite the story. Fitness is not about controlling your body—it’s about collaborating with it. It’s about reclaiming agency. It’s about redefining success: not in inches lost or abs revealed, but in the quiet victories of feeling connected, grounded, alive. We can teach girls and women that their body is not a problem to be solved but a compass to be trusted. That fitness is not about fighting your body—it’s about befriending it. And maybe, just maybe, that’s where true strength begins.
I invite you to pay attention to what you need. Get that rest, steps, pause, chai, hike, or red lipstick as part of your own care routine. Don’t apologize or explain yourself. You deserve the same love you give to others. Know that fitness is not just about muscles. It’s about embodiment. It’s about remembering that your body was never the enemy—it was the home you were waiting to return to.
