Dubai Fitness Challenge: Why we need to respect our bodies

Dubai - This wonderful human system is the home we will be living in till the end

This week marks the end of an incredible month of fitness for Dubai. For 30 days, the city has taken 30 minutes out of its day to move more.

My personal journey with fitness has been a rollercoaster. If you’d asked me in my early 20s what my goal was, I’d have told you that I wanted to look like a Hollywood star. I tried some pretty strange stuff to get there too. It took a while for me to realise I was a Tamilian girl, with a love for rice, and no matter what I gave up or how hard I prayed, I would never look like Anne Hathaway in a catsuit.

The next phase was one of extremes. Run a marathon, climb a mountain, burn more than I ate. It was a battle. My body versus me, and I would win. Yoga entered my life at 30 and brought with it an unusual quiet. I finally found alignment, both internal and external, an axis within me.

Ten years on from my first gym membership, my relationship with fitness is a seasoned one. Hard as it is, I try to shake off the idea that fitness is about aesthetics. Advertisements with six pack abs, protein shakes, and zero body fat follow me around on my social media feed like pushy sales people, trying to lure me in. No, thank you, I say, and walk right past.