I was the small girl. The tiny one. The skinny one. 

I was the runner. I lived on the track and the pavement. I was constantly told I was fast because of how small I was. “You don’t have much to carry around Maysa.”

I watched girls cellophane wrap their stomachs underneath their uniforms to “sweat more” and get “skinnier” when I was 12. The locker room was filled with girls spinning in circles holding their shirts up, while their friends wrapped them in layers of saran wrap. They asked me if I wanted to do it too. As the kid whose ribs were always showing, and could never eat enough to keep up with my endless energy, I was confused.

“No thanks?” I just want to be fast at running.

I wanted to break the tape at the end of the track, win races, and do extra conditioning. I didn’t care about being skinny, I was skinny. I wanted to be fast, but not just fast, I wanted to be the fastest.

The thought of losing weight, looking a certain way, it never really crossed my mind at 12. I was always told to eat more, move less, sit still.

Fast forward 6 years to my freshman year of college. I went from year-round competitive sports to being a freshman in a dorm with microwavable meals and a membership to a gym with a weight room that was foreign to me.

No one had ever shown me how to “exercise”. I knew how to run, and play sports, and be on a team. I knew how to eat my packed lunches and homemade meals. I knew I had always been skinny and never had to “worry about what I looked like’. Yet here I was, 18, and beginning to worry.

What would movement look like now? And in these moments of wonder, I remembered, for the first time in years, girls in the locker room, wrapping their stomachs in saran wrap. It’s incredible how our brains store seemingly unimportant information for specific moments like this, ones of doubt and confusion.

I eventually found competitive ultimate frisbee, which led to a torn acl, which led to weightlifting and crossfit and the rest is history. But I look back on that time of not knowing what my exercise and nutrition would look like, and wonder what I would have done if I didn’t believe in movement the way I so deeply do. 

From these deep thoughts came deep conversations with women - ones like Emily Steele - in which she shared many similar experiences as a middle schooler and young adult. And from these deep conversations came the idea of Girls Gone Buff - co-founded by Emily and I.

GGB is a preteen and teen weightlifting and mental health/ body positivity program that we run after school and as summer camp to expose young girls to the idea of becoming strong women. We want to give them the outlet and exposure we didn’t have. We want to show them the power of picking up something heavy, and then slowly, with practice, picking up something heavier. 

The simplicity of objectively getting stronger is anything but simple in the way in which it relates to life, especially life as a teenage girl. For one hour after school these girls get to turn off their phones, forget about the perception of the world, and focus on what their bodies can do, rather than what they look like on a grid on social media or walking down the runway, I mean hallway, of their middle school.

In a world that teaches worth and wisdom based on what we are wearing, we have chosen the barbell as a way to bend and change the narrative. We teach these girls that they are strong and resilient, and we empower them with knowledge about their body, their nutrition, their self care, and their mental health.

We believe the gym, the squat rack, the weight room, is a place girls not only belong, but it is a place they can build confidence and resilience, two immeasurable and inalienable qualities.

In the words of one of our Buff Girls:

“Sometimes, I feel bad about myself when I look in the mirror. But then I remember I can lift heavy things, and it makes me feel better” 

What more can we ask for?