This is a First Person column by Zahra Khozema, a Pakistani Canadian journalist who lives in Toronto. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
Last month, I sent one of the hardest emails I’ve written all year.
It was a request asking my gym to pause my membership. I stared at the screen longer than I wanted to admit before hitting send. For nearly 15 years, working out has been a constant in my life. Cancelling felt like breaking up with a part of myself.
I had avoided sending that email for five months. Every month, I told myself I’d get back on track and every month, another payment went through. When my partner finally stepped in, I didn’t cancel — I put the membership on hold instead. It was my compromise, a small concession to the part of me that still believes I’ll return.
For as long as I can remember, my body was something other people noticed before I did.
I’m one of three sisters, all close in age. Growing up, the easiest way for extended family to identify me was by pointing out my chubbiness. Some family members called me “bulldozer” or “fluffy,” and I convinced myself it was affectionate.
But as I got older, the comments stopped feeling cute.
By 12, I was wearing my mother’s tops while my sisters shopped in the teen aisle. I learned early that taking up space, physically or otherwise, came with commentary.
As a child, movement was joyful. I loved skipping rope, biking and climbing jungle gyms at recess. I was always moving. Even in high school, I tried hard in gym class and happily participated in competitions, even if I never came first.
I assume the weight would “even out” as I grew taller. It didn’t.
Then I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome at 17 and the stakes changed. Doctors warned me to be careful with my weight, that fluctuations could increase my risk of heart disease or cancer, both of which run in my family. That was when working out became a responsibility.
Not working out was not an option
By the time I reached university, the gym was a non-negotiable. I’d go during its women-only hours to run 5K on the track, then lift weights for a half-hour. I went three or four times a week, even during exams and holidays. I always had my gym bag with me.
I ran races, training for 10Ks and 15Ks in the city. I climbed the CN Tower’s 144 floors. I loved the quiet focus of having headphones in, entire Spotify albums or news podcasts playing, and ideas arriving somewhere between breaths. I learned my body, every muscle, every shape, every small improvement. I felt beautiful, but more importantly, powerful.
At its best, the gym gave me structure. It was the place I’d go after work; in the winter, it was sometimes the only reason I left the house.
But at its worst, it was a system of self-surveillance.
It started during the pandemic when I got a fitness tracking watch. At first, the data it provided felt motivating. I started sharing it with friends and competing to see who worked out more.
But the tracking features troubled me on rest days. I’d see someone else log a 10K run or burn 900 calories and I’d feel guilty for doing nothing. So I slept with my watch on. I wore it to weddings. I even turned on “dance workouts” while out with friends.
Soon, those feelings of guilt or shame were being triggered more often — like when influencers would film their workouts next to me or I’d see groups running along the lakeshore in the winter at the crack of dawn. I started co-ordinating my tops and leggings, hoping they’d motivate me. On days I felt bloated, I’d choose to skip entirely than risk looking at my stomach in a crop top.
A “good” week meant four gym visits. Anything less made me feel like I’d failed.
And I paid for it, financially and emotionally. Over the years, I’ve spent over $8,000 on memberships, sign-up fees, commutes and race entries. More than that, I paid in guilt.
The day my tracker died
For several years, I always worked out before I permitted myself to go out with friends. It made getting dressed easier and eating feel allowed. Then I began checking my stomach in the mirror after meals, bringing me back to being a little girl, questioning her relationship with food.
When I lost my full-time job last fall and moved into freelance life, everything unravelled. Without a predictable schedule, the gym stopped fitting neatly into my day. I worked longer hours, with no clear start or end. But I kept paying for the membership, telling myself I’d get back on track.
It all clicked one afternoon when my Apple Watch died — and for the first time in years, I let it stay dead.
What surprised me most was how little life changed. No one cared that I’d taken off my watch. My rings disappeared from my friends’ feeds, and the world kept spinning.
So much of it, I realized, had been happening in my head.
Putting my membership on pause brought relief — mostly at no longer typing “gym” into my calendar app and deleting it when I didn’t go. But it also forced me to find new forms of physical activity.
American exercise equipment company Peloton has launched new AI software that offers real-time feedback like a personal trainer, which has some questioning whether the technology might replace in-person training with human coaches.
I’m getting a small, at-home treadmill for walking, because being sedentary isn’t healthy either. I’m aiming for 5,000 steps a few times a week to start with.
Since my last gym workout back in July — July 26 to be exact, according to my Apple Watch — my body hasn’t changed much, but I’ve welcomed my belly pouch back, my butt is flatter and the groceries feel heavier. I know it will change more as more time passes, but I’m trying to be OK with that.
When the pause ends in April, I’ll likely try going back. It will be closer to the summer and the pressure to look a certain way will creep in again. What I’m trying to hold onto now is the idea that returning doesn’t have to mean returning to guilt.
Health, for me, now looks like self-kindness. Like focusing on my career, my skin, my hair and accepting that I can’t optimize everything at once. Pausing my gym membership was a small act of saying I don’t need to earn my worth through workouts or guilt. Discipline can be gentle, too.
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