This Is a Love Story

Some days I go to the gym, and it feels meh.

Mechanical.

Just a place where I lift heavy things and then put them back down again like a very sweaty librarian.

Sometimes, though, going to the gym feels like a small, quiet act of love.

Not the loud, romantic kind. No grand gestures. No transformation montage with a dramatic soundtrack. Just me showing up for my present self and my future self in a way that says, “I know this is a little annoying, but I care about you.”

That’s really what going to the gym is for me.

Same with recording food. Same with making healthy choices most of the time instead of just the convenient or dopamine-heavy ones.

They’re not punishments.

They’re not proof of discipline or willpower.

They’re care tasks.

Maintenance.

Like brushing my teeth or charging my phone before it fully dies.

My present self is the one who doesn’t always wanna. Who would rather stay home. Who is tired. Who thinks tracking food sounds like homework and resents the implication that they need to be monitored.

I get that.

I am that.

I don’t try to bully them into compliance anymore.

Instead, I frame it as care.

Going to the gym is me saying, “Hey, I want you to feel better in your body today.”

Not perfect.

Not shredded.

Just more comfortable.

Less creaky.

Less foggy.

A little more capable of carrying groceries, climbing stairs, and existing without everything feeling like effort.

Recording food is me saying, “I want to understand you, not control you.”

It’s data, not judgment.

A mirror, not a report card.

When I log what I eat, I’m not trying to be good.

I’m trying to be honest.

Patterns can’t change if they’re invisible and shame is a terrible analyst.

Making healthy choices is me giving future me a gift and trusting they’ll appreciate it, even if they never explicitly say thank you.

Future me gets stronger joints.

Better energy.

Fewer surprise consequences from weeks of “I’ll deal with it later.”

Future me wakes up in a body that feels supported rather than neglected.

Sometimes love looks like vegetables.

Sometimes it seems like rest days.

Sometimes it looks like leaving the gym early because that’s what my nervous system can handle.

Love isn’t optimization. It’s attunement.

I think that’s the part that changed everything for me. I stopped treating health as a moral project and started treating it like a relationship. One that needs listening, forgiveness, and consistency more than intensity.

I don’t go to the gym because I hate my body.

I go because I plan to keep living in it.

I don’t track food because I’m trying to be smaller.

I track it because I want to be well-fed, well-fueled, and less confused about why I feel the way I feel.

I don’t make healthy choices because I’m afraid of the alternative.

I make them because I care.

About the version of me who exists right now, and the version of me who will inherit today’s decisions tomorrow.

Some days, love is easy.

Some days it’s begrudging.

Some days it’s literally just showing up and doing the bare minimum.

And that still counts.

Love doesn’t require perfection.

It requires presence.

And lately, this is one of the ways I practice showing up.