Why Women Fear Being Seen as Muscular, With Ida Bergfoth

Ida: I think that when it comes to discipline and creating the type of lifestyle that both of us live, the people that find it really hard are the people that don't dare, or aren't capable of, pushing themselves to that point in time when you can actually experience the wins from it. It's all about inexperience. Everyone can get to exactly where we are, being disciplined, going to the gym and eating the type of food that works well with your body. They just haven't experienced it yet.

And that's okay, because there are so many things I haven't experienced yet, but I cannot be mad at myself if I don't try. That is a big thing for a lot of people right now. They might be willing, but they might not know how to, and they might not feel totally ready for it. And when something is super unknown, it's even harder for us to get there.

Nikkiey: Absolutely. So to carry that thought, we can lead into talking about coaching, and you coach women. What do you feel is the biggest thing that women struggle with? We know we're on the other side, right? We've gone through all of the challenges. We've endured all of the uncomfortableness of changing our body composition and building muscle. So we see the outcome that a lot of women want to accomplish, because we're there, we've done it. So what do you feel is the biggest hurdle, maybe one that you had to overcome, or that you feel women have to overcome, to get to the result they want to accomplish?

Ida: I think that one of the pros and one of the cons of being a woman is that we are very emotional. We are beings of more tenderness and more love, especially about how other people see us. That is a really big thing for us. And our society is still, in some weird way, in an age where women cannot have muscles, where muscles are seen as manly, even though, newsflash, men and women are human beings.

Human beings are a species which has muscles. Women and men have just never utilized them the same way. But nowadays, women have a choice. We can go to a gym as well. We have never been able to do that before, because it was a space for men to be strong enough to do their work if they had very labor-related work. Women have been at home, taking care of the household and kids.

And I get that. I'm not taking anything away from that, because I think we are really good at that, because we feel so much. We dare to feel, and we dare to express that we feel. But I also think that is one of the things that holds us back a little bit, because we care a little too much about what other people think, or what we think they will think about us if we do it. And I think that women, generally speaking, haven't yet experienced how uplifting and self-esteem raising it can be to be physically strong.

Nikkiey: Yeah, I think that's spot on. I think that women hold the opinions of others too closely. And like you said earlier, we need to stop relying on people. We need to just start thinking for ourselves and about what we want to accomplish, and know that we're fully capable of accomplishing it if we put our minds to it and let all of the opinions and judgments and criticism fade away. I think that's so spot on.