Personal program: Pull, Press, Press, Pull that still racked barbell, Press. Nutrition is passable - meat-based entrees, boba tea, and some salads so I don't miss vitamins.

TLDR: low mood with I don't like my legs before. less low mood with legs are ok now featuring a good OHP.

I wanted to get strong for as long as I can remember. But I wouldn't call myself attractive or ugly (u/retractatus, not sure if this makes my comment irrelevant). It was just an objective I'm overweight, and then I don't like my legs so I'll do something about them.

The body stuff was mostly fixed my first six months of lifting because walking around campus (was sedentary at home) and then additional dieting got me smaller. I took four months off of lifting and regained some weight, but knowing I was going to lift again - the weight regain didn't bother me. It came down again once break was over. Bonus, I have leg biceps and ok shoulders almost two years into lifting.

So now fitness for me is more about mental health. I get very apathetic and low and lifting forces self care (knowing my deadlifts will suck if I don't eat forces me to go against my non-existent appetite). In a hectic semester, if I've "wasted" time and energy to pick up heavy things then I have enough time and energy to do schoolwork, look for jobs, etc. My level of attraction still doesn't factor in my usual thoughts other than the absence of "I don't like my legs." I still wear baggy clothes and act like a shut in so that's probably the reason I downplay the aesthetic benefits I've gotten out of lifting - I'm not in any social environments where my body matters to strangers. Again with baggy clothes and also being normal BMI so there'd be no fat or skinny shaming towards me anyway outside of family members that will think I've gotten too small. Any increase in confidence is mostly how athletic I feel walking around and how much I can OHP.

As far as media consumption - I've never paid attention to needing to be hollywood actress skinny or needing to look like a rapper's exotic girlfriend (these seem to be the broad trends I've personally noticed growing up with the second being more recent) so fitness didn't change anything in this category.

Closing: I'm glad people have been able to use fitness for better self-perception.