Bulking, Growth, and Self-Acceptance: My Journey to Taking Up More Space

What happens when a woman who grew up immersed in diet culture deliberately chooses to take up more space? In this vulnerable exploration of my journey to gain muscle, I share the unexpected challenges of intentionally becoming bigger in a world that constantly tells women to shrink themselves.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I was surrounded by impossible beauty standards—from beach workout videos with glistening bodies to the waif-thin supermodel era.  Now, after decades of training and even competing as a bodybuilder, I've discovered that gaining muscle intentionally has been significantly harder than losing body fat ever was, at least for me. 

Through this process of "bulking" that began in January 2025, I've uncovered five profound lessons about patience, trust, communication, support networks, and self-compassion. I talk candidly about the discomfort of tight clothes, feeling bloated, force-feeding myself protein, and the mental struggle against deeply ingrained programming. I also share how this journey revealed which relationships in my life truly supported my growth and which ones couldn't survive it.

For women who lift weights but don't see their bodies changing, consider that real transformation might require embracing temporary discomfort—eating more, becoming bigger, and challenging everything you've been taught. You don't get to choose whether what you gain is muscle or fat; you simply have to commit to the process. If you're struggling with similar challenges or considering your own muscle-building journey, reach out through the contact information in the show notes. Your body, your journey, your choice to take up the space you deserve.

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Website: unbreakablemindandbody.com

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Disclaimer: This show is for education and entertainment purposes only. This is not intended as a replacement for therapy. Please seek out the help of a professional to assist you with your specific situation.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Unbreakable Mind and Body
podcast.
I am your host, tiana Gonzalez,a multi-passionate, creative
storyteller and entrepreneurwith a fierce love for movement.
This is our space for powerfulstories and actionable
strategies to help you buildmental resilience and elevate

(00:28):
your self-care practice.
Together, we will unlock thetools that you need to create an
unbreakable mind and body.
Welcome back to the show.
I am your host, tiana, and onthis episode, we're going to
talk about taking up space.
Ooh, what do I mean by that?
Well, as a woman who grew up inthe 80s and the early 90s, I

(00:50):
started lifting weights in themid 90s.
I am somebody who is programmedto the narrative of always
wanting to become smaller and atthe beginning of 2025, I chose
to put on muscle, and I'm goingto share with you five things
that I have learned about myselfand about life over the course

(01:13):
of the last five months andreally it's been over the course
of my lifetime, but they'vecome to a head, they've bubbled
up, they've surfaced, they'vebeen trending in my
conversations and interactionswith my clients and my community
and my friends at the gym.
Yes, we're taking up space.
We are choosing to bulk, we arechoosing to eat more.

(01:36):
We are choosing to lift heavierand it's fucking uncomfortable
and at the same time it's worthit.
You know being part of thatgeneration that was Weight
Watchers and that was gettingskinny and looking at aerobics

(01:58):
videos, watching my mom havethis collection of first it was
videotapes and then later on itbecame DVDs of these beautiful
sculpted queens and even somemen.
There was this guy who had aprogram on TV every morning and
he would be doing workouts with.

(02:18):
He would be in the middle andthere'd be two women, one on
each side of him, and they wereworking out on a beach somewhere
with these black rubbercircular shaped mats.
Each one had their own mat andthey were positioned in like a
triangle and it would be Hawaiior you know somewhere in the
Caribbean.
Just stunning views doing thesecrazy cardiovascular workouts

(02:41):
with glistening bodies.
And you know it was an imageand a beauty standard that was
really tough to uphold as aregular person and yet all of us
were programmed to see that asthe ideal.
Then in the nineties we hadthese supermodels and the beauty
standards have always beenexceptionally difficult to

(03:05):
attain as a regular person.
Now, as somebody who grew up ina dance studio and with a mom
who was very beautiful and slimand into health and wellness,
who taught me all aboutnutrition and training at a very
young age.
I give my mom all the credit inthe world for that.
I was always around beautifulpeople and I never felt good

(03:35):
enough.
I always felt big, I alwaysfelt like I was the ugly
duckling and when I express thisto people who didn't know me
back then they just can't evenwrap their heads around it
because I'm so confident.
Now I know who I am, I knowwhat I stand for and I love
myself and I exude confidence.
But I wasn't always this way.

(03:57):
So, yeah, it's been quite anexperience to choose to take up
space.
Experience to choose to take upspace.
And I will tell you, as anexperienced weightlifter and a
bodybuilder and somebody who hascut down for different events,
like a powerlifting meet andeven for a wedding or a photo
shoot, I feel putting on muscleis harder, gaining weight is

(04:24):
harder than trying to loseweight.
But that's just my personalopinion.
So I want to share with youthese five things that I've
learned about myself, and if youwant to grab a pen and paper, I
always highly encourage thatbecause putting pen to paper, it
gives you an opportunity toreally sit with the thoughts and

(04:47):
it also lets you let yourfeelings out, so to speak.
So one of the things that Ireally had to come to terms with
through this process which Istarted in January of 2025, it
is now mid-May was having enoughpatience and not scrutinizing

(05:10):
myself throughout every step ofthe process.
Scrutinizing myself throughoutevery step of the process.
The first several months, itwas so hard to eat all of the
food because I wasn'tnecessarily as hungry and I was
eating quite a bit of protein, alot of carbohydrates to fuel my
training, and I had to forcefeed myself, and then I would

(05:35):
feel bloated or my clothes wouldbe tight or my workout clothes
weren't looking as good as theyonce did, and I would have to
remind myself to have patienceand trust the process.
Now, trusting the process, thatis something I have been
telling people for years andthat is a challenge if you don't

(05:58):
know what the final result isgoing to be.
But, as I mentioned in previousepisodes, I actually released
three episodes last week and Iknow in one of them I talked
about relinquishing control fromthe outcome, and that's
important here.
We don't have control over theoutcome, we can only control our

(06:19):
efforts and the things that wedo day in, day out in the hopes
of moving the needle in thedirection which we want.
So, trusting the process and Igot to tell you process and I
got to tell you I just I wouldsay maybe it's been about 18
months, maybe two years, whichis not a lot of time in a

(06:45):
lifetime right Of allowing mytrainer to give me my macros.
He doesn't give me a meal plan.
He doesn't tell me what foods Ican and cannot eat.
He gives me macros and wefluctuate so it kind of depends
on the day of the week and whatI'm eating as far as my ratio of
grams of protein, grams ofcarbohydrates and grams of fat,
and I worked with him forseveral years before I allowed

(07:08):
him to take on that part of myprogramming.
Yeah, it was hard.
I was a control freak, but ithas been such a journey and it
has been eye-opening and it hasbeen fantastic to let somebody
else think about that and I justfollowed the plan.
Now, the third thing that I'velearned throughout this process

(07:29):
is that I had to find my way ofcommunicating clearly,
communicating my needs and beingclear and precise and specific
with what I was looking toaccomplish, what I wanted and
what was the state of the statewhen talking to my coach, my

(07:50):
trainer.
He is a very busy guy, he'smarried, he has a family.
I love him to death.
He's such a great person and Ialso know that you know I got to
be respectful of his time andhis space, so I found myself
more than once or twicebasically kind of spinning out

(08:11):
and having a tantrum.
In the app that we keep all ofmy documentation and my program
and my macros and everything,there's a messaging feature so
we communicate there.
It's great for both of usbecause it does create a record
of our conversation and nothinggets lost in the sauce.
And it's a boundary, there's alayer there.

(08:34):
I have to wait for him to getback to me and I respect that.
And I also realized there weretimes where I was just sort of
rambling and then I would circleback and say, hey, you know,
sorry about that paragraph above, like disregard, I'm fine and
he knows me well enough to knowthat sometimes I'm in my
feelings and I just need to airit out and be a girl and talk to

(08:59):
the diary, so to speak.
And so I realized that I had tolearn how to tell him hey, this
is really important to me, oryeah, I'm being dramatic and
this is also how I'm feelingright now about X, y and Z.
And, like I said, this processhas been really uncomfortable at

(09:19):
times, especially because, youknow, I'm a little bit heavier
than I'm used to being and Ifeel insecure about it,
especially like when I was inTennessee a couple weeks ago,
when I went to the camp in thefall of 2024, I was pretty lean
because of the work I had beendoing with my trainer and the

(09:41):
program we were on and I feltlike just super hot and great
and confident in my skin.
And then this time I go to campand I did not feel that way at
all.
And you know, camp is friendsand family and it's people I've
seen many times and it's notabout what we look like, but for
me personally, when I look atpictures or when I see myself in

(10:06):
the mirror and I don't look mybest or feel my best, I have to
just eat.
That you know.
So the fourth thing that I hadto be on top of and I'm pretty
good about this, but I did haveto do some replacing and moving

(10:26):
around is to make sure that mysupport team is on board.
Now, one of my episodes on thisshow I talk about network
inventory and that's really whatI'm talking about here.
I talk about network inventoryand that's really what I'm
talking about here.
It's not about only spendingtime or talking to the people

(10:46):
that are going to support youand kiss your ass and tell you
what you want to hear.
But no, that's not it.
But what it is is making surethat people are on board with
you and that they do supportyour goals and that they trust
that you can see the vision,even if they can't.
So for me, not only was thecommunication between my trainer

(11:08):
and I paramount, like of theutmost importance, but also the
people closest to me my friends,my family, some of my clients
who I'm a bit closer to, andparticularly on social media,
like just making sure that Ifiltered out the noise.

(11:28):
Unfortunately for me, I lost acouple of friendships in the
last year and it has been reallypainful for me to think about.
And you know like sometimes Iwant to grab my phone and call
this one or that one and it'sjust like, no, they don't care,
they weren't there for me andthey're not there for me now.

(11:50):
So it's about finding theplayers and putting in the
people into place that are goingto give you what you need, even
if it's something you don'tnecessarily want to hear, but
that they're going to be notonly that soundboard, but
they're going to be there tosupport you, they're going to be
there to clap for you andthey're going to be there to

(12:12):
hold space for you when you needit.
So I have an amazing doctor inmy corner, I have my trainer, I
have a chiropractor who I see ona regular basis, I have a
leader at my workplace who isphenomenal and she gets me and I
get her, and so we have a greatrapport, and it's been really

(12:34):
powerful to know that I'msupported in so many areas of my
life, because then I feelempowered and that I know I
can't get this wrong.
I also hired a coach recentlyand the program that I'm doing
with her we're doing twoseparate programs actually One

(12:55):
is about mindset and the otheris about strategy, because I am
creating an offer.
I don't know what it's going tobe yet.
Well, I actually I do know whatit's going to be, but I can't
talk about it yet and I'm soexcited with the work I'm doing
there.
But she also gives me support.
I will randomly wake up to amessage from her just saying

(13:16):
like hey, I'm so proud of you,you're killing it, you're doing
a great job, and to have that isso powerful.
Now, the fifth and mostimportant point I want to make
in this episode is to give 100%effort and focus to the task at
hand and to give myself grace onthe days when I know that I

(13:41):
don't really have it all, whenI'm not at my best, when I feel
sluggish, when I'm tired or whenI'm hormonal and I need to drop
the weights down a little bitbecause I'm not as strong as I
typically am, or when my clothesfeel super tight and I'm
uncomfortable and I feel like Ihave to wear big baggy clothing

(14:01):
because I feel a little insecure.
And yes, that happens.
It happens to all of us.
But what's important is thebigger picture.
What's important is that I gavemy best, even if my best was
not my all-time best, but it wasmy best that day, in that

(14:22):
moment, choosing to eat more,choosing to gain weight,
choosing to train harder,choosing to eat more, choosing
to gain weight, choosing totrain harder, choosing to be on
top of your macronutrients andlog your food, weigh all of the
portions.
Prepare most of your food athome, barely eat out.
Go to bed early.
Make sure you're getting yourtraining.
Check with your doctor to makesure you're doing good.

(14:44):
Communicate with your yourcoach, talk to your coach and
spend more time looking into theeyes of the people that are
important to you and less atscreens.
This is how I have been livingmy life for most of 2025.
And, quite frankly, I'm notgoing backwards.

(15:04):
So for my ladies out there whoare wondering why their bodies
look the same and why they'relifting weights and they're not
seeing the changes, it takes aseason of choosing discomfort,
maybe eating a little bit more,becoming a little uncomfortable
in your clothing and putting onthe size.

(15:24):
You don't get to choose if it'smuscle or fat, so you kind of
just have to roll with it andhopefully lift heavy enough so
that it turns into muscle andthen go into your cut.
I hope that this episode washelpful for you.

(15:44):
If you are somebody who islooking to put on size and
you're struggling, you canalways reach out to me.
Please check the show notes.
It has my social media, it hasmy email list and you can also
check out the website.
It's pretty basic at the moment, but that's going to change
soon and, as always, I reallyappreciate your time and

(16:07):
attention here and if youenjoyed this episode, please
follow the show, tell peopleabout it, share an episode with
somebody that you love and I'llcatch you on the next one.