Interviewee | Tania Naik
Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
About Tania Naik
My name is Tania Naik. I’m a 27-year-old Gujarati woman living in the Bay Area. I work in corporate HR full-time, and when I’m not working my day job, you’ll probably find me lifting weights at the gym! I love weight lifting because of how much it’s enhanced my life. It’s one of my biggest passions and source of pure happiness.
What got you into the world of fitness?
Before I got into fitness, I was pretty unhappy with my lifestyle and the way I looked. I had a lot of insecurities and wasn’t confident with myself. My unhappiness and lack of confidence pushed me to make a change and do something active about how I viewed myself. It was around this time during my senior year of undergrad I started looking into weight lifting because everyone on social media was doing it, and those individuals seemed very strong and confident with themselves. When I began my journey, I had no idea what I was doing, so I turned to YouTube to watch videos in proper form and started working out with professionals in the space to learn as much as I could. As time went on, I started falling in love with weight lifting and how it made me feel. I began pushing myself to lift heavier, and that is what ultimately changed the game for me. I became not only physically strong, but mentally, my confidence skyrocketed! I was happy and continued weight lifting not because of the visible results but because of the way it made me feel.
What does fitness mean to you?
Fitness to me means bettering yourself every single day. It means loving yourself so much that you want to treat your body right by staying active and feeding your body with nutritious foods. We should be keeping active not because we hate our bodies but because we love our bodies and because we want to continuously improve and better ourselves both physically and mentally.
As you progress in your fitness journey, what are the goals that you have for yourself?
When I initially started my journey, my goals were primarily focused on aesthetics and looking a certain way, so at the beginning of 2018, I hired a coach to walk me through my first cut. She provided me with my daily meals and workout routine. I learned a lot from completing my first cut with a professional coach. She taught me about counting and logging in my calories, the different nutritional values of specific foods, and formulating my workouts with lightweight by high reps and intensity. After spending 12 weeks with my coach, I really began to understand how my body works and how my body responds to different types of workouts and foods. Fast forward to now, I know my body so well that I am able to achieve my fitness goals on my own by recrafting my meal plans and workout routine based on the specific goal I’m trying to achieve.
My goals are constantly changing throughout the year. I switch between cutting and challenging my body to go through a caloric deficit and restrict myself to certain foods, to bulking and putting myself at a caloric surplus to build muscle. There are times my goals are also focused on increasing strength, improving mobility, and enhancing endurance. I believe that constantly changing your goals keeps staying active exciting! If you train the same, you remain the same. So switching up my goals keeps me in a constant mode of improvement.
What changes have you noticed in your mental health as you have gone on this journey?
I can see a clear difference between when I first set foot in the gym to now. I started my journey feeling so intimidated by the weights, constantly felt lost, and was always self-conscious about other people watching me workout. But now, I go to the gym with no issues. I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m there to work on myself; no one else matters. My confidence levels have skyrocketed since I first started my journey.
My mental health has improved drastically. I am so much more confident in every aspect of my life whether that be in the gym, with my career, with maintaining my friendships and relationships. I am in a much better mental state now than I was before I started lifting. By staying active every day, I’m also in an overall better mood. Working out really gets those endorphins and dopamine hormones running!
What motivates you to continue on this journey?
The way working out makes me feel is what keeps me going. I rely on my workouts to get me in a good mood. Working out truly brings me great pleasure and joy! If I’m having a bad day at work, I look forward to going to the gym and “Lifting out the BS.” That is what motivates me but also, the fact that the habits and routines I’m building now will stay with me in the future and ultimately will keep me a healthy individual in the long run. I don’t want to visit the doctor or have any underlying health issues to worry about. I want to be able to run after my grandkids!!
Are there days you don’t feel like working out? What do you tell yourself on those days?
There are absolutely days where I don’t feel like working out. Motivation is temporary; it comes and goes. There will be days where working out is the last thing I want to do! But then I remind myself of where I was before I started, where I am today, and where I’ll be if I continue. At that point, it’s more about how dedicated I am to bettering myself and not about how motivated I am. That usually gets me up and going but of course, rest days are an important part of fitness as well! But I’m the type of person who just can’t sit still. My rest days are usually active rest days meaning; I’ll go for a long walk or hike, play some low-intensity tennis, or do some sort of outdoor activity. You know your body the best, and you know what you are capable of. Having days where you completely rest and lay on your bed is acceptable as well. It’s just important to understand the difference between laziness versus actually letting your body rest and recuperate.
How has the pandemic affected your fitness journey?
The pandemic took gyms away from me! I haven’t been able to lift heavy since gyms close, and that is really what keeps me going. It’s honestly been a struggle, and I’m sure for many, to not have access to a proper gym. I love being in that environment where everyone in there is there to better themselves. It’s so motivating being surrounded by that energy, but working out alone at home during the pandemic doesn’t have that. It’s been pretty boring, and I haven’t been able to reach my goals without a proper gym.
How are you trying to encourage diversity in the fitness industry?
There is a huge lack of diverse representation within the fitness industry, and I aim to change that. My vision for the industry is to include strong females of all shapes, sizes, and colors representing different communities of the world. I wish I grew up seeing girls who looked like me and had similar backgrounds as me in the sports, fitness, and health industries. It would have allowed me to discover my passion for fitness and gain the courage to break stereotypes and boundaries much sooner!
That’s why I created branded t-shirts. To eliminate the “BS” that circulates within the industry. We are all beautiful regardless of our color, shape, and size, so I want to encourage all women to unleash their “spice” and flavor. We are all unique and beautiful and that needs to be represented more.
You can find my T-shirts here:
https://www.fitwithtania.com/shop
What is the goal of your Instagram page?
I want women to come to my page and feel motivated and inspired to better themselves. That’s why you’ll notice my page has no bikini pictures. I want to create valuable content that will equip women to start their fitness journey and lift weights.
I aim to empower women to get started and not fear weight lifting!
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