013: Do You Need to Lose Weight Before Joining a Gym?

Do you need to lose weight before you join the gym? In this bold and affirming episode, Rhiannon tackles one of the most damaging myths in fitness: that you have to lose weight or “get fit” before joining a gym. As a personal trainer with lived experience of autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and disordered eating, she knows first-hand how hard it can be to step into a space that often doesn’t feel built for you.

She shares:
Why movement is never pointless—no matter your body size or experience
The reality of gym anxiety and sensory overwhelm
Her own journey from 24 stone and unhappy to feeling at home in the gym
How fitness spaces need to change to support people who are neurodivergent or struggling with mental health
A reminder that showing up—even for 5 minutes—is a valid and powerful win

This episode is a must-listen if you’ve ever felt like the gym isn’t for people like you.

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I'm Rhiannon – an autistic personal trainer with ADHD (AuDHD), here to help you navigate fitness your way. Whether you're starting out, starting over, or just trying to figure it all out, you're in the right place. This channel is a safe, inclusive space for neurodivergent individuals and anyone who’s ever felt like they don’t quite “fit” into traditional fitness.

💪 Expect real talk, accessible workouts, sensory-friendly tips, and honest conversations about fitness, mental health, and confidence – without the pressure to be “perfect.”

Join the Not So Typical Fitness Community to get access to all resources, guides and chat to likeminded neurodivergent people wanting to prioritise their health too: https://community.notsotypicalfitness...

Ready to work with me or want support as a neurodivergent woman in fitness?
Visit my website: https://www.notsotypicalfitness.co.uk/


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Ever had a panic attack in the gym car park?

You're not alone. Our complete guide to overcoming gym anxiety reveals why gyms feel so overwhelming for anxious people—and shares 7 proven strategies that actually work.

• The 5 real barriers that make gyms intimidating
• Practical strategies for sensory overload & social anxiety
• Word-for-word gym etiquette scripts
• A realistic 4-week confidence-building plan

Read the Complete Guide HERE

Transcript

0:00

I hear something that saddens me quite a lot online when I'm chatting to potential clients and that is that they feel they need to lose weight before they can join a gym. No. No you do not. And if you're watching the video version, watch my lips and watch the shape of my head. No, you do not need to lose weight before you join a gym. Did you hear that? You don't need to lose weight first. Welcome to the not so typical fitness podcast. I'm your host Rhiannon. I'm a qualified personal trainer with autism, ADHD and anxiety, depression, disordered eating. And some people like to say I reel that off like a CV. Well, do you know what I do? Because it dictates my approach to my personal training. This week we are looking at why you do not have to be fit to belong in a gym. So you don't need to lose weight before you join a gym. I know. revolutionary. This is what we're talking about today. Please remember once you've listened to the episode to review, rate and share the podcast because it will help other people who need to hear it like you get started on their own fitness journey and to prioritise their health in a way that works for them. You do not need to be fit to walk into a gym. You do not need abs. You don't need a matching, expensive gym set. You don't need the newest trainers. You don't need the best headphones and you don't actually need to have a clue about what you're doing. If you've got a body and a reason to move it, you belong. This was inspired by a comment I received recently on one of my viral TikToks where I'm showing people how to do goblet squats. And somebody said a goblet squat was a pointless exercise. Now they explained that it's to do with the amount of weight you can hold when you're doing the exercise because you can push or move more weight with your legs than your arms and in a goblet squat your arms will tire first. Now, they have a point, but the way I coach is that movement is movement. And if you're able to move your body, and if you want to move your body, that is a win. It's a win. So yes, you might not get the best PB, and there might be exercises that push your strength in a better way. But a goblet squat or any form of exercise is still exercise. And that's what I'm about. So this episode is for anybody who has ah been afraid of doing exercises because they're afraid of doing it wrong. Because there's this feeling of not knowing and getting it wrong doing goblet squats when you shouldn't be. And I'm here to smash that to pieces and tell you that you can be in a gym and you can do anything you want. And it's easier to follow a plan because then you will hopefully... Minimize the risk of injury and you won't need to worry because someone will be telling you what to do. But fundamentally, if you want to move your body, join a gym and just go and do things that make you feel good. Dance in your kitchen for five minutes if that's what you enjoy. But moving your body is never going to be pointless. Now the first time I walked into a gym I was 24 stone severely unhappy severely depressed and terrified and I almost didn't want to go I didn't feel like I belonged for months and months I hated it. It wasn't an environment I enjoyed. I would follow influences and learn from them and sometimes get it right sometimes get it wrong. I didn't know how to use the machines. I spent six months or more on chest cardio and then dumbbells at home because that felt safe. I was hyper aware of everything, the music, the noise, the weights, people looking at me, people having conversations around me. As an autistic person, it's sensory hell being in gym sometimes, especially if you don't know what you're doing, but it's still a sensory hell even if you do know what you're doing Underneath this panic, I was finding a place that I actually belonged and I found myself in the gym. I realized what I'm meant to be doing with my life, which sounds insane when I say I'm overwhelmed and stressed and depressed, but actually I realized how difficult it is for people like me and that's what I want to change. Anybody should be able to prioritize their health in a way that works for them that feels safe. doesn't feel as though they're compromising their mental health, should feel fun, accessible, and just good. Movement should feel good. Qualifying wasn't easy. Staying in the gym wasn't easy. My nutrition wasn't easy. But I knew that this is what I need to do. And that's why I qualified. Because I'm here to let everybody know that the gym is not just for people who are already fit or for people who... already know how to do everything, you're still welcome, but the gym is also for people who have no idea. But what they know is that they need or they want to be healthier. They need or they want to move their body more. They need or they want to find a sense of community that could be a neurodivergent community, a fitness community, or it could just be a break from life that's happening outside the gym doors. You come into the gym and you work on yourself and you feel free for that. hour, hour and a half, 20 minutes, doesn't matter, but you feel free. That is why I do what I do. I hear something that saddens me quite a lot online when I'm chatting to potential clients and that is that they feel they need to lose weight before they can join a gym. No. No you do not. And if you're watching the video version, watch my lips and watch the shape of my head. No, you do not need to lose weight before you join a gym. Did you hear that? You don't need to lose weight first. It's like saying, well I need to take swimming lessons because I don't know how to swim, but first I should get better at swimming. But you can learn and get better at swimming by going to the swimming lessons. And it all feels backwards, but I think that's what we're taught. We live in a world that worships or places value over things like before and after photos and where we've got so much amazing stuff available at our fingertips on our phones that there are influencers left right and centre with perfect abs and just that airbrushed body, that sculpted body where they've gone on professional photo shoots and they look amazing and fair play to them because it's hard work to get photo shoot ready. seen a few fitness friends do it and it's tough. It's not for me, but they want to do it and that's amazing for them. However, that can completely skew the perception of fitness and just make you feel like you don't belong. If you are just bombarded over and over again with people with massive shoulders, gorgeous, muscly shoulders, but big and muscly, not... big and curvy and chunky and flabby. And you see people with those perfect abs and they're hard and toned and they look amazing with their summer shred body. That's not you, it's not me because we're wiggly and jiggly and oh we feel nervous wearing a bikini because we're too fat. That doesn't feel welcoming to join the fitness world. So where is this space for us? For the people who do feel like we're not good enough or we need to lose weight before we can get fit. We're also living in a world where most of our fitness influences and people that we follow aren't also struggling with sensory overwhelm or anxiety or nervousness. Because let's face it, I am, you do. So not only do we not feel we look good enough, but we also feel that we're not mentally well enough or mentally strong enough to exist in traditional fitness spaces like a gym. What about people who... who battle eating disorders, or disordered eating, and depression, and body image issues. What about us? When do we fit in? Because I'm gonna tell you, we do deserve a place in the gym too, and that isn't once we've fixed ourselves or found ourselves, it's not when we look the part, it's right now. It is right now, just as we are. Belonging isn't something that you can just find by shrinking your body and learning all the gym lingo about reps and sets and tempo. It's something that you claim. You claim. And if nobody has told you this before, let me be the first. You are allowed to take up space. You are allowed to ask questions. You are allowed to move your body even if it jiggles. even if you're not very strong yet, even if you're feeling like everybody is watching, you are allowed to be in the gym, you are allowed to take up space and you are allowed to move your body. Now I follow someone who is a kind of a fat phobic influencer called Lindsay McGlone and I hope I said that right and I always forget names so I'm so sorry Lindsay if you ever listen to this and it's wrong but she takes up space unapologetically. and she will not mind me saying that she is a big girl with, um in fact I think, I do think she uses she her pronouns but sometimes they them so Lindsay if I'm getting that wrong I'm so sorry again but you take up space, you have slogans and things on t-shirts that say take up space and that is everything that we should all be able to do in whatever... um Wherever we are on our journey, wherever we are in our life, as long as we're a legal age and we can go into a gym safely and legally, we belong there. Don't let anyone tell you you don't. Remember who you are. You have just as much right to be there, even if you're chubby and jiggly and wiggly, even if you refuse to jump because you feel that the ground would shake, you're allowed there. I promise, I promise you. Now if you're neurodivergent like me, It's going to be even harder just to go in the gym because it's not just about what you weigh. It's also about what your brain is like. And it can be the noise, the lights, the overwhelm, eye contact, a change in routine. It can all be too much. And I know it because I live it all the time. This is why I've built my personal training approach around safety. It's basically making sure that people feel safe in my sessions with me. They know where things are. They know they can ask for help. It's about people feeling seen. understood and supported. What good is a workout plan if you don't feel safe enough to follow it? You could be paying the best personal trainer but if you're not set up for success you're not going to find success. Here is what I wish somebody told me when I first started my gym journey. The first is that you can pause a workout and still be proud. So you can go in and you can only do one thing and it gets too much and you can leave, but you can still be proud that you got up, you got in the gym, you went and you did something. That's amazing. You can get so overwhelmed that you cry in the locker room because you just can't cope in the gym anymore. and it's still valid. It's still valid and you can hate the gym today and you can still go back tomorrow because that was me. I said last week I went to the gym for six months and I hated it every day. People would ask me but do you not feel good now after you've done it? No, I hate it. I hated it. It was awful but I did it because I needed to move my body and it allowed me to and sometimes I try and make the gym safe and fun. And I like to think, or I imagine, that if somebody had done that for me when I first started, I wouldn't have hated it for as long as I did. It still would have been hard, I'm not saying it would be easy, but it wouldn't have been as difficult as it was. And as I always say, remember that progress isn't always visible. It's not always a number changing on a scale. Sometimes it is actually just showing up and being there. And that can be progress. I have had sessions where my biggest win wasn't getting a new personal best, a new PB, or getting a faster kilometer on the treadmill, but actually it was just showing up. But sometimes... just showing up means more than progressing your movements. So here is your reminder this week. You don't need permission to belong in a gym. You don't need to look a certain way. You don't need to be fearless or flawless. You just need to start. You just need to start. And if you don't know where to begin, you can begin here. You can listen to this podcast, this space, my voice, because I am creating this for people like you, people like me. If this resonated, share it with somebody who also needs to hear it because it can help to remind yourself that you're not alone. And as always, I would love it if you could rate or review the podcast wherever you are listening because that is really what is going to help me reach more people who need to know that they are allowed to take up space. join me next week for the next episode and please leave a review. I'd really appreciate it.