Do I Workout For My Body… Or For My Identity?

I couldn’t help but wonder… was I running toward a stronger version of myself - or just trying to outrun the silence between tube stops?

On a grey Tuesday morning, I found myself speed-walking through Holborn in £60 leggings promising to “lift and sculpt,” gripping an iced americano like it was my personality trait. I wasn’t late or anything - I just needed to feel like I was going somewhere. As I passed a row of women coming out of reformer Pilates with matching water bottles and matching ambition, I wondered: I a city that moves fast and praises hustle, have our workouts become less about wellness - and more about singling who we are?

Last week I skipped a training session for the first time in months. Not because I had plans, or a hangover, or a dramatic emotional revelation - I just didn’t go. My body wasn’t aching. But my mind was. As I lay on my bed watching the sun disappear behind the flat across from mine, I wasn’t flooded with peace. I was flooded with panic. Was I falling off the waggon? Losing momentum? or just… invisible without my movement rituals?

In London, identity is curated. It’s a carefully curated flat white, an overpriced hot girl walk through Hampstead Heath, and a phone wallpaper that says “discipline = freedom.” Here, fitness isn’t a hobby - it’s branding. Suddenly were not working out for endorphins. We’re working out for affirmation.

I use to think movement was about strength. But lately, it feels like a secret audition. For approval. For control. For the illusion that we have our lives together if we can run a 5k in under 25 minutes or squat 60kg.

And yet - there’s a kind of beauty in it. The shared sweat. The nod of recognition between strangers at a 7am class in Covent Garden. The whispered solidarity between women walking out of the sauna, mascara slightly smudged, confidence slightly restored.

Maybe, in a city as fast-paced and constantly performing as London, we don’t workout just to sculpt our bodies. Maybe we work out to remember we have bodies. And that they’re ours - even before the mirror, the numbers or the instagram story.

So I ask again: Do I work out for my body… or for my identity?

Maybe the answer is yes. To both.