When you mold and sculpt your body, work the muscles and feel them sore the next day, when you lose fat and start to see muscle definition underneath, when you jab your fingers into your abdominal muscles trying to feel where they separate, when you pull leg muscles running and have to rest and recover them, slowly testing them, healing them. When you flex and tense in the mirror or look at photos you take, when you massage your aches and pains or wince when you forgot they were there for a second when you do these things. All of these things. You get to know your body, you learn to accept it. To love it. Not from changing it into something you deem acceptable. But just because you took some time to get to know it. Because you took some time to get to understand it. And how it works. What it’s capable of, where it’s limitations lie. Getting fit isn’t about fixing your body. It’s about starting a relationship with it. You do learn to love yourself. But more from the journey than the result.