Unfortunately, Chan’s gym experience isn’t unique. Plus-sized people—and those who don’t conform to society’s beauty standards—regularly face similar experiences. Mary Victor, a Singaporean make-up artist and body neutrality advocate, says she doesn’t go to gyms because other people’s looks, stares and even comments “give me insane anxiety”.

“Plus-sized people are rarely left alone when working out at the gym; unsolicited advice from other gym-goers is a daily occurrence”, she says. “They usually perceive us as incompetent, because of our weight. They see being fat as a failure. If women get mansplained to a lot and for no reason, you can’t even imagine how many comments plus-sized women get.”

Sometimes it gets nasty. “People [make] comments or jokes about our bodies, or they see it in an overly positive way, saying things like we’re so brave and confident to show up to work out. I say, just leave us alone.”

According to Victor, working out for diet culture rather than for one’s mental and physical wellbeing is the source of the problem. For those unfamiliar with the term, Christy Harrison, a dietitian and author of Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating (2019), defines diet culture is a system that “worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue”.

“Working out makes people feel good physically and mentally. That’s a fact. But when we add a toxic mindset to it, fat people will only [be comfortable] engaging in fitness activities away from other people,” Victor says, which is exactly what she did.

For the Singaporean activist, her favourite way to get in some exercise is going for long-distance bike rides whenever she can. For others, however, like Chan, the solution came not from avoiding working out in front of others but from finding the right personal trainer.

“I started working out with my current personal trainer in September 2022, and she understood me right away,” Chan says. “Losing weight isn’t my goal. I want to build strength, I want to feel strong, I want to feel active. If I lose weight in the process, so be it, I’m not against it. But she allowed me to be myself and to have my own goal. Now, I finally enjoy myself at the gym.” 

Chan has taken it upon herself to be visible on social media to normalise the presence of plus-sized people at gyms and spread awareness of the everyday challenges they face, like finding size-appropriate sportswear, which is a difficulty faced by many plus-sized people, including Jin Baek, a South Korean plus-sized model and founder of size-inclusive model agency The Kurve Korea.

“In South Korea, most gyms have workout clothes included in their plan,” she tells Tatler. “As a plus-sized woman, I felt ashamed because their gym clothes for women were too tight for me and I was forced to wear men’s clothes.”

Baek started working out when she was 24, initially to lose weight and with a focus on cardio. But quickly, she realised that her interests lay elsewhere. She was having “so much fun building muscle and weightlifting” that she decided to embrace it. This boosted her body image and gave her the confidence to wear what she wanted.

Today, her Instagram page is full of colourful gym clothes that she would have been too self-conscious to wear before her strength and wellness journey. Whether it’s bras, shorts or leggings, she wears them all, and with so much panache that it caught the attention of Adidas in 2022, who featured her in an ad campaign for the brand.

“I would like to see more plus-sized fitness influencers to inspire other plus-sized people,” Baek says. “The gym is a place where we all work on a better version of ourselves, and I would like to see more people respect others’ journeys.”

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