For years, I hid my interest in bodybuilding and muscles. I was afraid of what people would think if they discovered that I was fascinated by this whole practice — and worse, what would they think if they knew I wanted to be a bodybuilder myself?

Nowadays, most of that shame is gone (maybe it will never disappear totally). And sometimes friends are surprised when they learn how I used to feel. “Why would you be embarrassed about that?”

Well, this video explores ‘why,’ with a series of negative comments about bodybuilders and bodybuilding that I’ve grown up constantly hearing or seeing. Some of them are verbatim from memory, others are more like precis, or generalized approximations. All of them are crappy things to say, for different reasons.

In any case, the only way to not let shame rule your life and steal your joy is to do your best to keep its hands off the steering wheel (am I ashamed of this mixed metaphor? NO). It took me a long time to find the courage to just go for it – hopefully, for others, it won’t take quite as long!