Peloton instructor Camila Ramón.Photo:Courtesy of Peloton
Courtesy of Peloton
Camila Ramónsays she gets “a little emotional” thinking about some of the messages that fans send her.
“Camila, I just want to let you know that, at the age of 60, I have finally been able to accept myself and love my body thanks to your classes,” the Miami-raised, 31-year-old says, paraphrasing what some fans tell her. “I couldn’t ask for anything else.”
But while Camila’s Instagram followers may know she once struggled to embrace her curves, they may not know how unhealthy herobsession with weightwas. It included excessive exercise, skipping meals and even taking supplements that left her feeling faint. It was all part of her desperate attempt to fit into a perceived body ideal.
Camila has been a Peloton instructor since October 2021.Courtesy of Peloton
“I would be overly restrictive, overly hard on myself, consuming fat burners, things like that because I really wanted to fit in with the rest of the girls,” Camila tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview.
From middle school onwards, the “girls” in question were the members of her dance team. She says, “I looked at myself in the mirror and I had wider hips. I thought there was something wrong with me and I would think, ‘Why can’t my hips look like the rest of the girls?’ It was very dangerous what I was doing at the time.”
“It was probably one of my biggest struggles growing up, embracing myself and my body and loving who I am and what I look like,” she says. “I think the images that we see as Latinas, especially in Latin media, is not conducive tocelebrating body diversity, self-love and self-acceptance.”
Peloton fans may have heard her refer to “your tia toxica" which is “a toxic family member.”
Camila during her dance team days when she was obsessed with being thin.Courtesy of Camila Ramon
Courtesy of Camila Ramon
“That’s kind of how I grew up,” she says. That mindset was compounded at school, where she says, as a dancer, she feared being put on “weight probation.”
Although it never happened to her, Camila claims some girls were removed fromdance routinesuntil they slimmed down. To avoid that situation, the teen skipped meals. In middle school, she joined the cross-country team because she thought running would make her “skinny.”
Camila pictured here in Miami in 2011 when she said she was thin but not happy.Courtesy of Camila Ramon
So, she gave up. After college, tired of training, she stopped working out for three years. Her first step towards self-acceptance came when she eventually returned to fitness and developed a different mindset. It happened nearly a decade ago when she was standing on Miami’s Key Biscayne Bridge after a five-mile run as part of her attempt to slim down.
“I got to the top of the bridge and I broke down crying because I was so frustrated about all of the workouts that I had been doing and how my body had not changed,” Camila says. “Then I turned around and looked at the ocean. I looked down at how far I’d come because it’s a steep and long bridge. I said to myself, ‘How dare you have the audacity to be so ungrateful when your body is so healthy and your legs are so strong to take you up this bridge!’ From that moment on, I made it my mission to just move to enjoy movement. I said, ‘I don’t want to live this way anymore.’ I started just doing things to have fun.”
Camila says the mindset switch wasn’t immediate. Thirty-minute walks with friends and taking dance classes just for fun followed, but it took consistent work and daily affirmations to learn to love herself.
“I would look at myself in the mirror and thank every inch of my body,” she says, even the bits that she struggled with like her tummy — her “little pancita.”
“I would say, ‘I love you. You’re a part of me,’ ” Camila remembers. “It was so healing.”
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Camila teaches Peloton classes in English and in Spanish.Courtesy of Peloton
Today, the fitness instructor doesn’t weigh herself, skip meals or diet. She’s also curvier and happier than she was during her bodybuilding days. Camila says, “The best decision I ever made was to love and choose to accept myself.” '
As for that tia toxica, she says, “When you’re able to live in your body with joy and compassion, grace and confidence, nobody can take that away from you. We have one body and one life.”
If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or go toNationalEatingDisorders.org.
source: people.com
