Unbreakable Mind & Body

Bulking, Growth, and Self-Acceptance: My Journey to Taking Up More Space

• Tiana Gonzalez • Episode 19

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What happens when a woman who grew up immersed in diet culture deliberately chooses to take up more space? In this vulnerable exploration of my journey to gain muscle, I share the unexpected challenges of intentionally becoming bigger in a world that constantly tells women to shrink themselves.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I was surrounded by impossible beauty standards—from beach workout videos with glistening bodies to the waif-thin supermodel era.  Now, after decades of training and even competing as a bodybuilder, I've discovered that gaining muscle intentionally has been significantly harder than losing body fat ever was, at least for me. 

Through this process of "bulking" that began in January 2025, I've uncovered five profound lessons about patience, trust, communication, support networks, and self-compassion. I talk candidly about the discomfort of tight clothes, feeling bloated, force-feeding myself protein, and the mental struggle against deeply ingrained programming. I also share how this journey revealed which relationships in my life truly supported my growth and which ones couldn't survive it.

For women who lift weights but don't see their bodies changing, consider that real transformation might require embracing temporary discomfort—eating more, becoming bigger, and challenging everything you've been taught. You don't get to choose whether what you gain is muscle or fat; you simply have to commit to the process. If you're struggling with similar challenges or considering your own muscle-building journey, reach out through the contact information in the show notes. Your body, your journey, your choice to take up the space you deserve.

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Disclaimer: This show is for education and entertainment purposes only. This is not intended as a replacement for therapy. Please seek out the help of a professional to assist you with your specific situation.


Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Unbreakable Mind and Body podcast. I am your host, tiana Gonzalez, a multi-passionate, creative storyteller and entrepreneur with a fierce love for movement. This is our space for powerful stories and actionable strategies to help you build mental resilience and elevate your self-care practice. Together, we will unlock the tools that you need to create an unbreakable mind and body. Welcome back to the show. I am your host, tiana, and on this episode, we're going to talk about taking up space. Ooh, what do I mean by that? Well, as a woman who grew up in the 80s and the early 90s, I started lifting weights in the mid 90s. I am somebody who is programmed to the narrative of always wanting to become smaller and at the beginning of 2025, I chose to put on muscle, and I'm going to share with you five things that I have learned about myself and about life over the course of the last five months and really it's been over the course of my lifetime, but they've come to a head, they've bubbled up, they've surfaced, they've been trending in my conversations and interactions with my clients and my community and my friends at the gym. Yes, we're taking up space. We are choosing to bulk, we are choosing to eat more. We are choosing to lift heavier and it's fucking uncomfortable and at the same time it's worth it.

Speaker 1:

You know being part of that generation that was Weight Watchers and that was getting skinny and looking at aerobics videos, watching my mom have this collection of first it was videotapes and then later on it became DVDs of these beautiful sculpted queens and even some men. There was this guy who had a program on TV every morning and he would be doing workouts with. He would be in the middle and there'd be two women, one on each side of him, and they were working out on a beach somewhere with these black rubber circular shaped mats. Each one had their own mat and they were positioned in like a triangle and it would be Hawaii or you know somewhere in the Caribbean. Just stunning views doing these crazy cardiovascular workouts with glistening bodies. And you know it was an image and a beauty standard that was really tough to uphold as a regular person and yet all of us were programmed to see that as the ideal. Then in the nineties we had these supermodels and the beauty standards have always been exceptionally difficult to attain as a regular person.

Speaker 1:

Now, as somebody who grew up in a dance studio and with a mom who was very beautiful and slim and into health and wellness, who taught me all about nutrition and training at a very young age. I give my mom all the credit in the world for that. I was always around beautiful people and I never felt good enough. I always felt big, I always felt like I was the ugly duckling and when I express this to people who didn't know me back then they just can't even wrap their heads around it because I'm so confident. Now I know who I am, I know what I stand for and I love myself and I exude confidence. But I wasn't always this way.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, it's been quite an experience to choose to take up space. Experience to choose to take up space. And I will tell you, as an experienced weightlifter and a bodybuilder and somebody who has cut down for different events, like a powerlifting meet and even for a wedding or a photo shoot, I feel putting on muscle is harder, gaining weight is harder than trying to lose weight. But that's just my personal opinion. So I want to share with you these five things that I've learned about myself, and if you want to grab a pen and paper, I always highly encourage that because putting pen to paper, it gives you an opportunity to really sit with the thoughts and it also lets you let your feelings out, so to speak.

Speaker 1:

So one of the things that I really had to come to terms with through this process which I started in January of 2025, it is now mid-May was having enough patience and not scrutinizing myself throughout every step of the process. Scrutinizing myself throughout every step of the process. The first several months, it was so hard to eat all of the food because I wasn't necessarily as hungry and I was eating quite a bit of protein, a lot of carbohydrates to fuel my training, and I had to force feed myself, and then I would feel bloated or my clothes would be tight or my workout clothes weren't looking as good as they once did, and I would have to remind myself to have patience and trust the process. Now, trusting the process, that is something I have been telling people for years and that is a challenge if you don't know what the final result is going to be. But, as I mentioned in previous episodes, I actually released three episodes last week and I know in one of them I talked about relinquishing control from the outcome, and that's important here. We don't have control over the outcome, we can only control our efforts and the things that we do day in, day out in the hopes of moving the needle in the direction which we want.

Speaker 1:

So, trusting the process and I got to tell you process and I got to tell you I just I would say maybe it's been about 18 months, maybe two years, which is not a lot of time in a lifetime right Of allowing my trainer to give me my macros. He doesn't give me a meal plan. He doesn't tell me what foods I can and cannot eat. He gives me macros and we fluctuate so it kind of depends on the day of the week and what I'm eating as far as my ratio of grams of protein, grams of carbohydrates and grams of fat, and I worked with him for several years before I allowed him to take on that part of my programming. Yeah, it was hard. I was a control freak, but it has been such a journey and it has been eye-opening and it has been fantastic to let somebody else think about that and I just followed the plan.

Speaker 1:

Now, the third thing that I've learned throughout this process is that I had to find my way of communicating clearly, communicating my needs and being clear and precise and specific with what I was looking to accomplish, what I wanted and what was the state of the state when talking to my coach, my trainer. He is a very busy guy, he's married, he has a family. I love him to death. He's such a great person and I also know that you know I got to be respectful of his time and his space, so I found myself more than once or twice basically kind of spinning out and having a tantrum. In the app that we keep all of my documentation and my program and my macros and everything, there's a messaging feature so we communicate there. It's great for both of us because it does create a record of our conversation and nothing gets lost in the sauce. And it's a boundary, there's a layer there. I have to wait for him to get back to me and I respect that.

Speaker 1:

And I also realized there were times where I was just sort of rambling and then I would circle back and say, hey, you know, sorry about that paragraph above, like disregard, I'm fine and he knows me well enough to know that sometimes I'm in my feelings and I just need to air it out and be a girl and talk to the diary, so to speak. And so I realized that I had to learn how to tell him hey, this is really important to me, or yeah, I'm being dramatic and this is also how I'm feeling right now about X, y and Z. And, like I said, this process has been really uncomfortable at times, especially because, you know, I'm a little bit heavier than I'm used to being and I feel insecure about it, especially like when I was in Tennessee a couple weeks ago, when I went to the camp in the fall of 2024, I was pretty lean because of the work I had been doing with my trainer and the program we were on and I felt like just super hot and great and confident in my skin. And then this time I go to camp and I did not feel that way at all. And you know, camp is friends and family and it's people I've seen many times and it's not about what we look like, but for me personally, when I look at pictures or when I see myself in the mirror and I don't look my best or feel my best, I have to just eat. That you know. So the fourth thing that I had to be on top of and I'm pretty good about this, but I did have to do some replacing and moving around is to make sure that my support team is on board.

Speaker 1:

Now, one of my episodes on this show I talk about network inventory and that's really what I'm talking about here. I talk about network inventory and that's really what I'm talking about here. It's not about only spending time or talking to the people that are going to support you and kiss your ass and tell you what you want to hear. But no, that's not it. But what it is is making sure that people are on board with you and that they do support your goals and that they trust that you can see the vision, even if they can't. So for me, not only was the communication between my trainer and I paramount, like of the utmost importance, but also the people closest to me my friends, my family, some of my clients who I'm a bit closer to, and particularly on social media, like just making sure that I filtered out the noise.

Speaker 1:

Unfortunately for me, I lost a couple of friendships in the last year and it has been really painful for me to think about. And you know like sometimes I want to grab my phone and call this one or that one and it's just like, no, they don't care, they weren't there for me and they're not there for me now. So it's about finding the players and putting in the people into place that are going to give you what you need, even if it's something you don't necessarily want to hear, but that they're going to be not only that soundboard, but they're going to be there to support you, they're going to be there to clap for you and they're going to be there to hold space for you when you need it. So I have an amazing doctor in my corner, I have my trainer, I have a chiropractor who I see on a regular basis, I have a leader at my workplace who is phenomenal and she gets me and I get her, and so we have a great rapport, and it's been really powerful to know that I'm supported in so many areas of my life, because then I feel empowered and that I know I can't get this wrong. I also hired a coach recently and the program that I'm doing with her we're doing two separate programs actually One is about mindset and the other is about strategy, because I am creating an offer. I don't know what it's going to be yet. Well, I actually I do know what it's going to be, but I can't talk about it yet and I'm so excited with the work I'm doing there. But she also gives me support. I will randomly wake up to a message from her just saying like hey, I'm so proud of you, you're killing it, you're doing a great job, and to have that is so powerful.

Speaker 1:

Now, the fifth and most important point I want to make in this episode is to give 100% effort and focus to the task at hand and to give myself grace on the days when I know that I don't really have it all, when I'm not at my best, when I feel sluggish, when I'm tired or when I'm hormonal and I need to drop the weights down a little bit because I'm not as strong as I typically am, or when my clothes feel super tight and I'm uncomfortable and I feel like I have to wear big baggy clothing because I feel a little insecure. And yes, that happens. It happens to all of us. But what's important is the bigger picture. What's important is that I gave my best, even if my best was not my all-time best, but it was my best that day, in that moment, choosing to eat more, choosing to gain weight, choosing to train harder, choosing to eat more, choosing to gain weight, choosing to train harder, choosing to be on top of your macronutrients and log your food, weigh all of the portions.

Speaker 1:

Prepare most of your food at home, barely eat out. Go to bed early. Make sure you're getting your training. Check with your doctor to make sure you're doing good. Communicate with your your coach, talk to your coach and spend more time looking into the eyes of the people that are important to you and less at screens. This is how I have been living my life for most of 2025. And, quite frankly, I'm not going backwards.

Speaker 1:

So for my ladies out there who are wondering why their bodies look the same and why they're lifting weights and they're not seeing the changes, it takes a season of choosing discomfort, maybe eating a little bit more, becoming a little uncomfortable in your clothing and putting on the size. You don't get to choose if it's muscle or fat, so you kind of just have to roll with it and hopefully lift heavy enough so that it turns into muscle and then go into your cut. I hope that this episode was helpful for you. If you are somebody who is looking to put on size and you're struggling, you can always reach out to me. Please check the show notes. It has my social media, it has my email list and you can also check out the website. It's pretty basic at the moment, but that's going to change soon and, as always, I really appreciate your time and attention here and if you enjoyed this episode, please follow the show, tell people about it, share an episode with somebody that you love and I'll catch you on the next one.