Women, in general, are still so harshly judged for their looks, and women in sports are no different. The world isn’t always so accepting of muscular builds on women. Athlete Jamie Hagiya has been open with her followers about her struggle to accept, appreciate, and love her body, even in an industry where she’s standing next to women who are shredded with six-pack abs. In sharing her challenges, she unintentionally became a superhero for women everywhere.

Not that long ago, Hagiya saw this photo and immediately felt bad about herself.

This was the picture. ———————————————————- My initial reaction was, “Ew! I look so fat and disgusting”. Which 1) Are horrible words to say to myself! And 2) Please know that I understand calling myself that might offend some people, but to each his own, and these are the demons I face. So after seeing this, I specifically remember telling @tennil_reed that verbatim, and I skipped out on ice cream that night because of it. I probably should have anyways cause I was training for the Games lol, but my normal self would have ate some. ———————————————————— Fast forward 2 years later to the 2nd photo with my team from yesterday. I had the EXACT same thoughts and feelings. ———————————————————— It bothers me that this is still an issue and constant battle I’m trying to overcome. Even though I’ve made a lot of progress in learning to love and accept my body. And I may come off as super confident, I just want to let you know there’s still times that I struggle with it. ————————————————————— For me it’s my stomach, for others it might be different parts of their body, as we all have this “PERFECT” image of what our bodies should look like. But like I tell others, “love and appreciate your body for what it can do and not what it looks like”. And with that, I’ll be kinder to myself and if you deal with this issue as well… I hope you can all do the same ??#bodyimageissues #loveyourself

A post shared by Jamie Hagiya (@jamiejoyce2) on

She later posted the below photo with a heartfelt message, which then went viral. Since then, she’s been transparent with her followers about how self-love is an ongoing journey for her.

I want to share something with you. I posted this almost exactly 2 years ago to this date. It was the byproduct of seeing a photo of myself amongst other shredded female CrossFit Games athletes. It just so happened to be my thoughts and feelings that I wrote down, and somehow the next morning I woke up to it going semi-viral being shared on websites like “Yahoo” and “People”. But one thing I never shared with you was the picture that sparked it all. Which I’ll do in my next post. ——————————————- #Repost @jamiejoyce2 ??? I’m going to address something that has been on my mind a lot lately. It’s a hard subject for me since I struggle with body image issues but here goes nothing. My body does not look like all the other @crossfitgames female athletes with crazy ripped abs and zero body fat on their stomachs. I wish I could look like that, but I’ve come to the realization that this is my body. I work my ass off in training everyday. I eat clean for the most part, but am human and love to indulge in dessert every now and then. I’m in the best shape of my life and still don’t have a six pack. Not even close to a 4 lol. Some of it is genetics and the other part is I could eat less calories to try to look like everyone else. But the bottom line is I need to eat to perform. I can’t worry about trying to look like a “Games” athlete because having a six pack doesn’t always make for the best athlete. So for anyone who thinks they need to look a certain way to be a Regionals or Games competitor, you don’t. Stay on the grind and keep doing you!

A post shared by Jamie Hagiya (@jamiejoyce2) on


Even when facing online trolls, she stands strong.


Her words are the inspiration we all need.

Main image: Jamie Hagiya/Instagram

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