The power of the #sweatyselfie

When I’m smelly, sweaty, and the least glamourous, I whip my phone out to snap a few selfies, or sometimes a boomerang. It’s neither for vanity nor for showing off (ok maybe a lil bit), but the most meaningful reason for the sweaty selfie is self-empowerment.

If you do follow me on Instagram (@jtwonggg), and you watch my IG stories, you’d notice my #ididasweatything snaps on a pretty regular basis now.

#ididasweatything came about when I started calling my bouts of exercise “sweaty things” on IG stories. I share my sweaty face, usually through a boomerang selfie of my post-workout state. (It’s in my IG story highlights!)

Of course, it’s important to look good in your sweaty selfie, but it’s more important to capture the *sweat*. When I look back on my IG stories, or my sweaty selfies, I like to remember how I felt at that very moment: the feeling of satisfaction, pride, and happiness after finishing a great workout, or accomplishing a personal best timing! It keeps me going, and it makes me look forward to my next sweaty thing, when I can feel that way again.

It’s no illusion though – it’s true when people say exercise makes you look and feel good. These days my skin really has been acting up, so going bare-faced is quite the nightmare (lol). If I took an actual before- and after-exercise photo for comparison, I definitely look much more radiant after sweating it all out – rosy cheeks and all you know. It makes me more willing to take a sweaty selfie, of course HAHA.

The most significant moments are when I’m preparing my monthly camera rolls, and I get to look back at all of those sweaty selfies I accumulated over the month. It motivates me to keep going for the next month – to maintain or better my rate of exercise! I thought I’d never say this, but… I must be feeling the runner’s high!!!

(See my August camera roll here.)

Ever since I decided to “officially” make #ididasweatything a thing, I’ve been using the hashtag a lot more often, and I’ve made it more of a point to capture the moment each time I’ve worked out. And well, if you want to know how to do a #sweatyselfie right…

The sweatier, the better!