Singapore #Fitspo of the Week: Esther Chiang
Cheryl Tay
·Contributor
Mon, 22 August 2022 at 2:31 pm·8-min read
Esther Chiang keeps herself active with boxing, tap dancing, rock climbing, hiking and a variety of water sports. (PHOTO: Cheryl Tay)
Life goes beyond the digits on the scale and your body is capable of so much more! Yahoo’s #Fitspo of the Week series is dedicated to inspirational men and women in Singapore leading healthy and active lifestyles. Have someone to recommend? Hit Cheryl up on Instagram or Facebook!
Name: Esther Chiang (@estugh)
Age: 22
Height: 1.68m
Weight: 47kg
Occupation: Student
Status: COMPLICATED lol
Food: I don’t restrict myself at all, but I’m grateful to have grown up on quite a healthy diet, thanks to my health-conscious parents. We ate brown rice at home, rarely ordered fast food and was never allowed canned drinks. Right now my diet changes all the time, depending on what I feel like I need best.
Exercise: I have been focusing on functional flexibility and controlled movements a lot more rather than toning and building like when I was younger. As I grow up, I’m starting to see how crucial flexibility is in our everyday movements. From checking your blindspot or reaching the top shelf at the grocer, flexibility is a forgotten skill that I want to keep as I age.
I have shifted my focus from setting workout timings and instead am trying to incorporate fitness into my lifestyle. It’s become more of a social activity for me and I’ve pushed myself especially more so this year with boxing, tap dancing, rock climbing, hiking and a variety of water sports. On my own, I take 20-minute walks in the evening after dinner, took up dog-walking as a part-time job and practise yoga on my own.
Esther picked up freediving after interning as a marine biologist in 2017. (PHOTO: Cheryl Tay)
Q: When you were younger, were you active in sports?
A: I grew up in an active household of martial arts, horse riding, skiing and gymnastics. I'm fortunate to have parents who wanted to keep our childhood offline and active, and it carries on into my lifestyle now too.
You used to compete in gymnastics.
I started doing gymnastics when I was four and joined the rhythmic gymnastics CCA (co-curricular activities) in my primary school when I was seven. By nine, I had competed in some inter-school competitions and even got offered a spot in the national team. Even though I loved my gymnastics career, I turned this down since I didn't truly want my entire lifestyle to revolve around this one sport. After this, I slowly transitioned into Chinese dance, ballet, and modern dance.
What sports did you get into as you got older?
I was an avid horse rider when I was younger and we would drive up to Malaysia almost every weekend to train. We grew up practising dressage at the dinner table and spending our birthdays at the stable, and it was one of the best things I remember about growing up. Now it is a bit more difficult to find time for it, but I try to horse ride on my travels when possible.
We also do skiing as a family activity and we try to do it every year during the holidays. Like horse riding, we got into skiing at a very young age. I’m not very good at it and because I’m asthmatic, skiing has always been more of a social activity for me but I wouldn’t ever try to go pro.
You dive and freedive too.
I knew I had always wanted to dive, seeing as my parents met on a diving trip (my dad faked an empty tank underwater so he could ask my mum for her second regulator haha) but never really got the chance to. It was in 2017 when I interned in Maldives as a marine biologist did I fall in love with diving.
Freediving naturally followed as it was truly freeing when you could strip off your BCD (buoyancy compensator). The lightness of hovering in a body of water was what truly encaptured me. Coming back to Singapore, the difference in water conditions as well as inaccessibility to the ocean put my leisure freediving on hold, but I slowly transitioned into learning techniques with my school, Zen Freediving.
Esther did plenty of reef research dives in Maldives. (PHOTO: Cheryl Tay)
Nowadays, I practise in the pool and occasionally when I’m out at sea, but I’m still dreaming of the next time I’m in the Maldivian blues.
And you do meaningful stuff through diving!
The lab I worked with releases annual reef reports and hence diving was the core of my stints in the Maldives. I remember having to do multiple dives in the day, hitting up multiple reefs and then having to lay transect tapes at 5, 10, and 15 metres.
The countless research dives I did showed me first hand how the underwater world felt the effects of climate change immensely, but was kept tucked away out of sight and hence out of sight. With the lab situated on a resort, there were many guests I encountered who had either never seen the ocean before (they hailed from the deep mountainous regions of China) and even more common, guests who never knew that corals were animals and not plants.
My love for the ocean, conservation, and sustainability snowballed as time passed. Back home, the chances to dive were cut short what with the pandemic going on, but I kept up my passion by embarking on beach clean ups and began working in the sustainability space too.
What are your fitness goals?
Fitness is a lifestyle. I find it difficult to set time out of my day just to go sweat it out, but if I’m in activewear 24/7, my mentality shifts and I’m ready to be active at any time. Trusting in my body and learning what it likes has been my focus, instead of pushing myself to do conventional things like going to the gym to build a booty. I’m learning that the way I look doesn’t have anything to do with how capable this body is.
When you were younger, did you experience any incidents that made you feel insecure about yourself?
Of course! I have always been insecure about being skinny, as the trend now is to be voluptuous and have thicc thighs. I’m always seen as the weaker link and it’s never nice to hear because it doesn’t match up to my personality.
In 2019, I landed myself in the hospital where I stayed for a few days and it really took a toll on my physical and mental health. The feeling of being so incapable and not being able to live life was terrifying, it made me realise how much I took myself for granted. My takeaway is: future me exists and future me matters. Keeping active and healthy is so much more important if I want to sustain a better life for myself in the years down the line.
When did you feel the least confident about yourself?
Being slim all my life, I was always praised for having the model-type body. When people told me they wanted to look like me, my ego shot through the roof. I went through a long period of tying my value to my body before I realised how insecure I actually felt.
Beyond my physical appearance, I didn’t like many things about myself and hated me even more for not realising this earlier. It took years of therapy and a very conscious effort to shift my perspective beyond the superficial and to start digging deeper within myself. Realising that bodies fade but character lasts was a strong message that I keep close to me now.
Esther believes that fitness is a lifestyle. (PHOTO: Cheryl Tay)
Did you ever struggle with your weight?
Weight gain has always been a struggle for me, and in 2019, I pushed myself to gain as much weight as I could. From drinking and smoking to stuffing myself with four meals a day, I jumped from 48kg to 53kg in about two months. Such a drastic and unhealthy change made me unrecognisable to myself when I looked in the mirror.
I hated the way I looked, my clothes didn’t fit right and I felt the worst I ever did about myself. It got even worse when I did a purge for the next three months. I starved, worked out and didn’t allow myself many treats, resulting in a final weight of 44.5kg. At this point, I was back to the mentality that my body was my only asset and I only realised how bad it got when I just felt tired all the time. It felt like the only change was physical and mentally I was deteriorating.
From 2020 onwards, mental health was my top priority. From being the top priority, fitness began to serve me instead of the other way round.
Are you satisfied with your body?
I love my body now. I appreciate my petite frame, am proud of the things that I can do and am thankful every day that I have this body. I’m learning to protect and preserve my body, all while pushing myself to see what I can achieve. Our bodies are such wondrous creations, it’s a pity we reduce its greatness to mere aesthetic instead of purpose.
Have you ever received any comments about your body?
All the time. The usual connotation is that I’m too weak or too skinny, that if the wind blew I would fly away haha. I used to take these things to heart but now I recognise that it’s a reflection of the person saying these things and not a reflection of who I am.
With how volatile beauty trends are, the only constant is me. I’m stuck with one body, so I might as well appreciate what I’ve got. I’ve pondered plastic surgery before, but I don’t want to be a carbon copy of society’s expectations – perfection’s overrated anyway.
Singapore #Fitspo of the Week: Esther Chiang. (PHOTO: Cheryl Tay)
