As you may know, I use my Instagram account mostly for posting fitness updates. I log my exercise with a picture, usually some sort of gym selfie or a photo of my heart rate monitor, etc.

A few days ago, I woke up to a couple of comments on my post. A post that was meant to be a positive way to motivate me and others.

As you can see, two guys decided it would be a really cool move to laugh at the fact I’m taking a selfie and tag each other.

Seemingly this is because I was using my phone.

Because I used not even half of my rest period between sets to take a photo.

I have a pretty awesome sense of humor. My friends can vouch for this and I’m the first person to laugh at myself. But something I cannot tolerate is someone coming onto my social media account to take the piss when I’m trying to better myself and my health. It takes 3 seconds to take a photo on a phone.

It takes 3 seconds to take a photo on a phone. You don’t even have to unlock the damn thing.

I tweeted the images out of frustration and was met with mixed reaction.

A lot of people said this is typical of men in the gym and it’s a reason why women feel intimidated to go into the weights section.

In case they’re judged for not being able to lift much, for doing it wrong, for being a girl, for looking at their phone.

I just want to get one thing straight here – if I want to take 3 seconds out of my workout to take a photo of myself to upload to my fitness Instagram account, then I will. I pay gym membership the same as everyone else. They also spend a few seconds between sets checking their phones. Sometimes they’re texting. Sometimes they’re taking photos. Sometimes they’re updating their workout on a fitness app. Who cares?

I had some heated conversations with others. One guy said that people share equipment between sets to avoid rest periods where it’s not being used. Which is all well and good, but nobody has ever asked me to share and I’ve never asked anyone else. I never will either. I’ll use something else until it’s free.

There are 5 racks at my gym and it’s very rare they’re all full when I go in. It was 10am when I took the photo in question, there were hardly any people there at all. I don’t bother trying at peak gym times because I hate that feeling when someone is watching you, waiting for you to finish. I plan my weight sessions in quiet times.

Someone told me I should expect people to be dicks to me if I post a photo in public. I’m sorry, but this is the argument I hate the most.

I should accept strangers taking the piss out of me because I posted something on social media? What? How about – people shouldn’t be cunts. Both in real life and online. Oh, I said the c word. I don’t even care.

Nothing gives someone the right to say awful things to others. Just because someone posts public things on the internet, doesn’t make it okay for people to slate them. I mean, I expect it because I know people are horrible creatures. But should I accept it? No. I shouldn’t.

Neither should all the other people that have terrible things said about them. Celebrities, YouTubers and more.

Another person said I was being oversensitive. That I needed to get over it. It’s just two guys joking.

Fair enough if they want to joke with their friends, amongst an audience they know, but don’t get strangers involved in your petty jokes that are designed to laugh and take the piss out of others.

Because that’s what it was. Agree with them or not that I shouldn’t take photos of myself in the gym. They made a joke at the expense of someone else.

It’s not about what they said. It’s about how messed up it is that in this day and age, people feel they have the right to comment terrible things about other people.

They couldn’t have said a lot worse, some poeple get a lot worse and it’s awful to see.

None of it is right, none of it.

So I just wanted to say that I’m going to carry on posting my gym selfies, regardless of what people say. But I’m never going to accept negative comments about this, or about anything.