Romaisa Khan on learning to feel at home in her own skin

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from realising that, no matter what you do, someone will always have an opinion about your body. Too thin. Too heavy. Too muscular. Too pale. Too dark. Too covered. Too revealing.

For actor and content creator Romaisa Khan, the problem is not simply body shaming. It is the moving target itself — the expectation that women should constantly adjust themselves to satisfy an audience that is never quite satisfied.

In an Instagram story on Monday, Romaisa opened up about her three-year weightlifting journey and the time it took to become comfortable with the body she had built. Her comments offered something more pointed than a conventional message about self-love: sometimes, the healthiest thing you can do is stop treating other people’s opinions as a set of instructions.

“It’s been almost three years since I started weightlifting, and honestly, falling in love with myself took way longer than building any muscle did. It took me SO much time to actually feel comfortable in my own body. And the funny thing is, I was never overweight,” she shared.

Romaisa added that she was at a healthy weight then and remains at a healthy weight now, “just stronger”.

But becoming stronger did not make the commentary disappear. Instead, the criticism simply changed shape. “Why do you have so much muscle? Men don’t like muscular women. Are you on drugs or what?” are among the comments she said she had received.

For Romaisa, the scrutiny extends far beyond body shape. “It’s not just your body,” she wrote, pointing out that people can find fault with “the way you dress, the way you speak, probably the way you breathe too”.

Screengrab: romaisa.khan._/Instagram

Whether someone follows a strict diet or simply stays active, she suggested, there will always be someone ready to question the choice.

Her message to her followers was ultimately about refusing to let that scrutiny dictate how they live:

“Please, just do whatever makes YOU love yourself. Do whatever makes you feel strong, confident and comfortable in your own skin. Trust me. If you keep living according to what people have to say, you’ll never win. People will always find something.”

Romaisa has previously used her platform to address a range of social and industry issues. She has spoken about the double standards surrounding women maintaining personal lives after having children, as well as the question of fair salaries and wages in the entertainment industry.

She has also spoken about women’s education and the challenges facing Pakistan, arguing that the solution is not simply to leave the country but to work towards making it better.

Across these conversations, Romaisa has consistently used her platform to challenge expectations placed on women — whether those expectations concern their bodies, careers, personal lives or choices.

Her latest message, however, may be the simplest of all: there will always be someone with an opinion, but that does not mean you have to live by it.