In April, Elizabeth Smart, 38, won first place in her category in the Wasatch Warrior bodybuilding competition in Salt Lake City, Utah. This was Smart’s fourth bodybuilding competition – her first had been at the same event a year earlier. But despite being a public figure, no one outside her friends and family knew she had been doing this. She competed under her married name, Elizabeth Gilmour, and hadn’t posted any content about her bodybuilding.

But after her win, a friend asked if she could post about Smart’s victory on Instagram.

“At first, I was like, ‘No!’” she recalls, sitting in her airy Utah home.

Smart first entered the public eye under nightmarish circumstances. In June 2002, when she was 14, Smart was kidnapped, taken at knifepoint from her family home in the middle of the night by a self-styled prophet named Brian David Mitchell. For the next nine months, he subjected her to horrific physical and sexual abuse. The story of her abduction consumed US media, and her face was plastered on magazines, newspapers and televisions across the country. In March 2003, authorities found her and Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, walking down a Utah street. Mitchell and Barzee were arrested, and Smart was reunited with her family.

Over the next decades, she rebuilt herself and her life. She earned a music degree from Brigham Young University, and started the Elizabeth Smart Foundation to help combat sexual violence. In her work as an advocate for survivors, she travels the country sharing her story and recently wrote about her experiences in a new memoir, Detours: Hope & Growth After Life’s Hardest Turns. So why, she wondered, was she so nervous to share this part of herself?

She let her friend post the photo on Instagram, and she shared it to her story. Responses were mixed. Most people were shocked. Some said the picture was AI.

A couple of days later, she posted the image herself, with a lengthy caption explaining what it meant to her to share this part of herself with the world.

“I refuse to feel embarrassed about trying something new and embracing my chance at life to the absolute fullest I can,” she wrote. “I only hope that we can all find the courage to chase new experiences.”

I talked to Smart on a video call in May. The interview has been edited for clarity.

Can you start by telling me about your relationship with your body and exercise?

I’ve always had a pretty healthy relationship with my body. I’ve never looked at it and detested it. It’s the only one I have and I would like it to last my whole life.

I got into running marathons after I had my kids because I thought it would help me get back into shape. And cardiovascularly, it did a great job. But it also made me very hungry, and I ended up gaining weight.

I did love running. I had friends and family that I convinced to run with me, and it was so much fun to chat, and the whole experience was great. But the more I ran, the more I noticed one of my knees was hurting. I’d have to go through a whole routine of stretches so that I could run on it. The last marathon that I tried to run got canceled, and at that point I decided was like, it’s time to try something else.

How did you start bodybuilding?

A friend I used to train with reached out and asked if I had any interest in training together again. I knew she was in the bodybuilding world, but that seemed like something so far outside my comfort zone. We started chatting about what I wanted for my body, and I knew I wanted stronger bones – my grandma fell during Covid and broke her hip, and that was the beginning of the end.

And I wanted more muscle. My Instagram was full of posts about lifting, strength training, resistance training.

My friend said, “They just created this new division [in bodybuilding competitions] called Fit Model, and it’s much more attainable for natural athletes.” So I said, “Why not?”

So right from the beginning you were planning to compete?

I’m the kind of person who needs a goal, a deadline. Let me tell you, it’s pretty good motivation to know you have to get on stage with a bikini.

How were your first workouts? What did you think of strength training?

I was in pain. [Laughs]. Everything was sore.

Part of me was like, I have been running miles and miles and miles, I should be stronger than what I am. But this 15lb weight is killing me.

Then the next day, I couldn’t move. I needed to wash my hair, but I couldn’t get my arms up.

You’ve spoken about your reluctance to share publicly that you were doing this. You also mentioned that you saw some troublesome parallels between why you didn’t want to talk about your bodybuilding and why victims don’t come forward with their stories. What did you mean by that?

I’ve always wanted to be taken seriously. When I spoke out about victim advocacy, I didn’t want it to be diminished in any way. I always wanted to be sure that as far as being in the public eye, I was always presenting myself in an appropriate manner so that I would be believed.

Victims are often put on trial in the court of public opinion. We look at their past, we scrutinize them. We ask, “What was she doing? Why did this happen?” I don’t think it’s always done out of malice. Many times it’s done because people want to protect themselves. They want to say, “I would never do this, so that would never happen to me.” The truth is, it doesn’t really matter. Bad things can happen to anyone.

Leading up to every other competition, I decided I was going to keep it to myself. I didn’t want this to detract from any other message I was trying to get out there.

Were you concerned about putting your body out there?

Yes, definitely. It was a scary thought. Terrifying. It was something I wanted to do, but it felt like it didn’t line up with the persona of who I was striving to be.

I kept thinking about why I was reluctant to talk about this. What’s the real reason that’s stopping me? And it was fear. Fear of judgment, of prejudice, of losing credibility. And that is everything I stand against for victims. If I can’t post this, how can I, in good conscience, continue speaking up when I’m struggling with the same things? Which, of course I do. But I’m trying to be better.

The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t help but think that my body is incredible. It has carried me through every single worst day of my life, and it has given me three beautiful kids. It protected me, and I survived because of it, and it deserves to be taken care of and celebrated. I know a lot of victims feel like their bodies betrayed them. It never betrayed me. It deserves so much more than what I’ve given it in the past.

I feel like it’s me showing I have embraced another level of healing.

You’ve done so much advocacy work, but it also seems powerful to let yourself be seen as a whole, complete person with different things you’re doing and engaged in.

Yeah. We live in a world of labels, and I think it’s really easy to label yourself, like, I’m part of this, or this is my thing. And fair enough. We should all have passions and speak up for what we believe in.

So, yes, I am an advocate. But I’m more than that. I’m a mom, a sister, a daughter, a friend, and now, I’m a bodybuilder. I like eating pizza and I can’t walk by a patisserie window without staring in and drooling. Give me a slice of cake! Give me a croissant!

I love lots of things. And I think it’s probably good for all of us not to limit ourselves to just one category.

I want to get into the nitty gritty of workouts. What is your favorite lift and your least favorite lift?

Lifting takes way less time than running did. Running took hours and hours, so I love that I can be done with my strength training in 45 minutes.

My least favorite lift is probably the hip thrust. I hate it. I don’t know why.

And my favorite are Bulgarian split squats. But I also love to hate those as well.

The lifting is not the hard part. It’s the eating. I love my coach, and she creates a weekly meal plan for me. And if I say I really need a treat, she will work it into my meal plan. But sometimes there is nothing like a slice of Costco pizza with an inch of cheese on it.

What advice do you have for people who are interested in lifting or bodybuilding?

Get a good coach. Lift heavy. Eat tons of protein.