Can I Be Potentially Curt?

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Throughout the span of my yoga practice, I have come across many overweight people who practice with a similar cadence as I would accredit to myself. I would say they were as agile and in some cases more flexible. Not that I am the measuring-cup standard, but I am a small woman. OK. You can say it, if you didn’t already; I am a judgmental, skinny B----. I beg to differ, for a minute, for the sake of discussion on an often restricted topic, for  most skinny people, being brought to some light. If by chance there is no light on the surface when I am done thinking this through, please commence; Call me whatever you would like.

Big people can and should do yoga. Fat is a topic too dense for me to cover and out of my scope, but it is also something to consider. "Bad" fat is the agent that assists in the lack of absorption throughout the body, nutrients from food and to organs. It blocks arteries and deafens the internal feelings as it releases hormones and other substances into the body, disrupting these said hormones and substances normal balance and functioning.

However, we all need fat. Good fat provides essential fatty acids, delivers fat soluble vitamins… Good fat protects the body. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2005 Dietary Guidelines recommend adults receiving 20-35 percent, at minimum 10 percent, good fat daily. The American diet being 34-40 percent on average, which is where we find our problem. We are taking in too much fat, good and bad. Even if it could be beneficial, it is not. 

Fat is not the only reason why people are overweight though. Lack of movement is a key additive as well. So how does the agile, bigger person even get to the point of being able to do yoga? The yoga poses that are most often spotlighted are ones in which big and small people alike find challenge. The truth is that the big person on their mat decided that movement was a necessity and  decided to start somewhere. They started where all beginners, big and small should start if they can, on their feet, in standing poses, feeling the earth and their weight upon it. This is the beginning of yoga asana for all sizes of people new to yoga, and it is what is appropriate for bigger people to begin to feel their bodies again. Movement is key.When one can feel the whole body, not just the tummies rumbling, then it can assist in guidance to healthier choices..food or otherwise. 

I know; I am bias, but who wouldn’t want to stretch their arms to the sky and open their hearts, find gratitude for the life you are opening to and creating, bend into the knees, press down through the feet and the soul and feel their footprint with honesty, connecting to the movement throughout the body as Sustenance seeps in, and pours a big glass of love for you, relishing the moment from the inside out. A standing pose can do that. Beginners, big and small everywhere, beware. 


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