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One day I tried on a pair of jeans that were too tight; I felt fat. When I put my comfortable stretch yoga pants back on, I felt thinner again. The scale tells me I weigh more than I did 10 years ago. The BMI (Body Mass Index) tells me I am in the middle of the weight range for my height. The lingerie models in magazine ads tell me my stomach is too fat. All said and done, I often do not feel thin enough.

The thin point—that demarcation between feeling fat or thin—is the focus of an emotional teeter-totter. We aspire to be thin and dread being fat. If we weigh a little less, we are heading in the right direction. If we weigh a little more, we are heading in the wrong direction. I once mentioned to a friend that I felt on the thin side that day because I was a ½ pound less than the day before. She laughed knowingly. When we met a week later, she gleefully told me that she was having a thin day, ¾ of a pound less than the day before. Conversely, a ½ pound gain can sometimes make a woman feel absolutely huge and/or depressed.

One reason for this emotional teeter-totter, I believe, is our dependence on so many outer cues to determine whether we feel fat or thin, such as magazine pictures, the scale, the mirror, or dated clothes—high school clothes or clothes BC (before children). Although the BMI chart and the scale, our appearance in the mirror, or how our clothes fit can indicate whether we have gained or lost weight, and whether we are overweight or underweight, they are still outer cues. They are after-the-fact assessments of our current eating and exercise habits.

The result of this dependence is an obsession that was memorably summed up in a quote attributed to Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Winsor: “A woman can never be too rich or too thin.” That her sentiment is shared by many women is backed by research studies which show that even women who are at a healthy weight or underweight, want to be thinner.

Is there an alternative? Yoga practice has led me to believe that an alternative does exist—seeking out our natural healthy weight. Our unique and natural healthy weight stems from the innate structure of our unique and natural body shape. When we are mentally, emotionally, and physically balanced and rested, we gravitate toward this natural weight.

Yoga practice creates the balance that leads to a healthy lifestyle. It helps you to develop more comfort with your natural weight in some of the following ways.

It helps you to:

1. Recognize what your natural weight is. Yoga practice helped me realize that the ideal weight I envisioned was too light for my body shape and current age. Having an unrealistic ideal weight makes you feel fat when you know you are not.

2. Become comfortable with your body’s natural proportions. I once read an article in which a young girl who was on a constant diet asked a yogi for a pose to make her thighs thinner. The yogi responded that this girl may have a body type whose thighs would never be thin enough to fit her ideal image. Becoming comfortable with your body’s natural proportions may avert the needless struggle to fix a “fat” part whose inherent shape cannot be changed with diet or exercise.

3. Shift your focus from the shape of your parts and the number on the scale to the fulfillment that comes from cultivating a more graceful, more flexible, and stronger body.

You can be more relaxed about your weight and shape by:

1. Focusing on a healthy lifestyle and letting your body find its natural weight.

2. Recognizing that natural body shape weight is a range, not a point on the scale.

3. Learning more about taking care of your body type.

What do you think your natural body weight is? How do you know? What makes you feel fat or thin? Tell us about your experiences.

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Previous Topics

Emotional Eating

In Search of a Natural Body Weight

‘Put Your Foot in Your Mouth’ – The Value of Good Flexibility and a Strong Spine

Cultivating Your Natural Body Shape Through Yoga

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