I tried naked yoga today..

[relliott28]

Before you get the wrong idea, I’m not a part of any hipster cult or weird nudist colony. I would consider myself to be a very average, married, vanilla mid-twenties female. I’m very new to yoga but I’m curious to how far I can push my body. And like many women I, too, have body image issues. I’m 5’5”, 170 lbs, and a little thick around the middle. I know I’m not fat, but I’m not skinny either. I’ve noticed the changes my body has endured since I’ve become an adult, and some of those are harder to accept than others. There are stretch marks and jiggly parts, scars and blemishes. I so badly want to accept those things, but it seemed I wasn’t taking the correct steps for it.

Rewind back about 5 years ago. I got to the point where I was obsessed with my weight. The number on the scale, specifically. I was weighing myself multiple times a day, counting calories, and recording it all. I did see results from it, but that process took a much greater tole on my mental health than the good it was doing. I decided to ditch the scale. I haven’t owned one since and only weigh myself at the doctors office and I find myself surprised at how low my weight is every time. Not that it’s a significant amount less than I would think, but it reels me back into the reality that I’m not a huge, enormous cow like I see myself in the mirror.

The mirror. Here arises the next issue. I’m a comparer. The older I get, the more I find myself pinching, squeezing, and repositioning my body in the mirror every day. Wishing my boobs were perkier, my thighs touched less, and my muffin top a little less muffin-y. I don’t know why it’s consumed me so much lately, but again I became obsessed with my body’s imperfections and I’ve even noticed a change in mine and my husbands relationship because of it. It’s hard to let someone else love you when you don’t love yourself.

I’ve been trying to find ways of acceptance and self love through gentle meditation and prayer, but I was still struggling. I’m working to become more disciplined in my yoga practice due to my extra time at home now (thanks COVID) and have really been trying to focus on the strength my body gives me instead of its physical image during the actual practice. I don’t know about you, but this has been crazy difficult for me. I’ve always been a believer in facing my problems head on, and today I did just that. I did a little research on the idea behind naked yoga (totally blushing) and decided to really come face to face with my problems. So I got naked.

I closed all the blinds and locked all the doors. This was to be for me and no one else. I didn’t even tell my husband I did it, hence why I’m venting to reddit. But I made it through a pretty intense (for me) practice and by the time I made it to savasana at the end, I laid there with tears in my eyes. For the first time in my life, I was able to accept and love and be proud of my body for what it had done, and during my short meditation I prayed a thankful prayer for my strong, imperfect body.

Did this solve my self-image issues? Not even close. There were still pinches during certain poses from the extra love I have and it took some serious mental focus to get myself away from those thoughts. It’s going to take lots of work and a lot less criticism in the mirror to get to a good state and stay there, but I felt it today. I found the peace with myself, physically and mentally. Now, if you read this far, thank you. I hope this can show someone that self-love is possible. If this helps one person find that same peace with themselves as I got a glimpse of today, then this terribly long post was worth it.

Namaste

Edit: typo
Edit: Wow! 1,000 upvotes! Thank y’all for taking the time to read this and upvote. I’ve never gotten more than like 100 upvotes on something so this is pretty amazing.

 

[dawn16]

@relliott28 It’s crazy how little people actually see their naked bodies. I’m not a hippy either, but decided to try LSD for the first time a while ago. Ended up getting naked and doing yoga, and as I was in downward dog, I looked at my legs and realized that I’ve never worked out in shorts. I’ve always worn pants or leggings. That was the first time I ever saw my adult legs outside of sex or a shower, and it was a really weird experience. As the summer months approach, I’ve continued to think about shorts, but I can’t bring myself to buy a pair. I like to get naked when I’m on LSD now though.

 

[dawn16]

@relliott28 Wow! Usually you guys ban me. Maybe my comments were harsh, but they were genuine. We want to fix problems, without fixing problems. Sorry again.

 

[lovefirst]

@relliott28 Good for you.

I'd never do it totally naked because the chances of my boobs hitting me in the eyeball during downward dog is 100%.

 

[dbst]

@relliott28 Oh dude, I did it in my undies the other day in front of a mirror. Any time I'd look at my ass my head was all, "Yes fam!" and then when I'd see my tummy, especially in forward folds or downward dog my head was all, "Oh no. No no no!"

I decided to not do it again for a while.

 

[relliott28]

@dbst Same. So after a while, I just chose to stop looking all together

 

[christcamebackfromthedead]

@relliott28 My body has endured. First food scarcity and malnutrition as a child. Then childbirth, junk food, obesity. The drinking and weed in my teens, smoking cigarettes into my twenties, fast food, more high-sugar drinks than I can count. It endured.

How dare I judge the way it looks as a result of all that endurance? I am strong now with muscles I've never had before. I am healthy now. My body still bears the scars, though, and that's ok. I earned those scars. They tell the story of my life. I'm a real woman with a real body, and it's pretty amazing what that body can still do after enduring all that it's endured.

 

[relliott28]

@christcamebackfromthedead I love the way you look at this.

 

[omega36]

@relliott28 I think I’ll give this a shot. I currently yoga without a bra, because I feel sports bras impede how my body should naturally move. I don’t think I’ll ever yoga with a bra again, and maybe just maybe I will give this naked yoga a solid try.

 

[tiktok]

@relliott28 I do yoga at home in my room, and I have been preferring to do it in very little clothing. It doesn’t get in my way, and it helps me love myself along with the yoga practice. But I haven’t gotten up the...nerve (?) to do it naked yet, and I’m not sure why. Kudos to you.

 

[rkuersch]

@relliott28 I do yoga pretty much exclusively naked at home. There is something primal about stretching and feeling yourself hang in different positions. Clothes change how we see ourselves, but feeling how your body works and connecting to it will always make you stronger.

 

[pdplant]

@relliott28 I can't do naked yoga, my post-breastfeeding mom jugs are too flappy and distracting

 

[elimite]

@relliott28 Hi, omg, are you me? I teared up to this post. I am pretty similar you in terms of weight, age and sentiment. At 19-21 I was obsessed as well, going to the gym multiple times a day...
I'm still trying to get through my issues but naked yoga sounds like something I'll try this week because of you. Thank you

 

[relliott28]

@elimite I hope you give it a shot.

 

[elimite]

@relliott28 Thanks so much for taking the time to reply, I defo defo will good luck on your journey

 

[bear78]

@globalappsorg Fat is a relative and subjective term so she didn’t actually say anything wrong.
If she said I’m not overweight or my BMI is normal that would be incorrect. She said I’m not fat. So she’s not fat. It’s just too much to dissect. For me someone is chubby before they are fat. For others , anybody that is the slightest bit overweight is fat. It’s all subjective and relative ?

 

[colton1919]

@globalappsorg

How are we not mentioning

I imagine it is because OP went into some detail on her post about the way she feels about her weight and body having a negative impact on her.

OP is towards the middle of the overweight BMI range based on the statistics she provided in her post, but unlike "overweight," "fat" isn't an assessment of risk used by medical professionals. It's a word that's a lot less "objective" and the connotation can be a lot more painful depending on our experiences with it - "Fat," as well as being just an adjective doing adjective stuff and things, is often used to shame, flung as an insult, used as a synonym for "unfuckable" or "unattractive," etc.

I don't really agree that not mentioning it is allowing OP to "delude herself" or that as an overweight person you have to call yourself fat to get on the right track with health and fitness. "Health" is comprised of the mental as well as the physical.

 

[globalappsorg]

@colton1919 I used the word "fat" intentionally because OP used it to describe themselves (by describing what they believe they are not). I agree with you the word "fat" is a loaded term, and I understand my comment might come off insensitive on a post on the subject of body acceptance as someone else has pointed out, but in my defense OP categorically removing themselves from the "fat" category made it fair game to speak on.

It's true posts like these may not be the best place to pick this battle, as has also been pointed out, but this is a fitness sub, and I'd argue we'd be doing this sub/each other a disservice if we don't talk about things like this. There are plenty of subs for self-esteem/body acceptance. If we can't talk facts on what is a healthy weight/height in a fitness sub where an OP specifically says they believe they are "not fat" when, given their stats, they are plainly overweight, where can we talk about it?

 

[colton1919]

@globalappsorg I think we're largely arguing semantics here. To me: "Overweight" and "obese" are medical terms, where "fat" is not. ...As a category that our healthcare providers would use to describe us haha, obv say, visceral or subcutaneous fat might be things mentioned at an appointment.

I don't think it's an inappropriate subject for the sub or even necessarily for this post - I just don't think not mentioning it is normalizing obesity. It was something I noted when I read the post, but the language she uses to describe herself elsewhere and the overall positive slant of the post made me think pointing that out would be more harmful than helpful for this particular person. She's clearly had some negative mental health effects from body image and when it comes down to it, BMI isn't the end-all-be-all of health. Just one factor to consider.

Honestly, that's why I responded at all haha. I do think this sub is generally a very good venue for respectful conversation in the cesspool that is Reddit overall.

 

[globalappsorg]

@colton1919 Yeah I definitely understand the difference between medical terms like "obese"/"overweight" and "fat" in a context like this. And totally agree BMI is not everything and is pretty imperfect in fact. I felt compelled to say something because OP used some pretty judgemental language in their post re: nudity/hipsters/"enormous cow" and since "fat" had already been mentioned I felt in the clear to say something. You're right though, probably should have just kept my thoughts to myself in this case.

And if OP reads this, I'm truly sorry if I hurt your feelings at all with this discussion. Everyone deserves to feel at home in their body and I'm glad you've shared your experience with naked yoga as being helpful for this, it's clearly really resonated with people.