Ditching Yoga Is Not a Bad Reflection on Me
A flexible body with a tire round the midriff is not how I want to see myself.
It’s been twenty-four years since a then lithe 50-year-old attended hot yoga classes.
Surviving 90 minutes in a giant sauna with dozens of others, mostly women, with a towel and bottle of water parked next to my yoga mat to wipe the sweat and rehydrate was messy — but marvelous fun.
I could see my reflection in the gigantic mirror that ran the entire length of the studio to check my posture and marvel at my flexibility and figure.
Now I’m a widow, living alone in a rural area with no car. I can’t make it to yoga class even if I wanted to.
This time, it’s radically different.
I’m not winning the battle of the bulge despite taking up yoga again two months ago. Nothing to do with menopause. I exhibited signs of menopause after my hysterectomy at age 39 and went onto hormone replacement therapy.
The point I’m making is that my body is bulging in all the wrong places — the stomach, the buttocks, those fleshy hills on the insides of my knees.
I never had this problem before and can only put it down to my sedentary lifestyle, making me pick up…
