Y: Yoga

I do yoga. I've been doing yoga three times a week for several years now.

I started doing yoga because I was sick and tired of my awful balance (I was the sort who could just be standing there and I'd lose my balance,) my lack of flexibility, and my general wimpy-ness. Why not go to a gym? I don't like them. I don't want a TV babbling at me, I don't want strangers around me while I'm exercising (or friends, for that matter,) and I'm not paying money for the "opportunity" to break a sweat.

Where Down Dog Is Man's Best Friend

Enter the free video podcast Yogamazing, hosted by Chaz Rough. I did have to buy a yoga mat, and I did also buy a yoga brick but I don't need it anymore. Total $$ invested: 20, maybe? I don't have to leave the house. I don't have to "answer" to a trainer or compete, however subconsciously, with the student next to me.

Gained: balance, flexibility, muscles... stamina, focus, confidence, and a truce with my fat body for the first time in my life. Lost: two pant sizes, though not any actual pounds. Whatever. I've made peace with the fat and that's worth far more than trying to fit into somebody's height/weight chart.

(Amusingly, once the truce was established the pounds did begin to slink away slowly. Again, whatever. I'm still fat and I will not violate the truce. There are studies about the role of cortisol (a hormone produced when you're under stress, maybe because you're haranguing yourself for being fat) in retaining fat.)

First time I tried Down Dog, I thought I was going to die. Now, it's almost a resting pose. Used to be that Hero's Pose felt a lot like my feet were going to snap off at the instep. Boat Pose? Are you kidding?  Not anymore...

Namaste, Chaz. From the bottom of my heart.

If you're catching up with A to Z posts, swing by my W post and ask a question.