How I (Didn’t) Get a
Yoga Body in 21 Days
Roseanne Harvey
Here’s a little secret: although I considered myself to be a body-positivity activist and yoga rabble rouser, there was a piece of me that feared my body, my short curvy strong body, was somehow not “yoga” enough. I decided to do something about it. In November 2013, I willingly took on the challenge of following a quick fix dream body plan created by rock star yoga teacher, Sadie Nardini. The plan was outlined in her then recently released book, The 21-Day Yoga Body.
I intended to follow her book for the full three weeks, write about it all on my blog, It’s All Yoga, Baby (affectionately known as IAYB) and document it on my social media feeds. I was, finally, going to get the yoga body I had secretly desired—while simultaneously deconstructing the whole idea of the yoga body.
As the name suggests, The 21-Day Yoga Body was a three-week plan that incorporated a daily yoga asana practice, meal suggestions, lifestyle tips, and affirmations. Each day featured a structured practice that introduced the theme du jour, followed by breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus and a “daily action adventure.” The asana practice sequences were detailed in the book and in videos on a website for the book.
“I’m not going to simply review the book,” I wrote in my introductory blog post. “No, IAYB is going to do the whole thing. All twenty-one days. I will do everything that Sadie tells me to do.”
I started off with a requisite poorly lit “before” photo without make-up or anything. I posed in black leggings and a tank top, barefoot against the backdrop of my cramped apartment/office in Montreal. I looked strong and healthy. I had been practicing yoga regularly for almost eighteen years at this point.
But I have to admit that I didn’t mind the idea of feeling a little more fit, fierce, and fabulous. It was November, a traditionally difficult time of the year for me. A few months prior, I had had an abortion, which left me feeling disconnected from my body. Then I’d injured my shoulder, which limited my asana practice (no downward dogs or anything where I had to bear the weight of my body). I had spent a lot of time lying around on bolsters and blankets with ice on various parts of my body.
By this time, I was still a little out of touch with myself, as Sadie would say, on many levels. I needed to shake out some old things and make room for the new.
Introducing the Woman
Who Rocked the Yoga Body
Sadie Nardini is a New York City–based “rock star” yoga teacher who created her own unique brand of yoga, Core Strength Vinyasa, and travels around the world teaching it. Her anatomically focused yoga brand is infused with self-help language and the promise of strengthening one’s metaphorical “core.” She was one of the first professional yoga teachers to harnass the power of YouTube and other social media platforms, and her business savvy catapulted her into the stratosphere of high-earning yoga teachers who attain near celebrity status.
Sadie was also well-known for using body shaming language in the marketing for her workshops and courses. Regular IAYB readers knew that Sadie Nardini and I had butted heads in the past with regard to the abundant use of the phrases “weight loss yoga” and “bikini body” in her marketing copy. In April 2012, I called her out for using “summer body” in her marketing for an online course that promised how to “lose weight and look younger with yoga.” I snapped a screen grab of the ad and pasted it in a blog post (which proved worthwhile—after our exchange, Sadie changed the copy in the ad). She responded in the comments section and we had a respectful dialogue. We had interacted on Twitter, and had met in person once at the Omega Institute in New York state.
Still, my perception of Sadie was negative. I fully expected that this project would support this perception. I didn’t even consider the possibility that my view of Sadie Nardini, both as a teacher and as a public figure, would shift over the course of these twenty-one days.
“Yoga Body”: Fact or Fiction?
I started off my first blog post by asking: Just what the heck is a “yoga body”?
Luckily, Sadie answered this question in the introduction to her book. “A yoga body is freedom,” she wrote, “freedom to be who you know you’re meant to be, deep inside. It’s 100-proof you, distilled to your essence on all levels, rocking your mind-body-spirit-freakin’-entire-life to a miraculous, turbo-boosted new level. Yeah, that good.” 16
My definition of yoga body (which I consider a culturally loaded term) was a little different. I defined yoga body as “a social construct attributed to practitioners of yoga asana; a body that is most often white, slender, toned, flexible, able, and heterosexual; a body frequently clad in brightly colored spandex and assuming near-impossible arm balance poses.” Urban Dictionary offered up yet another definition of yoga body: “the kind of body one develops with years of yoga practice: taller, thin, with legs and buttocks that look like ropes and a bony back and neck.” 17
The yoga body was something that bloggers and writers had devoted considerable time to discussing, dissecting, and analyzing. Danielle Prohom Olson pointed out on her blog, Body Divine Yoga, “The “yoga body” is a fiction … It is NOT obtained from a regular yoga routine (as many would have you believe) 18—no , it’s obtained at the price of constant work, a Herculean effort to burn calories, and a saintly denial of carbs.”
Many critics have said that quest for the “yoga body” is going to be a problem. What could such a body be, other than a slave to a disembodied intention or ideal? Who is “in” the yoga body, moving it like a marionette, and what do they want? What part of us is separate enough from the body that it can reasonably wish to be clothed in a different body?”
It’s no surprise that people were thinking about the yoga body, which had become some kind of yoga unicorn, both ubiquitous and difficult to obtain for the average earthbound mortal. The only common factor was that the dominant image of the body that practices yoga is one that excludes a large portion of the population. It sets an example of thinness and privilege that is not experienced by many people. We see these images in the popular media, including celebrity gossip mags (who are quick to report that Miley Cyrus was spotted doing yoga on a California beach, or Hilaria Baldwin busted into a headstand on Fifth Avenue in New York City). But this messaging is replicated in mainstream yoga media, especially in the niche leader, Yoga Journal.
I had devoted substantial IAYB coverage to Yoga Journal’s body negative snafus, calling out the publication for its homogenous cover models and narrow representation of body types, racial diversity, and age. Over the past few years, the magazine has made considerable efforts to become more positive and inclusive by doing things like hosting conversations at conferences and supporting the work of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition. But it’s still limited by the financial and ethical constraints of being a mainstream women’s magazine.
Getting Out of My Comfort Zone
In my first few social media posts about the project, I reported that I was having a surprising amount of fun following the program. It was great to have the support of the IAYB community, who followed along on my social media accounts via #21DYB (shortcode for 21-Day Yoga Body, of course). The likes and comments on the project kept me going.
To my surprise, I was especially enjoying the asana practices. With all this deep core stuff, I did actually feel an inner body transformation happening. I didn’t think my external yoga body looked much different (although, I might have been glowing a little more than usual). However, I felt better on the inside.
Anything with the words “yoga” and “body” in the title has the potential to be a body-shaming disaster. I’ll hand it to Sadie and say that there was practically no body shaming in the book or her practice videos. The language in both was clear and neutral, with no references to losing weight or “torching calories” during the asana practices. Despite the past body-shaming messaging in her marketing, I discovered that Sadie’s teaching style was not at all body negative. She gave options for most poses, invited child’s pose in lieu of vinyasa transitions, and didn’t pepper her instructions with what your body could become (although “detox!” and “transform!” were frequent).
A Body that Practices Yoga
In the second week of the program, I posted on the IAYB Facebook page: “Maybe a yoga body is just a body that practices yoga.” It got a resounding number of likes and comments such as, “Duh!”
I believe that every body is a yoga body. Even, perhaps, bodies that don’t have a regular practice. I believe that every body has the potential to practice yoga, and that if we put our minds to it (not just our body, but our whole being) we are in fact practicing yoga all the time.
But on the other hand, it’s not so simple. It was nice to know that there was an enclave of progressive yoga types who believed that the simple basis of a “yoga body” is simply practicing yoga. However, when you do an Internet search for “yoga body,” you see that there is a different idea of what that means. Ask one of your coworkers what they think a “yoga body” is. Look up “yoga body” on Pinterest.
As I entered the third week and the #21DYB project wound down, I added a new element: taking “awkward selfies” of my body during the asana practice. I zoomed in on my armpit in supported bridge pose, in the blurry background my eyes closed and my face content. I asked my boyfriend to take a rearview photo in cobra pose—he resisted, but I made him take it, and in the final image, my butt looked undeniably lumpy. I posted these pics on Instagram and Facebook, with no editing (aside from a little cropping) and no photoshopping.
I called these parts of my body my “shadow body,” the parts that I don’t look at, the parts I will to ignore. Cellulite, rolls, lumps, and bumps. I think we all have this “shadow body,” even the bikini beach body backbend beauties that we see all over social media. I wanted to challenge the popular notion of yoga selfies. This was 2013, before Buzzfeed compiled lists of body-positive Instagram yoga stars, before figures like self-identified “fat black femme” Jessamyn Stanley were covered in Cosmopolitan, or before the My Real Yoga Body Facebook page existed.
After all, if I was going to embrace the idea of a “yoga body,” then shouldn’t I acknowledge all of its forms? Beyond the arm balances and lithe muscles? The human body is beautiful, but not from every angle. If a well-rounded yoga practice involves getting to know our shadow side, shouldn’t we also get to know our shadow body? If I was going to talk the talk about diversity in yoga’s visual culture, I had to be ready to step up with my own body, my own regular, imperfect, healthy, strong “yoga body.”
I was speaking to something that Remski had written in his short commentary on the yoga body, which I had posted on my blog: “To me, the real ‘yoga body’ would be the expression of anyone who gestured at their flesh and said, ‘This is really me. All of me. I’m standing right here.’” It was my way of gesturing at my flesh. This was really me, all of me.
I was starting to feel that the “yoga body” is something that needs to be reclaimed (or possibly even claimed; was it ever ours to begin with?). It needs to be reclaimed from Google, reclaimed from marketers, reclaimed from a fragmented culture that has mixed messages and ideas about women’s bodies.
At the end of following Sadie Nardini’s 21-Day Yoga Body plan I wondered: Am I any closer to understanding the mystique of the “yoga body”? Have I refined and developed my own “yoga body”?
I followed the asana practice quite diligently (missing only two days), made most of the suggested meals, but didn’t really make the time for the “daily action adventures.” Instead, my action adventures involved opening up a conversation about the “yoga body” and asking some of my favorite yoga writers and thinkers to weigh in. I also documented the project on my social media accounts, and Sadie Nardini responded and followed along, cheering me on my way and answering questions.
I discovered that Sadie has a good sense of humor and is supportive. She seemed to enjoy my progress and was open to feedback. Given the history between us, I got the sense that some IAYB fans were disappointed that I didn’t fight with Sadie on Twitter or totally hate the book. That was understandable. It would have admittedly made for a more spicy project if the program had sucked and I’d just complained the whole time. However, I aim to be honest and thoughtful in my writing, and I couldn’t pretend to be snarky and hate something that I didn’t.
It’s not a personal transformation program without before and after shots, so in my final blog post I revealed my new yoga body. Here’s the thing: it looked pretty much the same as my old yoga body. In fact, it’s quite possible that my yoga body may have gotten a little rounder while following the #21DYB plan. I don’t weigh myself, so I can’t confirm that I actually gained any weight. But I looked more substantial. I had also made the mistake of getting my hair cut and colored during the plan, which some astute readers noted looked a lot like Sadie’s own bright red hair with short bangs—it was an unfortunate coincidence, really.
While my external yoga body didn’t look that different, I had to admit that my inner body felt different. I felt stronger and more balanced. Having a project to focus on during the dreary month of November kept my spirits up. Doing pretty much the same asana sequence day after day made it easy to note progress in the poses, and I could see where I’d improved and refined.
But no matter how you look at it, any kind of program that promises to transform your body and life isn’t preaching acceptance. While I felt good after the daily asana, I noticed an element of striving in myself during the practice. I found myself thinking about what my body could become instead of just being happy with how I was, right then.
This, I think, is the underlying problem with any kind of self-development program. I’m never sure of how to walk the line between accepting who I am, resisting a sort of discouraged complacency (i.e., I’ll never be able to change, so why bother?), and desiring to change the things I can change.
My real purpose for doing this program was to unpack the concept of the yoga body. My main takeaway at the conclusion of the project: the yoga body is a myth. If we are diligently, lovingly practicing yoga on a regular basis, we already have a yoga body. Of course, this isn’t a major breakthrough. But the whole experience reinforced something that I knew on an intuitive level. The myth was the result of a confluence of cultural factors, attitudes toward the body and fitness trends that have elevated the idea of the yoga body to mythological status.
I also have to admit that following Sadie Nardini’s 21-Day Yoga Body plan was a fun and empowering experience. I expanded my asana practice, learned some things about myself, and experimented in the kitchen. After I finished the challenge, I found myself occasionally referring to the book, though I ended up giving it to a friend (a yoga teacher who had difficulty finding time and structure to make her own meals at home).
And my flawed, imperfect yoga body and I went back to my life, to my regular, sporadic practice that fit my lifestyle and schedule, with a few new insights and a few new recipes.
Roseanne Harvey is a writer, yoga teacher, and community organizer in Victoria, BC, Canada. She writes about yoga and culture at It’s All Yoga, Baby, a widely read blog with a mission to spark investigation into the relationship between yoga, the body, and popular culture. Roseanne looks at the “yoga body” from a feminist perspective, covering yoga and weight loss, body image, size activism, and sexualized advertising and marketing. She is also the coeditor (with Carol Horton) of 21st Century Yoga: Culture, Practice, and Politics, an anthology of essays by some of the most cutting-edge voices in the North American yoga community. Author photo by EK Park.
16. Sadie Nardini, The 21-Day Yoga Body (New York: Random House, 2014).
17. UrbanDictionary.com, “yoga body.” Accessed May 28, 2017. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yoga+body.
18. Danielle Olson, “Yoga Body: The Conspiracy” BodyDivineYoga.com, 2013. Accessed August 15, 2017. https://bodydivineyoga.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/yoga-body-the-conspiracy/.