This is a tough one for me to recollect.

Not tough in the sense that I don’t remember it well. Tough as in I am frustrated with my former self for saying such dumb stuff.

In my first few months of teaching yoga I decided to completely change how I had been eating. A lot of my colleagues were vegetarians and I decided I should follow suite. I mean, I’m a yoga teacher, right? I can’t harm animals which means I shouldn’t eat them. Or so I had convinced myself.

The vegetarianism only lasted for a year or so, if even that. But my new view on food took on a new shape. I started becoming too concerned with how I looked in the yoga studio mirrors and became overly concerned with foods that were “good” and foods that were “bad”.

To make matters worse I found myself feeding into the stories students were telling themselves about their own body image.

Regularly students would walk into the studio on a Monday morning saying things like, “I was so bad this weekend! I ate and drank everything! Make class extra hard today so that I can work it off.” Resoundly I would respond, “You and me both! We’ll work it off together!”

The build up to Thanksgiving and the end of year holidays were the worst.

“Earn that extra slice of pie!”

“Sweat out those calories!”

Or as we inched closer to Spring Break, “Let’s get back those bikini bodies!”

I am utterly ashamed by the things I once said and I owe everyone who ever attended any of those classes a deep apology.

I also owe Erin from her mid to late 20’s an apology. I was brutal on myself and it was probably manifesting in my classes.

I am sorry.

Toxic diet and fitness culture has no place in a yoga practice. It just doesn’t.

Sure, if you’re interested in something like Ayurveda and are working with a skilled coach then feel free to explore that path. But your average group yoga teacher should not be dishing out diet or nutrition advice.

I’ve written about this on multiple occasions, but yoga teachers have a tremendous influence on the people in their classes. Please don’t feed into a students’ grumbles about the foods they ate, don’t comment on your own body and the changes you want to make, and definitely leave out any sermons about earning food or working towards that beach body in your classes.

I think we can all agree that a body on the beach is a beach body and a body wearing a bikini is a bikini body. Period.