SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
For Krystal Thompson, loving the body she's in makes sense - and dollars.

Krystal Thompson opened The Luscious Life Studio earlier this month, offering body positive yoga and yoga therapy classes. - Jessica Davey-Quantick/NNSL photo

She opened The Luscious Life Studio, a body-positive yoga space on 49 Street that offers more than fitness. In fact, she doesn't even call what she does fitness.

"I would put what I do into more of a health and well-being category," said Thompson, who originally came to Yellowknife in 2005 as an environmental scientist.

Thompson began practising yoga in 1997 in Montreal.

"I definitely was aware of being a bigger body in the room always," she said. "I was doing yoga and I was like, I want to go on yoga teacher training, but I said to my teacher at the time, 'I know I need to lose like 100 pounds before I can go do that.' And she was like 'What are you even talking about? That's not a thing.'"

She didn't start out consciously teaching body-positive yoga but she credits it for helping her to feel better about her body. She told Yellowknifer that is something she wanted to share with other people, as an instructor.

Thompson has spent the last few years offering body-love yoga programs and yoga therapy targeting different issues, from back pain to digestive problems, at various spaces around Yellowknife. But when she offered her first body positive yoga session, she wasn't expecting the response she got.

"Back then I was under the false assumption that it was only bigger bodies that were affected by body shame," she said. "And when we started offering them, seeing the kind of bodies that show up for that, and being like. 'Holy, of course.'"

Those first classes were populated by every shape, size, ability and gender and a wide demographic continues to take her body positive yoga courses. Thompson said this makes sense to her, considering how common it is for women of all shapes and sizes to be judged by what their body looks like.

"Fat people aren't the only people who get body shamed, and are oppressed in our society. My goal around body positivity is to reduce the amount of oppression and reduce the amount of body shame. I want more people to feel better in their bodies," she said. With her new studio, part of her mission is to make sure her classes are accessible, which is why Thompson says she keeps her prices lower and tries to offer a free or by-donation session every month, with proceeds going back to local charities.

She's also working to dispel myths about the body-positive movement, which has been championed by models like Ashley Graham, the first plus-sized model to be featured on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Many people have pushed back against it online, claiming body positivity encourages people to be unhealthy.

"You go ahead and try to tell me what a healthy person looks like," said Thompson. "A person can be thin and be unhealthy, and a person can be healthy and be bigger."

For Thompson, the term body positivity simply refers to the belief that all bodies deserve love, respect and self-acceptance.

"I think loving the body we have and respecting the body we have in this moment, even if we're in a stage of transition, is still important. You still get to have that," she said.