The Fat Tire
They call it the middle-aged spread. It’s also known as the fat tire, that extra band of body that starts to take over the center of people as they start to get older. To some degree, of course, the whole thing is entirely natural. The perfect washboard stomach is absolutely ubiquitous in every corner of the visual culture these days, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it’s anything but perfect. It’s not only very difficult to maintain, but it can also suggest an unhealthy lifestyle, where the workout becomes more important than enjoying the flow of time. People tend to focus on the belly over anything else, and whatever benefits might come from a healthy core are completely lost when the rest of the body is ignored.
Even more than that, however, is the idea that a body needs to be low enough in fat for these muscles to show. It’s true that no one wants to have their stomach mistaken for the wheels for a car, and it’s also true that the beer belly is a sign of someone who may have decided to just give up on their appearance. Attitudes of defeat are certainly not healthy for anyone. But at the same time, a positive attitude that leads to devoting one’s time to six-pack 
abs is not conducive to a long life, either. People do need fat to live, after all, and the level of fat, less than 10%, necessary for the magazine quality stomach means that the body is not functioning the way it should.
That might come as good news to those who lament that they are starting to look like they’re carrying hankook tires at the waist. Although this can be a sign that it’s time to start getting in shape again, it doesn’t mean that anyone needs to go crazy. Low-impact workouts like yoga are not only more gentle on the physical form, they also have a way of evening out the anxiety that comes from needing to shed a few pounds. And yoga practitioners do seem to understand that a belly is supposed to be a little soft, not rock hard. Any workout should be approached as a process, something that one does as an ongoing commitment to the survival and well-being of the physical mechanism. Eventually, the excess pounds will go away, and it’s much more enjoyable to learn how to workout in a reasonable way than to try to become something that no one should have to live up to.