One of the most common questions I
get asked as a yoga teacher is “Will doing yoga help me lose weight?” The
answer is definitely, but not in the “weigh” one might think. The ancient
wisdom of the healing system of yoga always addresses the root cause of health
issues, not just the symptoms. Excess weight is the symptom of a deeper problem
or rather an opportunity for improvement.
Yoga increases
self awareness. When we are more in touch with our mental and emotional
body, we now have more awareness of the reasons why we might emotional eat out
of boredom, stress, comfort, or self-medicate with food. Yoga helps us on our
journey to getting to the root cause of depression, or our past, or current deep
emotional issues so we can free ourselves of using food as a way of escape or
cover up those inner feelings of being uncomfortable. Most of us have a vice of choice to help us
to cope with life’s stresses whether it’s food, drugs, alcohol, work, sex etc. Our
challenge is to choose healthy coping mechanisms to help us skillfully master
the inevitable ups and downs we experience on this roller coaster we call life.
Empowered with this knowledge we
distinguish the difference of choosing to eat only when our stomachs are physically
hungry and not just when we are feeling empty, lonely or unfulfilled inside.
Yoga
encourages mindful eating and better food choices. Once we start practicing
yoga, we inevitably become more in touch with our body and especially our
digestive system. Our body will begin to show us the difference in how you feel
after eating a Big Mac, fries, and a 32 ounce Coke versus after a meal
consisting of whole foods with fiber, minerals, and nutritional value. Foods
from the earth help us to feel satisfied and energized, not sluggish and
lethargic. So it becomes natural for yoga practitioners to notice these changes
in their digestive system and thus begin to crave healthy food and reject
highly processed, sugary, and fattening foods.
Yoga
lubricates joints and reduces pain. Pain is one reason that many of us shy
away from regular exercise. Joint pain
in the knees or back make it difficult to walk, run and cycle to lose weight. Many
of us who are overweight find ourselves in a vicious cycle of not being able to
exercise comfortably to lose weight because the existing excess weight causes
pressure and pain to the knee joints. But yoga is the perfect low impact
alternative that can get us moving in a therapeutic way. Yoga can actually
rehabilitate joint pain, so not only are we moving our bodies and burning
calories, we are restoring our bodies to its optimal blueprint, which is pain
free. When we have pain in our skeleton system, it is always a space or stability
issue. Tight muscles, fascia, and connective tissues, can steal needed space in
our joints causing impingements on our nerves within the spinal cord or joint
sockets. When we stretch and breathe, we make more space in these areas hence
reducing and eliminating this pressure, and of course the pain, associated with
it. Yoga also creates strategic all over and core strength, which will maintain
our skeleton in its natural upright and spacious position. Yoga restores our
body’s optimal blueprint and naturally maintains the perfect balance of
strength and flexibility in the body.
Yoga creates
muscle mass and burns calories: Yoga is a self sustaining isometric system
that incorporates physical exercise with deep rhythmic breathing and meditation,
addressing the entire body, mind, and spirit. There are many styles of yoga, some aimed at
total relaxation and others encourage physical activity. Not only does yoga
elevate our mood, encouraging you to do more of it, but when we feel better
from our yoga postures, we are motivated to move more and lead a more active
lifestyle which of course, keeps the weight off. Flowing in and out of and
holding yoga postures increases our heart rate, our body temperature, and our
energy level. Yoga practitioners essentially lift, move, balance, and
bench-press their own body weight while holding postures, which creates an
immense amount of strength. The beauty of
the body sculpting effects of yoga is that it creates the perfect amount of
muscle mass for our own frame. Unlike body building, which can often
overdevelop some major muscle groups more than others, creating muscular and
structural imbalances, yoga creates an all-over lean muscle mass that brings
perfect symmetry for the muscular and skeletal system. The more lean muscle
mass we have, the more we burn calories during everyday activities, leading to
an effortless fat burning lifestyle.
Start with baby steps. Try a
gentle yoga class, a beginner DVD or a private lesson to learn some
modifications that suit your body. Then you may choose to eventually explore a
more physically challenging yoga practice to increase muscle tone and burn more
calories. Any style of yoga, gentle or intense will benefit you on your
journey. Change begins from the inside out and yoga is the perfect way to start
our weight loss journey and keep the weight off. Yoga is a lifestyle change,
which sets us up for success where many temporary diets, fads and diet drugs
set us up for failure. When we address the person as a whole, not just the
physical body, we get to the root cause of weight gain, which puts us one step
closer to our weight loss goals.
Meghan Donnelly RYT
Owner/Instructor
Inner Peace Yoga
Tulsa, Okla.
