Yoga and weight loss

Through different yoga poses you can easily reduce extra fat from your body. Some of the poses stimulate sluggish glands to increase their hormonal secretions. For example, the thyroid gland has a big effect on your weight as it affects the bodies metabolism. Poses like shoulder stand and the fish pose strongly stimulate the thyroid gland. These poses increase fat metabolism thereby converting fat to muscle and energy.

You will not only loose fat but also have a better muscle tone and vitality.

Deep breathing as practiced in yoga class helps you increase the oxygen intake to the bodies cells, including the fat cells which results in burning up of the fat cells.

Another aspect of yoga is that it reduces anxiety which, in turn, reduces anxious eating. It is a human tendency that whenever you are tense you tend to swallow your food without deriving much satisfaction and pleasure from it.  In the process you end up eating more. On the other hand, if you approach your meals with a better mood, you tend to be less likely to overeat in a worried effort to calm your anxieties.

The mind – body awareness that you develop as part of a regular yoga practice helps you to lose weight as well.  With a regular and frequent yoga practice you become much more aware of the body and its reaction to eating certain foods and its reaction to eating lots of food.  With this increased awareness you start to adjust your eating habits and start to eat less of some types of food and also will tend to eat smaller meals.

February 2008 Newsletter

Written by

Jack teaches Ashtanga yoga exclusively at Sunrise Yoga Studio in Dartmouth NS. The studio also offers prenatal, Kripalu, Yin, and Power yoga classes.

One thought on “Yoga and weight loss

Comments are closed.