YOGA AS A WEIGHT LOSS PLAN?
Weight Loss Plan
Are you looking for a workout program that’s easy to learn, requires little or no equipment, and soothes your soul while toning your body? If strengthening your cardiovascular system, toning and stretching your muscles, and improving your mental fitness are on your to-do list, keep reading to learn more about the basics of yoga.
It seems like a hot new trend, but yoga actually began more than 3,000 years ago in India. The word yoga is Sanskrit (one of the ancient languages of the East). It means to “yoke,” or unite, the mind, body, and spirit.
Although yoga includes physical exercise, it is also a lifestyle practice for which exercise is just one component. Training your mind, body, and breath, as well as connecting with your spirituality, are the main goals of the yoga lifestyle.
There are many different types of hatha yoga, including:
- Ashtanga yoga: Ashtanga yoga is a vigorous, fast-paced form of yoga that helps to build flexibility, strength, concentration, and stamina. When doing Ashtanga yoga, a person moves quickly through a set of predetermined poses while remaining focused on deep breathing.
- Bikram yoga: Bikram yoga is also known as “hot yoga.” It is practiced in rooms that may be heated to more than 100° Fahrenheit (37.8° Celsius) and focuses on stamina and purification.
- Gentle yoga: Gentle yoga focuses on slow stretches, flexibility, and deep breathing.
- Kundalini yoga: Kundalini yoga uses different poses, breathing techniques, chanting, and meditation to awaken life energy.
- Iyengar yoga: This type of yoga focuses on precise alignment of the poses. Participants use “props” like blankets, straps, mats, blocks, and chairs.
- Restorative yoga: This practice allows the body to fully relax by holding simple postures passively for extended periods of time.
Vinyasa/power yoga: Similar to Ashtanga yoga, these are also very active forms of yoga that improve strength, flexibility, and stamina.
Yoga has tons of benefits. It can improve flexibility, strength, balance, and stamina. In addition, many people who practice yoga say that it reduces anxiety and stress, improves mental clarity, and even helps them sleep better.
I always shy away from the question, “will yoga help me lose weight?” Yoga is a practice meant to increase health, self awareness and acceptance, not necessarily shed the pounds. But, inevitably the question always comes up.
Let’s be clear, though. The link between yoga and weight loss is an indirect one. A study done by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington determined that people who engage in body awareness practices like yoga eat more mindfully. This means that they tend to stop eating once they are full, are less influenced by visual advertisements, avoid eating when distracted and don’t eat as a distraction.
Not exactly proof of weight loss. The study did find that generally mindful eaters weigh less, and yoga does contribute to mindful eating. The study concluded that over 40% of those questioned who practiced yoga had an average body mass index of 23.1 which is within the normal range compared to those who didn’t practice yoga who fell into a body mass index of 25.8 which is slightly overweight. But it didn’t address the BMI of those surveyed prior to beginning a yoga practice.
Yoga will increase self awareness, and as self awareness increases, so does the way we respect our physical bodies, but there is no proof within this study that the “mindfulness” and lower BMI are a direct result of the practice of yoga.
It is entirely possible that after starting yoga, your body will change. You may become more conscious of how certain foods make you feel, you may become more easily satisfied or less attracted to unhealthy options because of the foundation of your practice. All of these results are possibilities, but the most important thing you learn is that yoga is a practice meant to enhance your Self. Yoga does not change or alter you at your core, it illuminates your ever present inner beauty which will begin to shine through all that you do. If this results in losing weight, then that may be a boon of your practice, but not the effect.