Yoga for Weight Loss
The increasing proliferation of fad-diet products and weight-loss supplements on the market today show that many Americans struggle with obesity issues. However, if you have tried any of them, you know that these quick fixes are only temporrary.
Just exercise more and eat less?
Though there is truth to this, it's often not that simple. Hormonal imbalances can play a huge role in weight gain. High levels of cortisol and adrenalin are released in the body as a result of stress. These "stress hormones" wreak havoc on the body, impairing digestion and metabolism, and interfering with healthy endocrine function, all which create an environment to "hold on" to fat and prevent weight loss. Additionally, low levels of serotonin, the feel-good hormone, cause sugar, carb and/or alcohol cravings, as those foods temporarily increase serotonin levels.
Exercise is a major part of any successful weight-loss effort, but not just because it burns extra calories. Exercise stimulates enzyme production that helps release fat. Exercise -- particularly yoga -- reduces the body's stress level, thereby helping balance hormones. So to lose fat, our hormones must be balanced and we must move.
Yoga as a Path to Fitness
Exercise physiology tells us that muscles metabolize calories when they are stimulated. One pound of muscle metabolizes 35-50 calories every 24 hours. However, the more muscle used, the greater the stimulation, and in turn the more calories required.
In running, for example, you use approximately 25 percent of the body’s muscles. That 25 percent is put through only about 15 percent of its range of motion. That is: 15 percent X 25 percent = 3.75 percent of the body’s muscle cells are being stimulated by running. Calories are burned because of the duration and repetition of that exercise.
Yoga is a complete body workout.
In contrast, a typical yoga practice uses the muscle’s full range of motion, and the muscle is almost completely stimulated. With practice, you are contracting, stretching and putting resistance on a large percentage of the body’s muscles, through nearly 100 percent of their range of motion. Therefore, the typical yoga practice is a more efficient use of muscle tissue and higher caloric expenditure results.
Intense forms of yoga work to stimulate the cardiovascular system in the same way: The more muscle cells involved in the activity, the more oxygen required, and in turn the greater the effectiveness of the exercise
Yoga is one of few forms of exercise that builds strength and flexibility to the whole body with minimal risk of injury. By moving in and out of the postures in a controlled manner and holding the pose over time, you use your own body weight as resistance. A recent study at the University of California at Davis found that 90 minutes of yoga practiced 4 times a week over 8 weeks increased muscular strength up to 31 percent, muscular endurance up to 57 percent, and flexibility up to 188 percent, in a group of healthy but previously sedentary college students.
Here are more reasons why yoga works as a path to fitness:
Yoga reduces stress.
As discussed above, stress disturbs the hormonal balance, making it difficult to lose weight. By decreasing stress, we decrease the amount of cortisol our body produces, helping balance hormones and paving the way for releasing fat.
Yoga stimulates glands, which helps to restore hormone balance, reducing food and alcohol cravings.
There are poses that stimulate the thyroid, the adrenal glands and other glands, that, when stimulated and working properly, help to balance hormone levels. And instead of fueling with comfort foods that digest slowly, your body begins to ask for lighter foods higher in nutrients.
Yoga stimulates the digestive track.
Yoga facilitates the elimination of waste products that your shrinking fat cells release and that can make you feel bad if they linger in your body.
Yoga increases cardiovascular conditioning.
Even gentle yoga postures, practiced regularly, can increase endurance and improve oxygen uptake, improve circulation and more efficiently move oxygenated blood to the cells.
Yoga focuses on body awareness.
This increased awareness leads to better decisions about what to eat.
About Food
In addition to a regular yoga practice (3 or more times a week), the key to breaking the fat-storing cycle is to better manage the size, frequency and timing of meals.
Our fat cells are designed to hold on to extra fuel in preparation for a famine. Going on a diet essentially creates a mini-famine: Your body panics and shuts down your metabolism to protect your treasured fat cells. It will even reduce your muscle mass to lower your metabolic needs before it will release significant amounts of fat.
Your stress levels go up (your body thinks you're starving), affecting several key hormones that can cause intense food cravings. Once you start to eat again, your body goes into fat-storage mode to prepare for the next "famine," causing rapid weight gain.
A few helpful food strategies:
Reduce and multiply your meals.
Eating multiple small meals (4-5 times a day) will steadily supply your body with the fuel it needs without sending it into fat-storage mode. The mini-famine that is a diet causes fat storage. The idea is to eat when hunger arises and stop eating when you are satisfied, not stuffed.
Eat during the day.
Don't eat late in the evening, when your metabolism has slowed down.
Eat healthier.
This is obvious: Fewer processed foods with empty calories, healthier fats, more fruit, vegetables and whole grains. It's amazing what eating really nutrious foods does for your energy level, alertness and weight-loss efforts. What a powerful feeling!
Yoga Training That Travels to You
