Yoga For Weight Loss

In this day and age, there is widespread suffering among people who are obese. They’ve gained weight as a result of their unhealthy lifestyle and poor habits. Of course, there were many times that they were aware of what they were doing, but logic is often easy to ignore, especially if you’ve fallen into an addictive pattern of emotional eating.

There are many weight loss programs that have become more popular (not to mention an unlimited amount of fad diets) for these overweight people to try to regain a healthy and long term weight loss. However, sticking with a plan long term has been an issue for most people.

Obviously, the root of the problem with obesity is the habit of uncontrolled overeating of foods that are loaded with suger, salt, fat or all three, and lack the necessary nutrients that are needed by the body in order to stay healthy.

This is what many weight loss programs are trying to remedy.

The idea behind permanent weight loss is to break your bad habits, teach you proper nutritional habits and get you started on a path of eating healthier foods that are natural, not processed, and doing so in smaller portions in order to reduce your calorie intake.

Of course, an important part of any weight loss program must include physical activity. Exercise is paramount to having long term weight loss success. You see, significant weight loss isn’t just a “plan”, it’s a complete life change. Exercising regularly can help you to consistently maintain a healthy weight.

Using Yoga as Part of Your Weight Loss Plan

There is another method that can help you lose weight in a healthy way. That is through the practice of yoga.

Yoga is an ancient discipline. Many of its practitioners say that the advantages it brings is not only for spiritual purposes that improve the mind, body, and spirit, but also for each person’s unique individual needs.

It is not yet clear scientifically if yoga can actually aid individuals in losing weight, yet it is proven that by practicing yoga, a deep connection between the mind and body is created and therefore can help to make a person more aware of what to eat and how to feel satiated.

Yoga takes a person to a different level of mental and physical awareness, encouraging individuals to lead a healthier lifestyle and teaches them how to treat their body right.

However, using yoga for weight loss will depend on the style of yoga you are planning to do. There styles recommended that are energetic and more physical yoga such as power yoga, ashtanga, or vinyasa. These styles of yoga involve quick movements and include several poses for strengthening the muscles and the greater the muscle mass. This can result in more calories being burned.

Although Yoga is a form of exercise and can certainly help shed off excess pounds, if significant weight loss is your major goal, it is recommended that you combine yoga with cardio exercises like biking, running, walking, or aerobics.

How Yoga Can Help You

There are eight primary areas of health in the body that can cause weight gain when there is an imbalance in any of them. A yoga expert can help teach the individual to do the matching yoga poses to deal with these problems and gain the benefits of losing weight in a healthy way. These eight basic health areas and their corresponding yoga poses are:

1. Liver

Backbends are the ideal postures to strengthen the powerful functions (detoxifier, cleanse and purifies blood, process fats, source of coenzyme Q10) of the liver to its maximum. These backbend postures are:

 

Cobra Pose 

(Bhujangasana) 

Wheel Pose 

(Chakrasana)

Bow Pose 

(Dhanurasana)

Spinal Twist 

(Matsyendrasana)

2. Thyroid Gland

Hypothyroidism is a dysfunction of the thyroid gland that can lead to weight gain. The thyroid gland is responsible for releasing a hormone that controls our metabolic rate which determines how our body burns fat. This dysfunction can be remedied through these poses:

Fish Pose 

(Matsyasana)

Shoulder Stand 

(Sarvangasana)

3. Proper pH Balance

The body’s pH balance is very vital because if it gets too low, the body becomes acidic and will start storing fat as a shield. If this happens, the blood vessels start to get narrow and can cause the heart to work harder in order to keep the blood circulation. As a result, arteriosclerosis sets in which can lead to heart attacks. So in order to boost the alkaline level of the body, these yoga postures are recommended:

Seated Forward Bend Pose (Paschimottanasana) 

Head to Knee Pose  (Lanushirasana)

4. Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous System Balance

Too much stress and pressure on the nervous system can set off a series of unpleasant reactions in the body which eventually can make people become overweight. There are yoga postures that can maintain a balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. These are:

Corpse Pose (Savasana)

Legs Up The Wall Pose (Viparita Karani)

5. Internal Heat in the Nervous System

These are yoga poses that can create inner heat to make the body warm in order to burn up and purify deep and superficial fat inside the body.

Seated Forward Bend Pose

 (Paschimottanasana)

Lunge Pose (Anjanevasana)

6. Put Strength in Moving the Body

Doing strength work helps in building stronger muscles which consequently consumes the stored fats in your body. Arm balancing postures are highly recommended for this:

Crane Pose (Bakasana)

Plank Pose (Chaturanga)

Feathered Peacock Pose

 (Pincha Mayurasana)

Scale Pose (Tolasana)

7. Increasing Your Heart Rate

A great yoga practice, the Sun Salutation, is ideal for weight loss by bringing the heart rate at its maximum level without stressing and tiring the nervous system which is often caused by strenuous exercises like jogging. This is done by increasing the heart rate and then decreasing it again in a series of short bursts.

8. Colon Cleansing

Bloating can sometimes appear as obesity and is caused by having food substances lodged in the colon. Some people believe that cleansing the colon can be beneficial to your health. There are two sets of yoga postures for this:

 

a. Basic Poses

Bellow’s Pose (Utks’epa Mudra)

Fire Pose (Agnisara Mudra)

b. Advanced Poses

 

Peacock Pose 

(Mayurasana)

Nauli Kriva

All the recommended postures should be done under the guidance of a professional yoga teacher. Combined with the proper nutrition and exercises, yoga practice will bring back the balance in the mind and body to help you lose weight and help you to restore your ideal health.

Reference:
http://www.bestwaytoloseweightonline.com/yoga-for-weight-loss/