I don’t like to use the concepts of weight loss and yoga in
the same sentence. Yet I’m noticing that gentle yoga has changed many of my
students’ relationship with their body from being at war to being at peace and
as a result, pounds are lost.
While it makes sense that a vigorous hot yoga class would
lead to weight loss, most wouldn’t expect the same in gentle yoga. Burning150 calories per hour of gentle yoga hardly seems like a big deal, but it’s
what happens off the mat that creates change.
The 75 minutes spent in a yoga class creates a template for
how to live in your body. You have an opportunity to pause, use your breath,
and respond – not react – to sensations. This dynamic of slowing down
translates into more mindfulness around food choices, or honoring the body with
rest rather than piling on more work.
In yoga we learn to listen to the needs of the body, not
just around food, but the desires for rest, peace, and the removal of
stimulation. Honoring these requirements feeds the body in ways that food never
could.
There are vast differences between the settings of a yoga studio
and a weight loss office:
·
We don’t have mirrors, and are never weighed or
measured.
·
Our emphasis is on how you feel in a pose from
the inside. Standing in a Warrior II pose, we feel authentically powerful, and
that is far more important than how we look in our yoga pants.
·
We don’t count calories; we are invited the
witness how nourishing the breath can be when experienced fully.
·
We don’t rush to meet a weight or size goal –
rather we cultivate the fine art of patience by staying in a pose when we may
want to leave, or continually returning to the breath when the mind wants to
run the show.
·
We don’t take before/after pictures; we invite
you into loving the essence of who you are and the gift of a body that can
bend, flow and exhibit strength.
·
We don’t subtract, we add; you’re encouraged to
feel the fullness of your breath, your grateful thoughts, and your progress.
·
We don’t ask you to measure your food, but you
might notice that yoga unlocks feelings that you’ve been suppressing with
emotional eating.
·
We don’t suggest removing gluten, dairy or
sugar, but you may find your internal organs working more optimally to cleanse
toxins as a result of twisting poses that literally wring out your liver,
kidneys and more.
·
We don’t ask you to busy your mind by keeping a
food journal, but rather to quiet your mind to allow the body’s voice to be
heard.
With all that we’re not
doing to focus on weight loss, we still achieve it. I’ve suspected this for
years, and now we have evidence from researcher Alan Kristal. As an article at Prevention.com explains, “In Kristal's study of more than 15,000 adults in their 50s,
overweight people who did yoga at least once a week for 4 or more years lost an
average of 5 pounds, while those who didn't practice packed on an average of
13.5—a difference of nearly 20 pounds. Additionally, yogis who started at a
healthy weight were more likely to maintain their weight than those who never
unrolled a mat.”
Count breaths, not calories, and see what changes.
