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Yoga, Weight Loss and You |
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by Anne Van de Water
Yoga, Weight Loss and You
Yoga is an ancient art and science which can help you lose weight and feel great. The word “yoga”
comes from the Sanskrit language and means “to join” or “to yoke.” In
essence, yoga is connecting our individual
self, including our body, mind and heart
with our universal self, or spirit.
In yoga, we practice uniting our body
with our mind and heart, our mind and
heart with our spirit. In my understanding,
yoga was developed by mystics over 5,000
years ago. These wise beings would go into
meditation to connect with the peace of their
spirit but found it challenging to sit still due
to physical aches and pains and mental
chatter and unrest within them. They would
open their eyes and see the beauty and tranquility
of nature all around them and realize
that the trees were not complaining about
their aching trunks and the mountain was
not stressed out about the storm rolling in.
So the mystics began to imitate nature so
that they too could be like nature and return
to their true state of contentedness and sit
in the stillness at peace with simply being
themselves.
The practice of yoga makes the body
strong and flexible and helps to improve the
overall function of the digestive, respiratory,
circulatory and hormonal systems.
Yoga assists us in releasing
mental stress, bringing clarity and
peace of mind. Yoga opens a door
into the heart and helps one practice
self-love and self-acceptance
so that s/he becomes emotionally
stable. But this is only the beginning
of a life-long journey
towards one’s core, the realization
of the true, essential self, the
ultimate aim of yoga.
Yoga has helped me to lose
a substantial amount of weight.
In my experience, when you
remember who you are and align
yourself with what is truly important
to you, you will return to
your true nature of health and
happiness and your body will
return to its perfect weight.
I once read a wonderful article
about Mariel Hemingway, who is
a yoga enthusiast. She said, “Yoga
doesn’t give you the body you
want, it gives you the body you
were meant to have.” Yoga will
help you to achieve your perfect
weight, not necessarily the
media’s perception of the ideal
weight or shape. Through regular
practice you will create the body that
supports you in being and expressing who
you truly are. Yoga asanas (postures)
strengthen and stretch your muscles, toning
the whole body. They also help to tone every
tissue, ligament, joint and nerve.
Yoga helps to align and correct the posture
so that you move with confidence and
grace. The regular practice of stretching,
twisting, bending and inverting the body
squeezes the internal organs, cleansing the
body of impurities, including the build-up of
excess fat. Yoga asanas increase the circulation
of fresh blood and oxygen through the
body, ridding it of toxins and diseases which
accumulate due to improper eating habits,
lack of exercise and poor posture. The various
postures help to improve digestion and
strengthen the elimination systems so that
the (hopefully healthy and nutritious) food
you eat moves easily through your body. Yoga
jump starts the metabolism, improves the
functioning of the lymphatic system and
harmonizes the natural flow of hormonal
secretion. The overall result is chemical
balance in the body.
 One of the greatest benefits of yoga is the
oxygenation of all the cells due to deep, conscious,
diaphragmatic breathing. The yogis
(practitioners of yoga) teach us that vital
life-force energy (prana) travels within our
breath. When we direct the breath into
different places within our body, tension is
transformed by the prana into fluid, flowing
energy. With each exhale we are releasing
what we no longer need. Each inhale we
breath in fresh new energy. Excess fat in this
respect could be perceived as stagnant energy
(what we don’t want) and consciously
directing the breath into those old store-houses of accumulated energy helps to clear
the unwanted fat.
Yoga is a means through which you
ultimately tune in to your body’s own wisdom.
When you get to know your body and listen to
its innate intelligence, hopefully you will begin
to follow its guidance. You will practice yoga in
a way that serves you on that particular day.
You will eat food that nourishes and energizes
your body. Yoga helps you come back into
alignment with your body and your body
transforms into a vehicle through which
you experience the health and well being
that is your true nature. The great yogi
Iyengar teaches us “The body is your
temple; keep it pure and clean for the soul
to reside in.”
Gautama Buddha said, “We are what we
think. All that we are rises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.” So the
question is, what reality are you creating for
yourself with your thoughts? Have you ever
heard the expression “We are molded by our
environment”? Our thoughts are the internal
environment that we live in. Notice how your
thoughts have molded your body. Are you
constantly telling yourself that you’re fat and
that losing weight is a hopeless battle? Or are
you telling yourself that you are beautiful and
that you’re on an inspiring journey towards
living life at your perfect weight? What you
think about yourself and the messages you
are constantly giving yourself are vitally
important in the process of losing weight.
From the yogic perspective, our minds are
intimately connected with our bodies. The
mind can be seen as a monkey wildly swinging
from branch to branch and thought to
thought, oftentimes completely unconsciously.
unconsciously.
Yoga is a means to calm the crazy
swinging of the mind so that the mind returns
back to its resting place of calm focus. In this
state it is possible to live life in awareness, with
clarity and confidence.
We have been given an amazing gift to help
us balance and harmonize our minds. You are
doing it right now. You are breathing. Most of
the time we breathe unconsciously. In yoga we
breathe with total awareness, absorbed in the
present moment.
The yogis say that
the breath is the
master of the
mind. Without
oxygen, the brain
will shut down. In
truth, the mind
cannot think
without the breath.
When the breath is
slow, deep and
smooth, the mind
slows down and we
become deeply
rooted in ourselves,
our true nature of
present, open,
wakefulness. Then
we can make decisions
about how we move and eat and interact
from a place of connectedness with ourselves,
fully conscious of what is truly right for us in
the moment.
The heart of yoga is your spiritual heart,
the dwelling place of love, compassion and
acceptance. When you return back to your
spiritual center, you will be at the “heart of the
matter” of weight loss. The role of our heart is
to integrate and balance the different parts of
who we are into a radiant sense of wholeness.
Within this union of body, mind, heart and
spirit one finds true self-love and self-respect.
When our hearts are open in deep compassion
for ourselves in the often times challenging
process of losing weight, we find a love that is
eternal and constant. There’s a wonderful
saying, “Love is the expression of the willingness
to allow something to change.” When you
love yourself, you create a space in which
transformation can happen. Self-love allows
change and freedom but keeps you deeply
connected to that which never changes, your
spirit, your essence.
A big part of self-love is changing and/or
letting go of those things that no longer serve
you. Self-respect is loving yourself enough not
to keep excess baggage in your life that is
weighing you down. Excess weight is very
connected to excess baggage in all respects,
physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Losing weight is not just about doing
some physical exercise and eating right. It is a
process of deeply looking at your life, your
work, your relationships, your internal and
external environments and clearly seeing if
these things are weighing you down or
uplifting and fulfilling you.
Yoga is a way to find out how you are
buffering or protecting yourself from your
own life. It is inner conflict resolution. So yoga
and losing weight take great courage. It is an
internal and external process. The yogis teach
us that our bodies remember everything that
has ever happened to us, that our biology is
our biography. In yoga you face yourself and
you face your life. One of my students told me,
“I don’t need therapy, I practice yoga.” Yoga
helps you get clear about who you are, what
doesn’t work, what does work and gives you
the tools to remember your true nature of
self-love, respect and acceptance, the keys to
losing weight.
With great faith in yourself and confidence
in your spirit’s vision to be healthy, you will
lose weight. Keep moving and keep breathing
and you will be renewed; what is not needed
will be dissolved and renewed again. Yoga
reminds you that you know who you are
and you know how to take care of yourself.
The answers are within you, waiting for you to
look inside.
I bow to and deeply honor who you are. In truth you are love, peace and beauty itself.
When you remember who you are and I remember who I am, We are one.
Namaste,
Anne Van de Water lives, teaches and practices yoga in Santa Barbara, California. She teaches ongoing classes to the public at Santa Barbara Yoga Center. Her “Yoga Weight Loss and You” program, includes a video, two yoga blocks, yoga sticky mat, cotton cinch strap and is available through:
BodyTrends Health and Fitness
Tel: (800) 549-1667
Web Site: www.bodytrends.com
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