How I Lost 41lbs Doing Yoga

Yoga Helps to Balance Your Hormones
Yoga practices done correctly create a hormetic response (a positive hormonal response) that can lower cortisol and promote greater sensitivity to insulin, leptin and ghrelin. This can improve sugar metabolism, reduce hunger, and reduce the body’s tendency to store food as fat. Many forms of exercise do the same, but they often do this by stacking stressful exercise on top of stressful living. The results? You feel pumped up, wired, and tired. Excess stress hormone impairs digestion, increases blood sugar, and can contribute to metabolic disorders. Yoga creates hormonal balance while simultaneously reducing your stress-hormone response. This is why in clinical trials with yoga and weight loss, often very gentle and easy classes can contribute to impressive results. Sometimes, less is more.Yoga Reduces Your “Fight or Flight” Nervous System Response
Most workouts promote sympathetic nervous system dominance, also known as the fight or flight response. In the short term, this can feel invigorating because you feel ready to take on the world. The problem is most people do these hardcore exercises after a brutally stressful day with work or family obligations, so what their nervous system actually needs is cooling, not stimulation. Yoga promotes vagal tone, stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system response, and reduces your stress response. Balanced nerves create balanced energy and mood both of which help you make better food choices and eat more mindfully. Even better, your digestive system is stimulated so you actually absorb and digest better. If you’ve ever heard of meditation for weight loss, it’s acting on the same principles. Cool the nerves, cool the body, lose the weight.Yoga Weight Loss Myths
- No, Nauli Kriya (belly vacuum practice) does not cause weight loss or help with belly fat reduction
- No, core strength yoga classes do not cause weight loss
- No, simply practicing yoga faster does not burn more calories or cause weight loss
- No, twists do not detoxify your colon or lead to weight loss
Yoga & Weight Loss Truths
- Yes, controlled, nasal breathing in yoga is powerful and unique for your nervous and endocrine systems, and the effects can be huge
- Yes, yoga tends to cause eustress, meaning it positively and safely stresses the body with positive outcomes affecting your chemical and electrical bodies
- Yes, yoga’s tangential benefits might be just as effective as its obvious ones including community support, increased mindfulness and body awareness, and improved sleep quality
- Yes, yoga has been used in clinical weight-loss interventions with consistent, positive results
Why Not Just “Eat Less and Exercise More?”
The age-old axiom to eat less and exercise more is not wrong, it’s just stupid. If you told someone with financial problems to spend less and earn more, it’s not wrong, it’s just useless. If you told a couple with marriage problems to fight less and love more, again, it’s not wrong, it’s just ignorant advice. And yet, this silly recommendation to starve yourself and exercise for maximum calorie burn continues to propagate.Q: Does food matter?
A: Yes, it’s the biggest factor in body composition.
Q: Does exercise matter?
A: Yes, but far less than what people assume and it affects the body and brain in ways that are much more complex than calorie burn.
Yoga to Burn Calories is Ridiculous
Your body doesn’t forget the 90 minutes you spent in Power Yoga class this morning or the hardcore gym workout you did last night. All things being equal, your body adjusts your hunger levels to compensate for your extra activity and homeostasis is usually achieved. The idea that more yoga means more calories burned and more weight loss is categorically false; however, consistent practice has been shown to be effective for reasons we’ll explore below.Calorie Counting is Kindergarten Math
If you try to gauge the weather based only on the number of clouds in the sky, you’ll sometimes be right, but often, you’ll get it wrong. Calories give us important information about the foods we eat, but it’s just one piece of a very complex equation. When I lost my weight, I actually increased my intake to over 3,500 calories daily. How is this possible? The same way there can be a sky full of dark clouds and no rain. Correlation and causation are not the same. Rather than counting calories, you’ll get much better results in counting carbs and proteins.
Where do I get the other parts of this article?
Hi! So far this is the first entry but there are more coming soon! You can check out other articles here: https://www.yogabody.com/articles/
Hope you’ll find something interesting to read on. Thanks and Stay bendy!
I see this is part one of 4. Where can I find the other parts of the article. Also do you teach yoga classes online? I see some courses but not plain yoga. Thank you.
Hi Trudy! More articles will be coming in the horizon! You can check out other articles that might interest you here: https://www.yogabody.com/articles/
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment! Stay Bendy!