Yoga for obesity and weight loss
Yoga for obesity and weight loss
This chapter, I have no doubt, is the one to which the majority of women will turn first. Knowing as you do that Yoga can give you a perfect figure you have made this your main reason for pursuing the subject. I assure you this is no worse a reason for beginning the study of Yoga than any other. There cannot really be a bad reason for wanting to do something good, and though Yoga offers much in the way of a peaceful and healthy existence your main concern, at this stage anyway, is how to get that pad of fat off your hips and reduce that bulging tummy. So be it. I will show you the way and as you learn more and more of Yoga perhaps eventually your reason for studying it will be a more spiritual one. There is little need to explain to you the connection between obesity and your health. Apart from being aesthetically all wrong it puts a strain on the heart, the internal organs, the legs and feet and in fact the entire body. It is dangerous to be overweight. It is your duty to improve your figure for the sake of your health, your peace of mind and your general well being.
But before I explain how Yoga can help you to regain a slim, supple, and graceful figure I must impress on you right at the beginning that there is no magic formula which will sheer those extra pounds off you while you go on eating four square meals a day with snacks in between and goodness knows how many cups of tea sweetened with sugar. In short, Yoga is not black magic. It is sheer common sense. It will help you if you are prepared to help yourself.
In presenting various Yoga asanas in this chapter I must again impress on you that these alone will not make you lose weight. Yoga you see is a way of life not just a system of physical culture.
You must study Yoga as a whole and let it pervade every part of your life. Let it gradually alter your way of thinking and in time it will affect your attitude towards food. For many people food is a social occasion, or a means of chopping up the day. To very many others it is a form of sheer solid comfort in times of stress or anxiety. To still others it is a hobby or a release from boredom. They don’t know what to do with themselves so they eat-and grow fat.
I do not suggest that you try drastically to alter your eating habits as soon as you read this book. Let Yoga gently do that for you. Practise Yoga as a complete science, and very slowly adjust your eating habits according to your state of mind. By this I mean that at the moment, maybe food is of major importance to you. It is right that you have this incentive to eat for it is necessary to take food in order to live, but many people, far too many, take far more food than they need. This results in a gradual build up of fat in the body until there you are-two, three, or even more stones overweight. It is never easy to take off weight and Yoga is not a short cut by any means, but this much I promise you. That once you have slimmed, the Yoga way, you will be able to eat as you please and not gain an ounce. Yoga, in affecting the glands, establishes a rhythm in the body so that you do not feel a desire for food that you do not need. You want to eat only enough to keep superbly fit. Your new calmness of mind will make it unnecessary for you to turn to food for comfort or as a means of relieving tension or boredom. As I have said, Yoga will affect your way of life, even against your will; it will alter your attitude towards many things and one of these things is the food you eat.
Having warned you that I have no magic formula dreamed up by the ancient Yogis with regard to recovering a slim, beautiful figure, let me discuss the first step in this ‘battle of the bulge’. The majority of overweight people suffer from chronic constipation, so one of your very first tasks is to turn back to chapter five, re-read all I have written, and vow to make an immediate onslaught on your sluggish bowels, as this complaint is very fattening as well as uncomfortable. Practice all the Yoga asanas described in the chapter on constipation, and in particular practise the water-drinking habits of the Yogis and the relaxing and contracting movements known as Uddiyani. This ridding your body of excessive waste, and the practice of Yoga asanas and breathing exercises will go a long way towards sheering that superfluous fat from your body and here is a Yoga asana which will help you on your way. It is called the SIDESLIP and it should not present too much difficulty if you spend the first couple of days limbering up your torso with the following simple movements.
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admin | November 6, 2007