Will Yoga Help Weight Loss?

  

 

 Credit: Evan-Lovely

Weight Loss Through Yoga  The answer to the question in the title of this article, 'Will Yoga Help Weight Loss?', is a resounding 'Yes'. Yoga will help weight loss and has been proven to do so. Yoga will work on both your body and mind to provide a new and leaner you.

Yoga is well known for it's abilities to create a wonderful state of relaxation in the practitioner which has been proven to lower blood pressure and many other physical ailments. It is also a great way to remove that access weight that has been plaguing you for months or years.

The reason that yoga is such an effective way to lose weight is that it burns calories at a much faster rate. It increases one's metabolism, thus speeding up the rate at which calories burn.

There are many forms of yoga. Some practices, like power yoga, is a much more active form which will burn calories much faster than other yoga practices like ashtanga yoga. Power yoga though is NOT for the faint hearted. Like all forms of exercise you should check with your family doctor before setting off to engage in a new fitness regime.

It is becoming more and more recognised that overeating is related to our emotional state and our minds. Thus, a quieter mind, brought about through yoga practice will make it less likely that you will reach for that cream cake every time you get the urge.

This is not to say that you have to diet on celery and lettuce leaves. The idea of weight loss through yoga is to become relaxed about this area of your life that it causing you problems. That way you are in a better state to deal with it.

It is said that 'what we resist, persists'. So, stilling the mind through yoga will certainly give you a more positive outlook on life and lead to a calmer mind and body.

Now, on to the physical aspects of yoga for weight loss:

It is not difficult to see that yoga exercise will burn those stubborn calories that you have been trying to rid yourself off. Have you watched some of the asanas or poses? Any physical activity at all will help you lose weight but the turning and twisting of yoga helps to break up the stores of fat and rid them through the body's natural processes.

Don't let the gentler forms of yoga fool you either. It looks very serene to watch those that have been practicing it for years. It almost looks as though there isn't much going on. Believe me, you will be surprised at how much perspiration is generated by these simple poses. When I first started off on a half hour yoga regime of simple poses, I was absolutely surprised at how much workout I had actually achieved at the end of it.

Things do get easier as you progress and the feeling that yoga gives at the end of a workout is second to none. You WILL get a feeling of achievement and relaxation that you may have never felt before.

Keep at the yoga regime and the calories will surely burn off like you wouldn't imagine.

About the Author: Jake Kennedy has more great tips on finally ridding yourself off those stubborn calories through yoga check out: http://www.freeonlineyogasite.com/ and http://www.healthybodysecrets.com/ 

What Everybody Ought To Know - About Hypnosis and Weight Loss

Photo credit: Alan Cleaver

By Valerie Slaughter

What the heck does hypnosis have to do with weight loss? Do images of a night club act come to mind? Someone "barking like a dog" on stage and doing whatever the magician (hypnosist) says?

Whatever your impression of hypnosis may be, you may be surprised to learn that as an alternative treatment for everything from pain to stop smoking to weight loss, hypnosis is being used in medical institutions to help manage these conditions.

According to Jean Fain, a psychologist who uses hypnosis at Harvard Medical School's Cambridge Hospital, "The country is getting fatter and fatter, so different weight loss methods are getting more attention."

O.K.. how does hypnosis work? First, you must remember that no one can make you do something that is against your will. Alternatively, hypnosis can help you master your own states of awareness and can affect your own bodily functions and psychologial responses.

According to Gary Montgomery, president of the Society of Psychological Hypnosis and Division of American Psychological Association, the hypnotic state is defined as a state of focused concentration, much like being so absorbed in a good book that the outside world seems to fade away. During this state, you become more open to suggestions.

Much like the way televsision plays upon your need for food and to lose weight. Constantly repeating the theme of looking thin, being wealthy. popular and fit, drives their message into your subconscious while you are watching the television.

Proof of this effect can be seen when you sit in front of your television and start munching and are unaware, until later, how much you had eaten. This is a hypnotic state! Or what about sitting at a red light? So, when you are in a "trance" or deep concentration, you are unusally responsive to a suggestion or image.

How many times have you watched television and an ad for a hamburger comes on and you then become hungry? Or after watching an ad for a weight loss product, you start to feel guilty for your weight. This combination of consumption of junk food and dieting creates guilt and, believe it or not, excess weight.

Hypnosis can help you create your own defense against this constant bombardment of television, newspaper and radio ads. By learning the technique of positive self-hypnosis, you may actually counter all of this negative feedback.

About the Author: Valerie Slaughter, a veteran marathoner herself, runs a beginner marathon website and is the author of "You Want to Do What!?" Website URL http://healthandfitnessnut.wordpress.com