7 Reasons Yoga is a By-Product of Weight Loss

Yoga has many health benefits that you should be taking advantage of every day. Not only do you relieve built-up stress, become stronger and more flexible, but you will likely lose weight as a by-product of making it a regular practice. It seems like there are many claims of things helping you to lose weight that actually doesn’t work. Yoga isn’t the best way to burn calories by any means. It does help you manage certain aspects of your life that may be causing weight gain or difficulty in losing weight, however.

You’re going to feel less inclined to eat foods that are causing you to feel bloated, exhausted, and contribute to weight gain. When you feel your absolute best, you are going to have better workouts This will help you lose weight and feel good. There are many ways that yoga helps your insides to be more cooperative as well. For example, if your digestive system is working optimally, you’ll have more energy and have better-sleeping patterns. This is all a contributing factor for weight loss. Even if you’re using aerobic activities to lose weight, you should incorporate yoga into your regime. Here are 7 reasons why yoga is going to help you lose weight indirectly.

Yoga is a fantastic way to lose weight with the very little risk of injury. The wonderful mental effects it has on us can also make a noticeable difference in our body. If you dedicate some time to do yoga every day, you will notice that chronic pain is reduced. All that aside, many yoga problems were designed to help people with certain problems and what they also found is people would lose weight.

1. Makes You More Mindful About Food

One of the main problems we have with food is that we don’t think about what we’re eating. We may check our phone while consuming hundreds of unnecessary calories. We may eat food that doesn’t offer us any nourishment. You may feel emotionally hurt which can cause you to eat copious amounts of ice cream or baked goods in one sitting. This kind of eating is what causes significant weight gain. So how can you use your mind to stop eating bad food?

Yoga helps you to deal with your emotions in a different way if you do emotionally eat. If you eat because you’re stressed out, you may find that the relaxing poses yoga offers will negate the stress and prevent the need to comfort eat. Also, you learn to be more mindful as you do yoga daily. You hone the skills to feel what’s going on inside of you. You might experience a sugar craving. Instead of going for something sweet, you can sit with that feeling. You can find out where it’s coming from in the body and not feed into the craving. This will stop most binge or emotional eating because the thoughts or feelings that come up don’t last long.

2. The Way You Eat Will Improve

As yoga helps with mindfulness, you’ll find that you also become aware of how you eat. Most people quickly scarf their food down while they’re doing other things. This is an unhealthy way of eating and you may actually overeat in the end. It takes about 20 minutes on average for food to hit your stomach. If you eat really quickly, you may be forcing more food that you need through your system.

You’re also not being very kind to your digestive system. This may cause you to get heartburn or feel lethargic. If you overeat or eat too quickly, the digestive system has to work hard and you become exhausted. There is yoga poses you can do after you’ve eaten properly which can help the digestive out as well. Any pose that squeezes the abdominal organs together helps digestion.

3. Yoga Changes the Way You Think

Yoga changes the way you see many things in your life in a positive way. Our brains pretty much rule how our lives are run. If you emotionally beat yourself up or tell yourself lies like you’ll never lose weight, chances are you’re creating that future for yourself. The thing is our emotions can often cause these negative thoughts that make things worse.

There are poses in yoga that can make you feel happy. When you have an open heart and you feel happy, you can begin to feel hopeful about your future. You’ll begin to believe in yourself. You’re going to feel less stressed which will help you look at things in a more logical way. The body can change the mind and how you think. Defeating thoughts can cause you to eat while positive thoughts will fulfill you to the point that you don’t need to eat that cookie to feel good.

4. Yoga Helps You With Dieting

If you’re looking to change your lifestyle so you can be at optimum health, yoga can help you. Diets are not always easy to stick with. In fact, many of the diet plans today will be given with directions about how you should think about your new way of eating. When you decide to make positive changes, you may find that you put a certain pressure on yourself. The restriction of food might make you feel more compelled to eat it. Being strict on yourself may last for a while but it doesn’t feel fulfilling of a kind. So how can yoga help?

Yoga works by helping you to mindfully decide that you aren’t losing out on anything when you avoid cookies or fatty foods. You can gently take a moment where you breathe in deeply and center yourself appropriately. This is a great way to manage food cravings as opposed to beating yourself up over it for having the feeling. Yoga teaches us that there is no bad feeling; it’s just how we manage that feeling that counts. Yoga will help you to acknowledge that you’re craving something and you can offer self-love through the painful experiencing grasping. Maybe you’ll pull through the moment and feel that success. If you don’t and you succumb to the craving, maybe you’ll just have a bite. Maybe you’ll eat the whole thing. However, the episode turns out, offer yourself love despite the outcome.

5. You Learn to Love Yourself

Yoga helps you to become more aware of the body and mind that is a part of you. Most of us were never told to be conscious of who we are. When you do yoga, you will begin to feel yourself. You’ll experience those moments where you feel happy, jealous, angry, giving, and loving.

The practice helps you to recognize all the idiosyncrasies of you. You get to practice looking in at all your thoughts and emotions whether good or bad. When you’re in tune with your body, you’re not going to overeat or lose out on workouts because you are way more about yourself.

6. Yoga Supports Your Body

Yoga gently works the body so that it becomes more fit in a safe way. You may incorporate walking and yoga as part of your workout regime if you’re not in great shape. It helps you to become more balanced which you need when you do things like cross fit later on. Any kind of exercise where you’re lifting weights is going to require you to be balanced. Yoga also helps with mobility, which will help you lift weights more effectively without getting injured.

The balance, strength, and flexibility you get when you do yoga will help you with other exercises and sports you’re doing. You also learn to control breathing which will help you if you’re running or doing other aerobic activities. Breathwork in yoga helps you to gain a greater lung capacity as well. It is a great foundation for a stronger, healthier body.

7. Yoga Burns Belly Fat in a Different Way

Cortisol levels in the body have recently been found to cause belly fat. This is one of the most frustrating areas to get rid of fat. You can run for miles, you can get rid of bread in your diet, or you can do ab exercises for hours. If you don’t cut out stress from your life and lower cortisol levels in the body, you’re never going to get rid of that fat layer from your belly.

The poses to effectively relax the parasympathetic nervous system are easy to do. They will often incorporate very easy breathing practices too. All you really want to do is ease the body of the stress chemicals that have built up. Childs Pose and deep breathing daily will help to ease all that tension and you’ll find that your belly begins to cooperate.

Yoga can help indirectly combat any kind of weight gain. It can help you lose weight in a slow and healthy way. Your body will begin to reshape itself and you’ll feel differently about yourself and your relationship to food. If you are committed to losing weight, you’ll want to add some yoga into the mix as it’s extremely helpful in weight loss.

[ppmaccordion][ppmtoggle title=”Author bio”]Bio: Meera Watts is a yoga teacher, entrepreneur, and mom. Her writing on yoga and holistic health has appeared in Elephant Journal, CureJoy, FunTimesGuide, Omtimes, and others. She’s also the founder and owner of a Yoga website.[/ppmtoggle] [/ppmaccordion]